Because the economic, political and historical development of Europe and the Far East historical and cultural regions have their own characteristics, some elements with the same terminology in eastern and western literature and art will have different contents. It is meaningful to remind us of the nature and depth of these differences or defects, whether from the perspective of a deeper understanding of a specific cultural phenomenon or from the perspective of understanding the whole culture of a country as a whole. Therefore, we intend to investigate the connotation of the concept of "calligraphy" in the West (mainly in Western Europe here) and China.
First of all, it should be pointed out that Europe and China have different interpretations of this concept. In western Europe, it refers to a beautifully written and well-organized art, which is mainly related to chroniclers, calligraphers and book scribes in medieval European countries, followed by documents of courts and government departments. These people's writing tools and materials are parchment, plain paper, ink and quill pens. This concept has little to do with ordinary writing, that is, people's unofficial writing. Therefore, the great achievements of European calligraphy are mainly in temples where government departments and writing schools need to write and copy religious books. By the end of19th century, this unique art form in Europe had declined, giving way to the rapid development of printing and typewriters.
China's interpretation of calligraphy is relatively broad, referring to all hieroglyphics created by hand. In other words, no matter what materials and tools are, there is no time limit. Therefore, artists in China actually put all the inscriptions into this concept, from the Oracle bones of the Yin Dynasty (in the middle of 2000 BC) to the golden wares of the Zhou Dynasty. From the perspective of European aesthetics, calligraphy is first related to the inscriptions on paper, but has little to do with the inscriptions on other materials. Therefore, in the eyes of Europeans,
The concept of "China Calligraphy" firstly refers to the words written in ink on paper, although there are no fewer books carved on stones than those written on paper or silk in the classical period of China's calligraphy history. Because of this, it is difficult for Europeans to regard Oracle Bone Inscriptions and bronzes as calligraphy works. Because according to the scientific concept of Europeans, such cultural relics are traditionally regarded as inscriptions, and they first arouse people's interest from the perspective of ancient philology or history.
There are a series of reasons why the connotation of "calligraphy" in China is different from that in European historical and cultural regions. These include China's long written history (nearly 4000 years), developed writing tradition and practice, the worship of calligraphy around 2000, and the reverence and love for all kinds of written characters, no matter what font they are written in. In addition, it also includes that the theoretical basis of calligraphy art is relatively developed (there are more than one OO kinds of basic documents only, which originated in the second century). According to the earliest book theory, calligraphy art has existed as an independent art for nearly two thousand years. In this respect, we can't help but take into account that China's writing styles, types and fonts are far more than those in Europe, and there are countless inscriptions, rubbings and their explanations, the unusual preferences and enthusiasm of linguists from the traditional school and even today's ancient philology school, and China people's treasure of ancient cultural relics. Due to these circumstances, every monument in China culture actually has a high aesthetic quality, which can be examined from an aesthetic point of view. In the process of research, the focus will often shift from the characteristics of ancient Chinese characters to the aesthetic characteristics, that is to say, things carved in books, whether Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronzes or stone tablets, are regarded as calligraphy works.
There are many factors that determine the inconsistency of this concept, which will be mentioned later. Here, I just want to find some common ground. Let's talk about the similarities of calligraphy art in two areas with such great historical and cultural differences.
First of all, it can be pointed out that, as Karl Kapoor, a German literary theorist and artist of artistic figures, demonstrated, any kind of inscription has certain aesthetic expressive force and the color of the times, and because the artistic figures in any writing system have great decorative ability, these inscriptions will cause a high degree of aesthetic feeling. This can also be explained by the psychological acceptance of lines and their combinations, no matter what these lines are made of, whether they are written symbols, hieroglyphs or plane combinations. As Helem argues, the process of viewing means "capturing" and quickly realizing several representative features of the object: color, transition, form and so on. (3) He also pointed out that every new visual image obtained in the process of visually accepting reality "will be related to the impression left in people's memory in the past. These morphological impressions interact on the basis of their similarity, and the new image can't get rid of this influence. (4) The audience who don't know a certain language should first pay attention to its quantitative characteristics, the relationship between thick and thin lines of symbols, the "game" of strokes and its expressive force, as well as the rhythm organization of words and the dynamic relationship between symbols. In this case, the audience can enjoy beauty even if they don't understand the meaning of words. ⑤ Due to the same psychological reaction mechanism, some calligraphy styles in Europe and China can cause similar associations. This enables us to talk about their similarities in aesthetics and even structure.
