The brush is a unique writing tool in our country, and the lake pen ranks first among the four treasures of the traditional study (lake pen, Hui ink, Duan inkstone, and rice paper). Hubi arose in the Yuan Dynasty, represented by Huzhou Shanlian, and is famous for its long blade sheep.
Before introducing the lake pen, it is necessary to talk about the major improvement of the brush pen system in the Tang and Song dynasties. Before the Tang Dynasty, the brush was a heart pen, that is, a small stake in the shape of a jujube core was added to the center of the pen, which was conducive to the straight and firm head of the pen. But in this way, the tip of the pen absorbs less ink, and only the nib part of the pen touches the paper when writing, and it cannot be swayed. Across the Tang and Song dynasties of the Xuanzhou pen family Zhuge tried to make a loose Zhuo pen, breaking through the jujube heart system, the unintentional Sanzhuo method eliminates the pile process, the pen is a little longer, scattered into a longer pen head, and most of the pen is hidden in the pen tube, the performance of the ink is excellent. This improvement adapted to the rise of ink painting after the Song Dynasty and the widespread use of paper in calligraphy and painting, so the Xuancheng Zhuge pen was loved by literati in the Song Dynasty and almost swept the court and the opposition. At the time of the replacement of the Song and Yuan dynasties, the Xuancheng pen industry withered in the war, and the reputation of the lake pen rose.
Lake pen features in sheep's hair. Goat hair was one of the first raw materials used to make brushes. Cui Bao's "Ancient and Modern Notes" of the Jin Dynasty mentions the brushwork method of using wool as a drape and deer hair as a column. Wang Xizhi's "Book of Brushes" and Jia Sixian's "Qi Min Yaoshu" of the Northern Wei Dynasty all mentioned that rabbits were mixed with green sheep millimeters to make pens. In the Northern Song Dynasty, there were sheep hair pens instead of rabbit hair pens, and according to Shen Yinmo's analysis, this change was caused by the change of ink. At first, people only knew that natural graphite grinding powder was used, and this kind of dregs ink could be used freely with the help of jujube core-style hard brush nibs and short ying. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Yi Shuizu and Xi successively made smoke ink with light glue and oil smoke, which is almost the same as the ink used now. Although the sheep hair pen is not as strong as the rabbit hair, but the water absorption is strong, the ink storage is more, the pen edge elasticity is moderate, the wear resistance is good, and the service life is more durable than other milli materials.
By the time of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the popularity of the freehand style of calligraphy and painting not only drove the production of rice paper, but also made Huzhou's Changfeng Yanghao more popular. The raw Xuan paper is tight and soft and slightly astringent, strong water absorption, dry and moist, distinct layers, rich ink color changes, correspondingly, the sheep's hair pen is delicate and supple, the ink is sufficient, the water is controlled, and the charm of writing and painting can be maintained. Especially for the large-scale works of the high axis that were popular at the time, sheep's hair was almost a must-have. The so-called "pen should be soft, soft is soft; The pen should be long, and the long is smart; The ink should be full, and if it is full, it will be full; The pen should be fast, and the fast will come out", which is a powerful description of the effect of Changfeng Yanghao overcoming rigidity with softness. Starting from the "pen power" of calligraphy, Pan Tianshou believes that Changfeng Yanghao is a difficult challenge to train calligraphy skills. He pointed out that the power of the pen penetrates through the finger force, wrist force, and elbow force, and reaches the square inch dot painting on the paper through the end of the pen. The hard pen can borrow strength, while the soft pen completely relies on the writer's pen power and is not easy to master. For the sake of laying a good foundation for beginners, in addition to the softest chicken and duck wings, sheep hair can be regarded as the softest millimaterial, which should be the first choice for beginners.
The rise of Hubi also benefits from the strong local cultural atmosphere. In the Yuan Dynasty, Huzhou pen workers had many contacts with the "Wuxing Bajun" represented by Zhao Mengfu and Qian Xuan, and later the "Wuxing School", asking them for suggestions on the use of brushes and ways to improve them. It is said that when Zhao Mengfu's uncle lived in Huzhou, he personally taught Feng Yingke the skills of Xu Xinqing, the veteran of making lake pens, to Feng Yingke. Under strict training, Feng Yingke became the founder and founder of the Huzhou Pen School. According to the record of "Gui'an County Chronicle", Yuan Feng Yingke's pen is wonderful in the world, and it is called Zhao Ziang's character, Qian Shun's painting, and Feng Yingke's pen as "Wuxing's three uniques". It can be seen that the position of pen work in the history of painting and calligraphy. Later, Zhao Mengfu taught his uncle the skills of making lake pens and described them to Lu Wenbao, another heir of lake pens, who understood the methods of Xu and Feng, and the pen-making skills were as famous as Feng Yingke. Feng Lu's pen making has become the ancestral skill of the lake pen, which has been passed down to this day.
In the industry, the method of pen making is to point, Qi, round, and healthy as the four virtues, that is, the pen edge is tough, neatly trimmed, and round and strong. Among the four virtues, the overall requirements of "roundness" and "health" are the most rare. It can be seen from this that the pen is very valuable. And Huzhou is a very good goat hair, fine color white, soft and elastic, the end of the milli often has a transparent sharp edge, the pen workers are called "sunspots", this kind of material is elastic, easy to wet ink, the best pen. The famous products of the lake pen are all used in this kind of material, and the sharp Ying is transparent, so it is also called "Hu Ying". Hu Ying, like the earlier brush system jujube heart and scattered Zhuo, has become an epoch-making symbol of the brush. When it comes to the barrel of the lake pen, the traditional use of chicken feather bamboo near Anji Lingfeng is sparse and straight, the void in the bamboo pole is small, and the supply is sufficient, which is convenient for procurement. Whether it is a millimeter or a pen barrel, it must be collected in winter. Because the animal hair in winter has just been replaced, it is sharp and sharp, and the winter bamboo is white and hard, not mothed or cracked, and it can be fed.
Lake pen from the selection of materials to production, must go through the pen material, basin, knot, set, pen, pudun, lettering and other 12 processes, of which each process is divided into a number of small processes, the total size of more than 120 processes. The most complex and critical is the water basin link, also known as water work, after preliminary selection, the semi-finished pen head will be made for the most part. Bai Juyi used "picking one out of ten million hairs" to describe the rarity of a good brush. To arrange thousands of tiny animal hairs into a pen bit, it is determined that it can only be operated by the naked eye, feel and experience, and cannot be mechanized, and its intricacy and fineness is second to none in Chinese handicrafts.
Of course, good skills are spread thousands of miles. In the Ming Dynasty, the lake pen was already a tribute to the court. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Huzhou became the national pen-making center, and the most prestigious is "Wang Yipinzhai Pen Village". Since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Huzhou pen workers with pioneering spirit have opened pen houses all over the country, such as "He Qinglian", "Dai Yuexuan" and "Li Yutian" in Beijing, "Yang Zhenhua", "Li Dinghe", "Zhou Hucheng" and "Mao Chuntang" in Shanghai, "Lu Jiweng" in Nanjing, "Bei Songquan" in Suzhou, and "Shao Zhiyan" in Hangzhou.
The author is an associate researcher at the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences).