The particularity of the art of calligraphy determines that it is the most important inheritance, elegant in ancient times, and vulgar in the present. Of course, tradition alone is not enough, but also on the basis of tradition, it is necessary to appropriately express one's own personality or temperament. - Su Xianshuang.
- Su Xianshuang. Professor of the Academy of Fine Arts, Changchun Normal University, doctoral supervisor, director of the Calligraphy Education Research Center.
Member of the Steering Committee of Chinese Calligraphy Education of the Ministry of Education.
Member of the Education Committee of the Chinese Calligraphers Association.
He is a member of the Chinese Literature and Art Critics Association.
Vice Chairman of Jilin Provincial Literature and Art Critics Association.
Director of the Education Committee of Jilin Provincial Calligraphy Association.
Changchun City cultural master, outstanding contribution expert.
His calligraphy works have been selected for many national calligraphy exhibitions and calligraphy seminars, published monographs, textbooks, and calligraphy, and have been invited to visit the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russia and Southeast Asian countries for many times to hold exhibitions and lectures.
Danfeng red peach seven words.
Rabbit dragon potential seven words.
Seven words in the rain outside the piano.
Baifu Jiu is like seven words.
Idle search into the Seven Words Couplet.
Shuxuan Flower Path Five Words Couplet.
Seven words of forest flowers and fragrant grass.
The wind passes through the moon and the moon is bright.
The sun rises and the rain comes.
Arrogant and peaceful.
Heirloom deeds seven words.
Hanwa Zhou copper seven words.
The clouds and pillows surround the seven words.
Tang Zhang Hu, "The Fifteenth Night Light of the First Lunar Month".
Tranquility and far-reaching. The heart is as calm as a mountain.
Don Li Bai "Wangtianmen Mountain".
Advice to the world. Don Madai, "Guests in the River".
Chen Ji Ruwen. Intention to Mi Fu line book.
Song Su Shi's sentence - begging for the name of the flower is in full bloom.
Song · Su Shi "Title Xilin Wall".
Prosperity is thriving. Tang · Meng Haoran, "Farewell to Wang Wei".
Clear-sightedness. Blessed with warm seasons.
Purple sand hanging plate (Tao Yuan Ming sentence).
Purple sand hanging plate (Shen Du).
Purple sand hanging plate (Gong Mo Sidao).
The 3rd National Handscroll Calligraphy Exhibition Review Sidenote.
Su Xianshuangwen.
It is the first time to participate in the judging of this handscroll calligraphy exhibition as an academic observer, and it is undoubtedly a rare opportunity for me to improve myself. The four-day review was tense and orderly, efficient and transparent, and I felt deeply in the middle of it.
The following is just a few comments on the judging and creative aspects:
The judging adheres to the evaluation system of "fairness, justice, standardization and science", and adheres to the evaluation orientation of "rooted in tradition, encouraging innovation, both art and culture, diversity and inclusiveness", and the selected works represent the achievements of handscroll calligraphy creation in recent years. One of the biggest highlights is that the mobile phone provided on site was used for the first time in the voting process to scan the code to vote on the works, which is faster and more accurate than the previous use of the voting machine to enter the work number, which fundamentally eliminates the problems of manual operation and repeated voting. It can be said to keep pace with the times, reflecting the "science and technology change life, innovation leads the future".
We know that the handscroll is the oldest, most distinctive, and most influential of all calligraphic forms, and it is composed of three parts: the introduction, the main text, and the tail. It has the strongest sense of form and the richest textual content. The various parts can be written in one go, or they can be operated in sections, presented in different book styles or different styles of a book style, and you can have both changes and harmony and unity. When appreciating, the overall visual effect is often obtained by changing the scenery step by step, which is similar to the way of building and visiting Chinese gardens, "although it is artificial, it is like nature". Among them, the inscription part has both documentary value and academic value, which can best reflect the comprehensive cultivation of the author, which undoubtedly puts forward higher requirements for the judges.
