Two weeks ago, I spent an afternoon reading Jiang Xun's The Beauty of China's Calligraphy.
I'm not familiar with Jiang Xun. When I first read The Beauty of China's Calligraphy, I thought that writing was probably "subjective romanticism". It is also interesting for Jiang to quote Zhang's "The beauty of calligraphy is knowledge, not groaning". But I position this book as a subjective cultural essay rather than a serious work, and it is not very exclusive.
With the overall positioning of this book, it reads smoothly. Looking at Cang Xie's lyrical words, "It rains every day, and the brotherhood of the Wolf cries at night", looking at Oracle Bone Inscriptions, who has almost been lost, and crying about the Anshi Rebellion in the Manuscripts for Sacrificing Nephews, it's just divergent thinking and self-sublimation.
There are many questions about the details of this book. I chose a lot of articles about weak water in the river. Although I also saw some people scold Jiang for being weak and sour, I still agreed to treat the details strictly. The beauty of China's calligraphy is regarded as a subjective cultural essay by others, and my own historical knowledge is still there. In fact, these details are not too much trouble.
Generally speaking, The Beauty of China's Calligraphy is romantic and sensational, with vague historical details, imprecise evolution of Chinese characters, incorrect appreciation of calligraphy and biased towards the author's subjectivity. The part attached to Yunmen Dance Collection and calligraphy education is vague and subjective.
As a cultural sketch, it is readable to understand China's calligraphy, and it is also readable to spend time on holidays. There is no need to read it carefully as an academic work.
After reading this book, I still have personal gains. As a superficial audience, I always like short messages, but I don't appreciate running script and cursive script. The advantage of this book to me is to improve my understanding and appreciation of running script.
There will be a performance of Yunmen Dance Collection in Xiamen at the end of the year. I will consider going to see it.
As a primary school calligraphy teacher, in order to make the regular calligraphy class lively and interesting, and make the profound knowledge of calligraphy easy to understand, I found a meaningful calligraphy culture book-The Beauty of Calligraphy in China. This book is the masterpiece of Jiang Xun, a famous aesthete, writer and painter. This paper introduces the beauty of China's calligraphy from four chapters: the evolution of Chinese characters, calligraphy aesthetics, perceptual education, Chinese characters and modernity. By reading this book, I have a new understanding of Chinese character culture.
A black pottery statue unearthed from Dawenkou culture, with symbols on the stage, circles on the top, curves on the bottom and Wufeng Mountain on the bottom. This is the oldest text ever discovered. Knots, Cang Xie, brushes, stone drums, etc. Flash in front of us like a movie.
Calligraphy aesthetics has given me a new understanding of the history of five calligraphy styles: the lines of official script with wavy cornices, the massiness and elegance of inscriptions, the fairness and danger from cursive script to crazy script, the artistic conception and personality of calligraphy in Song Dynasty, the forms and expressions of calligraphy in Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and the simplicity and plainness of calligraphy in Qing Dynasty.
It also gave me a careful feeling of Mrs. Wei's "pen map". The points of "falling rocks" are shape, volume, weight and speed; The horizontal direction of A Thousand Miles of Clouds is the interactive rhythm of ink and wash on paper; "Long live the withered vine" is all about a strong life that seems withered but uncompromising.
Seeing the big from the small, people can see the wonders of China's calligraphy, not only between fingers and wrists, even breathing, but also the strength of health preservation, physical exercise, temperament expression, learning how to be a man, stability and blessing, and finally achieving the most authentic ceremony for me to get along with myself, just like yoga, Tai Chi, dancing and even jogging, from static to static, to achieve the beauty of body rhythm.
The beauty of China's calligraphy is a wonderful work of China's classical art. Jiang Xun's The Beauty of China's Calligraphy tells the long history story of China's calligraphy with its unique aesthetic feeling, weaving pictures with words and taking us into the ancient and modern China time corridor.
The book "The Beauty of Chinese Calligraphy" introduces the history of Chinese calligraphy in a large space, but talks about the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy everywhere, which can be called "the aesthetic guide of calligraphy in past dynasties". This paper compares the "wave" of Han Li's horizontal line with the cornices of China's buildings, analyzes the "improvisation and freedom" of the running script presented in Wang Xizhi's Preface to the Lanting Pavilion, and compares the "massiness and elegance" of the inscriptions. Explain Tang Kai's "statutes and solemnity", describe the "artistic conception and personality" of calligraphy in Song Dynasty, explain the "form and meaning" of calligraphy and literati painting in Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and think about the "simplicity" of calligraphy in Qing Dynasty.