From this point of view, when comparing some of the most representative Western European and Russian cursive scripts with various hieroglyphs, we can find some situations, such as the solemn Gothic experience used in European prayer books in the 13th and 14th centuries, which caused rich decorative associations, and its solemnity was no less than China's seal script; In ancient Russia, Hanako, a decorative calligraphy style, was widely used to highlight titles and decorate the spine of books from 14 to 17 centuries, which was quite similar to the ancient Austrian calligraphy style in China during the Warring States Period (5th to 3rd centuries BC). 14-/kloc-the relatively free gothic style used to write textbooks and theological works in western Europe in the fifth century is somewhat similar to the official script of the Han dynasty. /kloc-German italics at the end of 0/5th century, 16,/kloc-French popular cursive script in 0/7th century and/kloc-Russian ancient cursive script in 0/5th century have almost the same visual association with China's running script. Of course, these connections are extremely relative. They are not so much caused by the similarity of some specific factors or structural features of two completely different writing systems, but rather by the above-mentioned characteristics of accepting lines as different color blocks. At this time, the lines are combined according to the corresponding laws to form a closed structure, and various forms tend to be upright rectangles. In the west, this is a letter; In China, it's hieroglyphics. But both the former and the latter are mainly composed of vertical lines, horizontal lines and other lines derived from them. These lines reflect the harmony of rhythm in the form of calligraphy and have the same expressive force. The alternation of stroke thickness, straightness, twists and turns and Fiona Fang will produce the same sense of order, no matter what writing system this symbol belongs to.
The inscription of any writing system, as long as it is completed according to the needs of calligraphy art, will give the viewer a high degree of aesthetic feeling, even if he does not understand the contents of the book. This situation can also be explained in this way, whether it is the structure of individual symbols or the aesthetics of calligraphy in Europe and China, the principle is the same. This refers to the sense of symmetry, rhythm, weight and harmony of the overall artistic structure of symbols.
The relationship between numbers and blanks, symbols and surrounding space, as well as decoration and changeability, dynamics and so on. All this is determined by the same psychological characteristics of visual acceptance of reality. In essence, no matter what race or nationality the audience belongs to, these characteristics are exactly the same to him.
The similarities between European and China calligraphy enable us to talk about their similarities, and we can also find these factors in the writing history of these two historical and cultural regions. Before calligraphy appeared as an art, there was a long historical period. At this time, whether in Europe or in China, writing only played its basic function as a communication tool, recording and expressing some useful information in society. The similarity of calligraphy development between China and Europe in this period lies in the accumulation of practical experience in this social practice. By exploring more suitable lines, we gradually improved the writing font, improved the writing materials and tools, and formed the aesthetic principles of writing to meet the needs of cultural traditions and social aesthetics, thus finally laying the foundation for calligraphy as an independent art (in China) or an art form (in Europe). What needs to be pointed out here is that according to Malov's definition, until19th century, European calligraphy was only a rather neglected art form. (6) It did not reach the lofty social status of China's calligraphy in the past or now. Different from European calligraphy, China's calligraphy has been regarded as one of the most important spiritual arts (alongside painting and poetry) since the 3rd century to the 5th century, with a high status, solid theoretical foundation and extremely rich practice. From then until today, calligraphy has been cherished as a noble, popular and independent art in China, which is loved, respected and understood by the society. At about that time, hieroglyphics began to play two functions: on the one hand, it continued to serve the writing needs of society, that is, to complete its basic functions; On the other hand, as calligraphy art, it plays a role in the field of art, thus serving the aesthetic needs of society. Although the development of western European calligraphy has also led to the emergence of calligraphy art, the latter has never formed an independent art, and still stays on the "level" of a neglected art form. It is only used for copying and writing, mainly to serve the purely practical needs of society, of course, at a higher artistic level than in the past. It can be seen that the appearance of European calligraphy only means that the aesthetic feeling of italics has been qualitatively improved due to the increase of decorative factors, which is very different from the role of China calligraphy after Qin and Han Dynasties.