Because of the particularity of the hand-scroll shape and aesthetics, there are many small character works in this exhibition, especially small letters, which have excellent performance in both quantity and quality, and the pass rate of the primary selection is very high. However, after the re-evaluation and final evaluation, only a few works with both traditional skills and personality won the competition. Because the exhibition also takes into account the inclusiveness of various book styles and styles, the judges can only endure the love of many wonderful works, which is really cruel. Zhang Huaiyunyun: "The backbone of the wind god is on the top, and the beauty is on the bottom." The regular script, which is biased towards the "beauty function", attaches more importance to order and law, and has limited room for free play, making it difficult to write personality and brilliance. Therefore, it is difficult to impress the judges with any dense and repeated writing like a copy, and even if they are skilled in technique, the chances of being selected will be greatly reduced due to the lack of spirituality and creativity.
Judging from the works of calligraphy, the small character works are relatively more traditional, mostly for the two kings all the way to learn the right line, from the two kings to the Song Dynasty to the Ming and Qing dynasties, almost all of them have them. Among them, "Su Mi" and Dong Qichang are still the mainstream. There are also Tang series of Chinese and European style and Yan style books, among which Yan style accounts for more proportion, but they are relatively stable, and it is more difficult to be brilliant. Therefore, the less mainstream works with Yang Ning's "Leek Flower Post" and Bada Shanren as the object of the law can always stand firm to the most ** exhibition, not because of how well it is written, but because it is different on a good basis. "The same ability is not as good as solitude", calligraphy only knows that it is not possible to work hard with others, and it is also necessary to have the ambition of "determined not to follow the customs, and pay attention to learn from the ancients", of course, this self-confidence is not achieved through short-term training, but requires years of accumulation and thinking. Therefore, Lin Sanzhi said, "You can be in the same place without seeking the same, but you can't be with Si Daxiong", which is also the magic weapon that can make you invincible in the exhibition hall era.
Speaking of which, we can't fail to mention the large-character works, which are actually very risky to write in hand-scrolled calligraphy, because the size of the manuscript is limited, and how to write the weather and changes within a limited size is really a challenge for the author. There are many large-character works in Yan Ti in the submission, but only two (one block and one line) were selected in the end, among which the book taken from Yan Zhenqing's "General Pei's Poems" is the most prominent, which almost all the judges are dazzled. Strictly speaking, this work belongs to the "broken body" of Kai, Xing, and grass, and the rhythm of the whole text is well grasped, and a changing combination of time and space is naturally formed through the rhythm arrangement of the beginning and turn, and the personal face is very prominent. It is a successful example of using the topic to play and win by surprise, which is worth learning from and emulating.
Finally, let's talk about the problems of text errors and self-composed poems, etc., the reason why we will talk about them together is because these are all extra-literal skills and are related to the author's learning. There is no need for such clichéd topics to be here, but many works that will enter the final evaluation after five or six levels are defeated in this link, and if they don't pay enough attention, they will inevitably fall here in the future. Common mistakes in the text are nothing more than miswriting traditional characters, indiscriminate use of stele characters, variant characters, and non-standard grass and seal laws. As for self-composed poetry works, not only the quantity is small, but the quality is not high in this review, showing the general lack of traditional culture of the authors. This is especially evident in the text, such as incomprehensible sentences, unbeautiful diction, and even typos, falling words and other problems, to name a few. Most of the works are clumsy, and the tail part is mostly poor, which does not affect the artistry of the work from the formal point of view, but its unique cultural nature is impossible to talk about, which may be the difference between ancient and modern that can never be reconciled.
Calligraphy as a culture has been able to endure for more than 3,000 years, not only because of the stable inheritance of skills, but also because of the continuation of traditional culture. The China Book Association has always advocated "both art and culture", trying to reverse the phenomenon of "emphasizing technology and ignoring literature" in the calligraphy industry, although it has achieved certain results, but after all, the times are different, and there is still a long way to go if we want to completely solve the problem of the lack of Chinese in contemporary calligraphy creation.