Some people say that now is the era of big data, the Internet and the information age. The pace of the world is changing with each passing day, and we are lost in massive data. The Internet, mobile phones and WeChat constantly update their devices, and they are dazzled by new things, but they can't keep up with those changes. Looking back, they suddenly found that along the way, like children, they had to throw watermelons and corn sesame seeds, which was the last thing they could throw away. No matter how fast the world changes, its roots are always deeply rooted in traditional culture, and the thick accumulated cultural soil is our eternal treasure house. Students on campus began to learn three-character classics and thousand-character scripts again. With the sound of Lang Lang's books, China's traditional culture began to recover. A popular cultural program, Chinese Poetry Conference and Readers, awakened people's love for classics and reminded us of what we really should grasp. The Beauty of China's Calligraphy is a calligraphy aesthetics written for everyone in China, which awakens everyone's writing memory in China. The beauty of China's calligraphy is not only between fingers and wrists, but also the strength of breathing, health preservation, physical exercise, temperament expression, learning to be a man, stability and blessing, and finally it becomes the most authentic ceremony to get along with yourself.
Reading Jiang Xun's "The Beauty of China Calligraphy" and feeling the charm and power of words will arouse a kind of admiration for history and culture in the deep heart. As Jiang Xun said, "Chinese writing is a powerful belief". As a China native, learning a little basic knowledge of this ancient and vibrant art can not only improve and enrich his artistic aesthetic accomplishment, but also be an important way to understand and learn traditional culture.
Chinese characters are the bridge between us and knowledge. With a good knowledge of Chinese characters, we can understand the world and learn the wisdom of life. China's calligraphy is to record the history of Chinese characters, present them vividly in front of us and penetrate into our blood. In calligraphy, we can calm our impetuous body and mind and experience the beauty of life. Jiang Xun said that writing Chinese characters is like an exercise for me. Everyone should carry this practice to the end.
After reading "The Beauty of Calligraphy in China", it is very difficult for someone to practice calligraphy since childhood. In the calligraphy class in primary school, the teacher always sticks everyone's handwriting on the wall to circle the highlights. At that time, someone was the only child who didn't circle in his homework. In junior high school, I admired the monitor's good handwriting. When the third year of high school is idle, I practice hard pen every day. Fifteen minutes before the first class in the morning reading are all used to describe block letters on plastic templates. A year later, the steel plate font was carved. Later, it took a long time for someone to change themselves. Some people say that someone's writing is not as beautiful as in high school, but others don't think so. Because it is alive, a little more alive than the original rigid body. And reading Jiang Xun's book has such a feeling.
When he said calligraphy, he always talked about people. In China's traditional view of calligraphy, writing is a very solemn thing. Moreover, the first thing to write is to be a man. What we pay attention to is "rightness and correct brushwork". People in China like to talk about character, and calligraphy is the embodiment of character. If you practice good handwriting, you will get extra points in the imperial examination, which shows the importance of writing.
In fact, the appreciation of any calligraphy works, without the author, will fall into a fog. For example, Cold Food Post, the third running script in the world, has never been very fond of it. I didn't know what a complicated mood it was to create a famous post until I read Jiang Xun's Lonely Monologue Writing. Bamboo slips unearthed in the ancient city of Liye in Hunan always remind people of those conscientious city officials. As for Yan Zhenqing's steady brushwork, it is even more impressive to think of the prosperous Tang Dynasty-any font can not be separated from that era, and writing itself is in a historical period. And that settled ink is not only my private history, but also the written history of the public.
So you should write carefully. Only by practicing the rules can we "do whatever we want without overstepping the rules."
But in the whole history, what can't be ignored is the personal brushwork-where did the vivid changes come from?
Those vivid brushstrokes are so beautiful in Jiang Xun's works. Before being touched, they are just a stiff mass of ink on the paper. Calligraphy is the art of image. Jiang Xun's book will introduce the ins and outs of this font from the beginning, with corresponding posts to let people know the history contained in it, supplemented by personal introduction, and point out how readers can understand their history, their feelings and their most touching parts from those details.
A book about art history is either obscene or narcissistic. In Jiang Xun's calligraphy history. It is not as empty and obscure as the four words used in traditional aesthetic books, nor does it follow the rules, but it touches the readers' souls.
That's because Jiang Xun extracted the most basic human feelings from the beauty of calligraphy. Aesthetics is abstract, however, the carrier of beauty and aesthetics itself are not abstract-especially calligraphy, which is a meaningful art produced by the voices of people and society.
