At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, established a cultural and educational policy of "governing the country with talents first and education based on schools". Put education in a crucial position.
Learn more than 200 words every day by using the posts of Erwang, Zhiyong, Ou, Yu, Yan and Liu.
In the Ming Dynasty, except imperial academy, there were calligraphy classes at local, state and county levels. In addition, the China Calligraphy Department and the Hanlin Academy of the Ming Dynasty Cabinet also had the function of calligraphy education, and the calligraphy education system in the official schools of the Ming Dynasty began to take shape.
Therefore, how to objectively and fairly evaluate the influence of the imperial examination system in Ming Dynasty on the development of calligraphy plays a vital role in studying the changes of the Ming Dynasty and even the whole history of calligraphy education.
In the Ming Dynasty, scholars occupied half of the imperial examinations and calligraphy creation, and most of them were scholars. In the imperial examination, whether the writing is correct and beautiful directly affects the ranking of the imperial examination, and it is difficult for candidates with poor writing level to enter the official position through the imperial examination. Therefore, scholars must put more energy into calligraphy to meet the needs of the imperial examination system.
Under the heavy writing task, lowercase letters have become a necessary skill for politicians, and officials who are good at writing lowercase letters naturally have more opportunities to be promoted and reused. In addition, the standard of regular script is stricter, and the evaluation standard is easier to establish. Therefore, low-case calligraphy, which meets the political needs of the Ming Dynasty, has gradually become the consensus of officials and scholars.
Imperial examination attached importance to lower case letters, which promoted the popularization of lower case letters in Ming Dynasty. After Wei and Jin Dynasties, lower case calligraphy gradually declined, and it revived and prospered in Ming Dynasty. After the scientific research in the Ming Dynasty, all the Jinshi wrote neat and beautiful lower case letters. Calligraphers in the Ming Dynasty were good at writing small letters, no matter what fonts they focused on.
The existence of the imperial examination organically integrated official career and calligraphy, which gave birth to the phenomenon that if you want to be an official, you have to write well. In the final analysis, the negative influence of imperial examination on calligraphy art is due to the restriction of literati's thoughts and the uniformity of fresh calligraphy art. For successful calligraphers, taking the exam is only a compulsory course to hone their will and lay a solid foundation, and it must not hinder their exploration and pursuit of calligraphy art.
Promote exam-oriented education in schools
Before the Ming Dynasty, school education was only a way to select talents for the imperial court. In the Ming Dynasty, schools and imperial examinations were closely linked. School education has become the only way for imperial examinations.
Learn a painting of more than 200 words every day. Take the posts of "Xian", "Zhi Yong", "Ou", "Yu", "Yan" and "Liu" as the method, and each of them will give his own home and start writing. Calligraphy education in schools in the Ming Dynasty was mainly based on regular script, which was mainly formulated according to the needs of imperial examinations.
Examination-oriented calligraphy education in Ming Dynasty popularized students' basic calligraphy education and improved the overall calligraphy level of scholars. At the same time, this kind of education completely serves the imperial examination, so it obviously embodies the aesthetic value orientation of imperial examination calligraphy. Although this orientation is contrary to the artistic law, it has had an inestimable influence on calligraphy in Ming Dynasty under the dual effects of policy suppression and fame and fortune temptation.