We also want to point out that since China's calligraphy became an advanced spiritual art independently, the functional category of hieroglyphics has been very clear (one is practical writing for national society and the other is art). Therefore, its function belongs to official or personal copywriting, and naturally it does not belong to the art category, even if their writing is very good and has reached a fairly high artistic level. Here, we can find the differences between China calligraphy and European calligraphy in function, status and aesthetic principles. In China, calligraphy works are either ancient inscriptions with high aesthetic quality, or the ink of artists who have been engaged in calligraphy all their lives-poets, painters and professional calligraphers, as well as the works of officials and national activists who are gifted in this field. They all received special calligraphy training when they were educated. In addition, when classifying this or that handwriting into the category of art, the aesthetic principles at work are also different from those in Europe. This not only means that the author should have superb skills, but more importantly, the content of the inscription, the writer's purpose, and the calligrapher's inner freedom expressed by spiritual brushwork; I don't stick to the rules, but I am willing to have a distinct creative personality.
When comparing the social functions and status of China calligraphy and European calligraphy, we can't help but find the differences of different connotations that determine the concept of calligraphy we study. These differences are caused by many factors, including fundamentally different writing systems, different historical and cultural development paths, and different aesthetic positions of traditional culture in these two historical and cultural regions.
Some researchers believe that these differences lie in the structure of the characters themselves, that is, the writing structure (western writing pinyin letters, China writing hieroglyphs), and various contents are recorded with the help of these minimalist characters. For example, willetts thinks that this is the essential difference between European and China calligraphy. He said that there are strict restrictions on the number of letters in various languages in Europe, and the writing form is relatively fixed, the structure is relatively simple, and the expressive ability is not as good as that of hieroglyphics in China. He pointed out that although the number of strokes that make up hieroglyphs is generally limited, each individual hieroglyph can be written with a unique structure, which is "full of changes", and the appearance of each word depends on the calligrapher's skills, his style and aesthetic tendency. ⑦ We can't agree with this assertion that the so-called European alphabet is not expressive. The history of European writing provides a large number of highly expressive, expressive and decorative examples. The expressive essence of writing lines or strokes enables us to write every symbol (words and letters) with expressive force and beautiful charm, no matter which writing system these symbols belong to. Kapoor said: "Without beautiful expression, there is no brushwork. ⑧ China hieroglyphics can be interpreted as its unique expressive ability and modeling ability from its painting origin, which makes it produce rich visual and intellectual images under certain conditions. When we know these abilities, we should pay attention to the fact that their essence is China's calligraphy, which expresses people's inner world, feelings, his relationship with nature and the universe, and reflects the rhythm of life. Pet-name ruby can fully and richly reflect the full expressive ability of the combination of lines and strokes that constitute hieroglyphs. European calligraphy is mainly used to copy churches and documents, so it is extremely conservative and complicated, which limits the expressive ability of calligraphy and cannot be fully realized like China.
Willetts also believes that the difference between European and China calligraphy is determined by the different aesthetic standpoint of writing. He pointed out that China's calligraphy aesthetics opposed rigidity and sameness, and even advocated "follow one's inclinations", believing that only in this way can the dynamic changes of nature itself be reflected. In China's calligraphy, horizontal lines and vertical lines are rarely written as accurate horizontal lines and vertical lines, which can avoid affectation and rigidity; The charm of calligraphy does not depend on strict symmetry like European calligraphy, but slightly changes the various components and various representative postures of hieroglyphs, resulting in imbalance.
These differences in calligraphy aesthetics between Europe and China are mainly related to the number of phenomena. There is no doubt that they should be taken seriously, because they can show the degree of inconsistency between Europe and China on the traditional aesthetic views of the world around human beings, especially the art forms. However, they mainly involve external formal characteristics, and the analysis of these characteristics can not fully clarify the essence of the phenomenon we are investigating. Therefore, in our opinion, we should attach importance to other aspects, that is, qualitative aspects.
The different social status of European calligraphy and China calligraphy pointed out above also determines their different social missions. As emphasized above, European calligraphy is written in an informal way, and its clarity and rigor combine with certain decorative effects. ⑾ Until the14th century, it was always used to meet the actual needs of society for writing, and completely served public documents. Since then, official document writing has become the symbol of the whole calligraphy. ⑿ And China's calligraphy meets the social aesthetic needs, which is no less than other art categories. If we say that in Europe, it is government employees or a few powerful people who complete the "social order"; So in China, calligraphy is an art that people seriously engage in, and it is a favorite pastime of those educated people. They feel that they need to create this art ... It is a means for people to express themselves and a department to give full play to their creative talents, just like China's Chinese painting "Chinese painting" and poetry or music. It is a model of European calligraphers' artistic creation to study the laws of calligraphy and carefully copy or strictly follow them. Calligraphers in China regard learning the theoretical works and classic works of this art as a necessary condition for free creative activities and developing traditions in the future. Many people in China have mastered the principles of calligraphy and devoted themselves to it all their lives, but only those who can form their own style or technical personality on the basis of a lot of copying and become outstanding artists with their artistic characteristics. Under the condition that this art has developed tradition and been widely popularized, and under the condition of writing practice for centuries, it is very difficult to reach this realm.