This is not an academic collection about the beauty of Chinese characters, nor is it a teaching material for brush calligraphy. Turn the page at will, and there is joy in my heart. One side is plain blue text, and most of the pictures and posts on the other side are empty. This kind of "blank space" is appropriate and reassuring.
The first time I read Jiang Xun's book, a paragraph was printed on the back cover: "Writing in Chinese characters is like an exercise for me. I hope I can write a Hokkekyo word by word like a person who copied scriptures in ancient caves, as seriously and correctly as I wrote my own name at the beginning. I keep thinking back to those years when my father held my hand and wrote. Those simple "Shang", "Da" and "Ren" are also the most beautiful calligraphy that my hand was held by my father's hand. " This is probably the memory of practicing calligraphy when I was a child-when I was a child, the sewing machine at home was covered with a blanket, which was a desk. My mother folded the yellow fringed paper for me. I shuffled the ink, opened the copybook and sat up to practice.
Most afraid of "hanging needles", the pen is always too thick when it is closed. At this time, my mother got up and held my hand with a pen, gently lifting it to remind me of the strength when holding a pen. What is the "strength" of a child with an unstable pen? But children think those words are "good-looking", traditional characters are "good-looking" than simplified characters, and brush characters are "good-looking" than printed characters. When washing the pen, the ink slowly spreads out in the water like silk.
The basic function of Chinese characters is to convey and communicate, with practicality first and aesthetics second. However, from Han Li's "The Swallow-tail of Silkworm Head" to the folk calligraphy in Qing Dynasty, every chapter and page tells readers how to appreciate beauty besides practicality. When appreciating beauty, we have to understand the temperament of calligraphers. I have studied Yan Ti since I was a child, but I have never seriously read Yan Zhenqing's "Sacrifice to My Nephew". Jiang Xun commented on this: "The script, lines, and grass are miscellaneous and changeable, changing thousands of times, as empty as a cloud, as a giant mountain, and as mysterious as a perfect symphony between motion and static." He believes that "only when we face the ink written by first-hand calligraphers can we appreciate the beautiful experience of calligraphy flowing with emotions." It's true. The whole manuscript of Sacrificing a Nephew is full of ups and downs and changes, and the mood is sometimes calm and sad, sometimes emotional and sometimes depressed.
After reading the appreciation of the manuscript of offering sacrifices to a nephew, I felt sad and happy for an instant. I am very happy to read the profound feelings contained in the calligrapher's original works, but sadly, the story presented by pen and ink is really sad. Obviously, the content is important, but the form is also "great". If the dry pen flies white, the light smoke flies, and "alas" becomes China's running script printed on A4 white paper, can we still understand the mourning for the young soul?
Therefore, I always miss the feeling of writing with a pen. Write a love letter to the person you love, which is simple and affectionate, and does not need gorgeous language and beautiful words. It records anxiety and expectation, sweetness and sadness when writing. When I was a child, I envied the girl who could learn from Cao Quanbei, but I could only copy Yan tablet, self-report and Ma Gu Xian Tan Ji year after year. Now, I understand that "writing is linked to being a man", restless children should learn more about thick skin, and reserved and shy children need angular "thin gold bodies". In calligraphy practice, we know the world and ourselves. "The beauty of calligraphy has always been the same as life. Through calligraphy, the ability to perceive all phenomena in the world is completed, which is the significance of calligraphy aesthetics. " "Leaving" is like a bamboo leaf in the wind, "walking" is like the tide, "point" is like a cliff, "horizontal" is like a distant horizon ... "Aesthetics must be an activity closely related to one's own life, and the feeling of returning to oneself has been lost, and art and beauty are just forms".
There is also a teenager's exercise at home-the beauty of mountains and rivers, which has existed since ancient times (Tao Hongjing Xie Zhongshu). We write ancient poems with brushes dipped in ink and frame them. What about the ancients? The "post" of the literati in Wei and Jin Dynasties is a daily letter and a simple greeting-"Give three hundred oranges, it is rare that first frost has not fallen"-this is a sentence attached to Wang Xizhi's "Give Orange Post" when giving three hundred oranges. Jiang Xun said: "It became a famous position because of calligraphy. Small pieces of paper are covered with the collection marks of emperors of all ages, so it is easy for people to ignore that the words are as simple as water, and the things described are as simple as water, which seems to be secretly snickering. I don't know why intellectuals have so many sorrows and complaints about pain, with heavy eyebrows locked and corners of their mouths down.