In short, the ancients' preference for handscroll calligraphy is beyond our imagination, and they have also accumulated rich creative experience, reaching a height that is difficult for later generations to achieve. How to inherit this tradition well, so that the handscroll calligraphy, which has both formal beauty and ancient meaning, glows with ancient and new brilliance in the contemporary era is a topic placed in front of every participating author and judge. I think that under the correct leadership of the Chinese Calligraphy Association, as long as we always have a heart of reverence for tradition and continue to stick to the right vein of tradition, we will definitely be able to usher in the prosperity and development of calligraphy art in the true sense.
Originally published in the fifth issue of China Calligraphy News in 2024).
The work and temperament of calligraphy.
2022 "Chinese Calligraphy Annual Exhibition" National Cursive Works Exhibition Jury Speech.
Su Xianshuangwen.
Judging from the submitted works of this annual exhibition, the overall level is still very high, which is related to the development of contemporary calligraphy education, especially higher calligraphy education, as well as the advocacy of the China Calligraphy Association and the promotion of the exhibition.
I believe that the criteria and principles should be grasped in the evaluation. The particularity of the art of calligraphy determines that it is the most important inheritance, elegant in ancient times, and vulgar in the present. Of course, tradition alone is not enough, but also on the basis of tradition, it is necessary to appropriately express one's own personality or temperament. Judging from the works submitted this time, there are the most small-print works, most of which are like copying books, densely packed, and only the display of skills. It's hard to move people and not make people excited. The ancients wrote about the clouds: "There is merit without sex, and the spirit is not born; There is no reactive sex, and the look is not real. "A good work must not only have kung fu, but also be expressive, and it must be able to reflect the author's temperament, otherwise it will not be vigorous. The charm of calligraphy lies in the expression of the true feelings of the calligrapher in addition to the form and skills of the work, that is, the "Book Spectrum" talks about "reaching its temperament, forming its sorrow and happiness", of course, including experience and cultivation, etc., such works have emotions and connotations. We often say that "books are like people", and words and people are always the surface of each other. However, contemporary calligraphy has entered the era of exhibition halls, everyone is showing off their skills, competing for beauty, and some young authors often have to polish and produce dozens or hundreds of times in order to make their works jump out. The fact that the living person behind the work is gone, which is the main reason for the similarity of the current works in the exhibition. At the scene, we saw that many works with good techniques were eliminated in the re-evaluation and final evaluation, and the reason is that this cannot but cause us to reflect. Therefore, we should advocate the self-expression of the Song people's "Shangyi", and by learning from the Song people, and then going back to the Wei and Jin dynasties, we can also show our demeanor and personality in our writings.
In terms of book style, the line script and cursive script were originally evaluated separately, but the final evaluation was mixed together. Xingshu is generally better than cursive, and there are very few brilliant cursive works in cursive, because it is difficult to grasp the balance between reason and passion. In contrast, small print is relatively bright, but small print generally lacks variation. So this leads to a thought, that is, how to find a point of union between effort and temperament. "The nature of the country is easy to change and difficult to change", breaking through their own inherent patterns and habits is a difficult problem in front of every calligrapher. If you specialize in writing large characters, you need to train systematically, because large characters and small characters are two systems, and the techniques and aesthetics are different. Nowadays, many people confuse the big characters and small characters in the list book, thinking that the big characters are a simple enlargement of the small characters, but in fact this is not the case. The aesthetics of large characters should be strong and subtle, not only to have a majestic momentum, but also to have the beauty of details, to be able to withstand scrutiny, it is difficult to do this, which is also a problem that we need to think about in contemporary calligraphy creation.
Originally published in the seventh issue of "China Calligraphy News" in 2023).