We can also point out that China's calligraphy practice in each period was different from that in Europe: several different kinds of calligraphy were used at the same time, including the "dead" calligraphy style that was not standardized at that time. This must be particularly prominent in China's contemporary calligraphy. No matter in exhibitions or professional publications, you can see all kinds of styles and fonts written according to the artistic principles of calligraphy throughout the ages. This shows that calligraphy art, as a manifestation of inheriting cultural traditions and enriching material and spiritual heritage, is democratic and progressive as a link between ancient and modern times.
Different from European calligraphy, China's calligraphy is the dialectical unity of aesthetic factors and ethical factors, so it has obvious enlightenment. Calligraphers in China mainly create colorful poems, prosodic prose and other classic works, which have played a high moral and humanitarian role in the social life of China for a long time. China's calligraphy is beautified by emotional forms, which greatly enhances the attraction to the audience and provides an opportunity for both eyes and mind to feel happy.
In recent years, as a response to the adverse consequences of the commercialization of bourgeois mass culture, this culture advocates not thinking and being divorced from reality, stealing stable cultural values with suspicious things, and the interest of the West in calligraphy art has increased significantly. European decorative artists and cursive designers increasingly like to turn to the rich heritage of Western European calligraphy in the Middle Ages, and use some decorative elements of long cursive characters and calligraphy in book binding and the decoration of advertisements, trademarks and signboards, thus reviving this forgotten art that has condensed human practice for thousands of years.
At present, China calligraphy is in a period of rapid development and prosperity. The fate of this "national treasure", like the fate of the whole culture, has been in the hands of the working people since the founding of the People's Republic of China. In the history of this country for thousands of years, the people's regime educated the people for the first time and opened the doors of universities, primary schools and secondary schools for them. Besides receiving education, the working people in China have the opportunity to receive rich national culture. Since the establishment of the people's political power, it has not only inherited and carried forward the long tradition of national culture, but also given new vitality by injecting new socialist content. In the hands of the people, the traditional calligraphy art flashed a new edge that had been concealed before. With its infinite modeling ability and expressive ability, calligraphy began to endow its artistic language with the spiritual value of socialist culture, and changed from salon art to people's art.
Fortunately, the long tradition of China's calligraphy was not ignored during the period of exploring the "new proletarian culture" and opposing bourgeois culture in 1950s. In the "great proletarian cultural revolution", it also stood the test. It exists in the beautiful name of every new school, library, gymnasium, shop or art society, in the title of every magazine and new book, and in the collection of every calligraphy masterpiece. This tradition is preserved in the hands of thousands of professional calligraphers and calligraphy lovers, and in the hands of children who have just learned to write with pens.
The difference between European calligraphy and China calligraphy is so great, but human beings' pursuit of beauty since ancient times is so similar to their natural pursuit of harmony and perfection and their creation according to the laws of beauty.
This paper does not expect a comprehensive investigation of the problem, but its purpose is to explore the concept of calligraphy art with such rich connotation and level. A more in-depth study of this problem we are involved in can clarify other aspects of it, thus promoting a comprehensive and correct mutual understanding between eastern and western cultures.
note:
1. КаΥан & #183; The Methodological Principles of Hiltusina's Study of Eastern and Western Literary Aesthetics. Art in Cultural System, Leningrad, 1987, p. 126.
2. Kapoor, the artistic beauty of artistic figures. Moscow, 1979, pp. 18 and 23.
3. Art and visual acceptance. Moscow, 1974 edition, 56 pages.
4. The same is thirty or sixty pages.
5. Same as two, eleven pages.
6. Malov, the origin of contemporary calligraphy (15-/kloc-ancient Chinese characters in French literature in the 8th century). Moscow, 1975 edition, three pages.
7. China Art, Penguin Series, Volume II. 1958 edition, 577 pages.
8. Same as 2, p. 19.
9. Huang Miaozi is a trinity of poetry, calligraphy and painting. Express delivery,1June 983, 13 pages.
10. Same as pages 7 and 59.
1 1. 13 to14th century romanov, French manuscripts and Gothic calligraphy. Moscow, 1975, 40 pages.