The post gently turns the heavy responsibility of the rise and fall of the world back to trivial matters in real life. ..... Post a little naughty, a little proud, a little bored, at a loss or nothingness, don't want to talk about right and wrong, just want to come back and be myself. Post escape, fly, and free yourself from the wrong ideas of secular ethics. Seeing this passage, I remembered a sentence left by my mother on my laptop in the morning: "Daughter: Mom went to the mountain to exercise, breakfast was bought, and bread was on the table." The most beautiful words, the most familiar words, and the warmest care-all written are truly connected with life, so they are also the most respectable.
Nowadays, I seldom practice calligraphy with a pen. Occasionally, I write words of blessing on the scriptures read by my grandmother, such as "Blessing the Three Officials and the Great Emperor ...". People respect Chinese characters, and all written papers must be burned in the "Xi Ziting"-it sounds like an ancient legend. I often wonder whether beautiful words like "seeing words like faces" will disappear in the years to come. In the Internet age, fast computer typing has replaced writing. After the wave of "paperless", no matter how spiritual Chinese characters are, they will sigh.
After reading the beauty of China's calligraphy Article 6: With the rapid social progress and developed network communication, do you still need to practice calligraphy? Our daily communication does not depend on communication. We all use mobile phones, iPad or computers, via WeChat and Weibo, and seldom write. Even, most people don't even read books, just listen to books or read WeChat essays. Time is so precious, how can you have so much time to practice calligraphy? Is it still meaningful to learn calligraphy now?
After reading Jiang Xun's The Beauty of China's Calligraphy, the above questions may not have been completely eliminated, but just like a child who opened the curtain on the big stage, he inadvertently saw the traditional calligraphy culture of China in the background, which was profound and profound!
Personally, I think China's calligraphy is very useful even in modern society.
First of all, calligraphy can improve our aesthetic ability of China culture. From Yuan Dynasty to Ming and Qing Dynasties, China's poetry, calligraphy and painting were basically combined into one. Calligraphy has changed from an initial communication tool to an artistic expression. For example, Yan Zhenqing wrote "Sacrificing a Nephew", which is a mourning for his young nephew who was killed in the war. This eulogy is his emotional expression at the most sad time, and even keeps the altered ink. This kind of calligraphy looks messy, but it is actually more touching because of the author's strong feelings. When people separated by thousands of years are connected by the feelings contained in calligraphy, we can truly feel its beauty.
Also, China's architecture and calligraphy are mutually integrated. Western buildings don't hang the words "Louvre" on their doors. However, the famous buildings in China will be written with the words "Forbidden City" and "The First Pass in the World" first, and then there are countless plaque couplets waiting for you to enjoy. Furthermore, western architecture, such as Gothic architecture in Europe, pursues infinite closeness to God and the rise of vertical lines. However, the farming society in China attaches great importance to land and pursues endless possession of land, so buildings tend to stretch horizontally. This kind of architectural aesthetics corresponds to the fact that calligraphy in the Han Dynasty is the wave of official script, which is like the eaves flying to Zhang Qiao.
China's paintings often use bamboo, and the leaves in the paintings are actually the abstract brushwork of calligraphy, just like a slap in the face does not ring. Draw a poem, add some pictures to calligraphy, even pile seals on the pictures, and the collectors sign in the blank, so that a word will eventually become a synthesis of China's traditional aesthetics such as calligraphy, painting, poetry and seals.
Second, calligraphy is connected with life, and calligraphy is practice.
Clever calligraphers can gain a sense of the world through calligraphy. For example, when Mrs. Wei taught Wang Xizhi's "Pen Map", she annotated the word "point" as "peak falling stone". The stone falling from the mountain has shape, weight, speed and momentum. A point can experience Newton's gravity, and a sentence can understand a life, which is by no means empty talk. In the pen drawing, the horizontal one is called "a thousand miles of floating clouds", from which we can learn an open mind, and the vertical one is called "Long live the withered vine", from which we can know tenacious persistence. ...
We train ourselves to sit still, hold a pen and protect ourselves from panic when writing. This kind of muscle control trains a person's mental concentration, which is actually practice.
Third, the beauty of calligraphy contains the philosophy of life.
On the copybook of practicing calligraphy, there is always a nine-square grid hidden behind the square Chinese characters, and our writing is always limited by this grid. While learning to write, you are actually learning how to obey the rules in a crowded society.
When writing, we breathe slowly and carefully, just as we do seriously. Starting from one point, grasp the balance horizontally, strengthen the initial heart vertically, and stop at the turning point. One thing after another, slowly and carefully complete your life.
Chinese characters are the only non-pinyin characters in human civilization, which have been passed down for more than five thousand years. In the modern network age, they can also be used conveniently. It is different from pinyin and auditory thinking, and it is a visual thinking. After reading this, I can finally understand what Jiang Xun said: "Calligraphy is not a skill, but an aesthetic", so I feel happy and beautiful around my fingertips.
After reading the beauty of China's calligraphy, the ink and wash on the rice paper in Chapter 7 renders a trace of fiber. The scholarly atmosphere is refreshing through breathing, and the profound cultural heritage has opened up one vein after another, touching our hearts from time to time. When we write, we always learn the culture and history behind Chinese characters, which is also a kind of "beauty of China calligraphy"!
China's calligraphy can be described as dynamic and static compatibility, with a certain degree of relaxation: when the brush fluctuates on the paper, leaving Chinese characters flowing like flowing clouds, our hearts are as calm and focused as water, and we realize the meaning of this oldest symbol. Only when we are calm can we have a chance to "get along with ourselves" without external interference. Just like a crane, you can get along with it quietly only when it lands. When meditation reaches a certain level, it goes to another level-pure mind.
The clarity of water is a kind of purity; The softness of paper is a kind of net; Inkstone is a kind of net correctness. Imagine, when you are immersed in the purity of water, ink, paper and inkstone, how can your heart be unclean?
The beauty of China's calligraphy needs to be read with heart; The beauty of China's calligraphy needs to be understood by heart.
It's been two years since I read The Beauty of China's Calligraphy and then opened this book. This is the book that the school bought for each member of the research group when I participated in a provincial writing project in our school two years ago. Simple pages, illustrations in the text, everything is so familiar, including the traces left by myself when reading at that time, different symbols, triangles, wavy lines, red pens, and memories of my feelings and understanding when reading. To tell the truth, I know little about the author of this book, Mr Jiang Xun. It can be said that I saw this name for the first time and read his book for the first time. However, it is the first book about Chinese characters that I have read in my life, but it makes me sincerely respect this strange author.
This book is divided into four parts: the evolution of Chinese characters, calligraphy aesthetics, perceptual education, Chinese characters and modernity. The first part of it is closely related to the topic of the beauty of China's calligraphy that I am participating in. I didn't read it for the title, but I thought it was really nice. It looks like an academic monograph, but it can bring real enlightenment to our front-line teachers.
My favorite is this passage: I like to watch Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, staring at the mottled cow bones or the "horse" on the tortoise shell. It has a body, head, eyes, legs and mane. It looks like a painting, but it doesn't look like a painting. The twisted threads are "silk", and the people around the four threads are "prisoners". I imagine that there are so deep notches on the bones left over from life to worship all unknown nationalities, and why there are so long memories handed down.
This passage vividly explains the connotation of Oracle Bone Inscriptions: it is a distant memory left by our ancestors. It is carved on the belly shell of a turtle or the shoulder blade of a cow, or on the head and forehead of a deer, just like a symbol of words and images. This kind of writing is not only a symbol of the wisdom of ancestors, but also a witness to the long history of China. It is these images and characters that lead us into the image world where everything is revealed and full of infinite creative possibilities.
Every time I read these words, there is always a feeling of crossing history. These feelings are just like those of ancient people, and they are so familiar and strange to these ancient figures with lines and pictures. In these mottled cultures, what kind of vicissitudes are there? After a long time, the color turned white, leaving no trace of flesh and blood, like the past without memory, like the moonlight that has not changed since the flood, like a tenacious existence that refuses to disappear. In the face of the history of eternal silence, I tried to shout out a voice to break the deadlock. There are about150,000 yuan, and nearly 5,000 words can be sorted out, as if to say "I am here, I am here." Waiting, waiting for nearly 5,000 years of history, waiting for us to walk into them through 5,000 years and listen to historical stories. Behind these lines, it is a testimony of heavy national culture. Whenever I see these "sky", "moon", "water", "fire", "earth", "well", "field" and even "car", I always smile. It turns out that in the 2 1 century, we were so close to the ancients thousands of years ago that we could see their faces and hear their voices.
These contents also make me sincerely gratified. As a primary school Chinese teacher, what I have forgotten can be brought into my classroom through this book and these precious resources to share the cultural treasures left by my ancestors with the students.
So reading all the way, teaching all the way, this is destined to be the direction for my primary school Chinese teacher.