Calligraphy penmanship is nothing more than a line to stay astringent, line is to move the pen forward, stay is a pause in the pen. Between the line and the stay, there is the difference between the speed of the rapid and the slow, there is the contradiction of the strength of the disease and the astringency, one force to move forward, the other force to block the advance. Walk and stay, also known as flow and stay.
Wang Xizhi said: "The word husband has a ...... of urgencyAs for the word 'black', start a little, the point must be urgent, and the horizontal and straight must be late. If you want to be in a hurry, you will take the situation. Each book wants to be ten late and five urgent, ten curves and five straights, ten hidden and five out, ten ups and downs, and it can be described as a book. ”
Qing Dynasty calligrapher Bao Shichen said in "Art Boat Shuangji": "Yu saw the six dynasties of the monument, everywhere left, left everywhere." Where there is a horizontal and straight crossing, there is also a line; The ancients will gradually frustrate, and will not let it go away, but will stay in the place. Where the twist is picky, the place is also left; The ancients would raise the edge and turn secretly, and refused to make the ink come out with a pen, which was to stay everywhere. ”
That's exactly what we did when we wrote our books. If the lines are always running without leaving or running at the same speed, it is difficult to get the best artistic effect. The line is OK, the urgency is urgent, if it is not in a hurry, it is lost, the word seems to be sluggish and glutinous, lazy and weak; If you should stay, you will stay, if you should slow down, if you don't stay, you will look sick and boneless, slippery and tacky.
The Han Dynasty's "Zhang Qian Monument" shows a strong sense of "staying". In the first line, the word "Jun", what power is shown in the lines, almost every stroke has traces of hard fighting, especially in the middle of the line, the pause time is the longest, and the meaning of "stay" is the strongest. The same can be seen in all other words. Another example is the Northern Wei Dynasty's "Statue of Shiping Gong", which has traces of struggle in every word and stroke. Tang Kaizhong can also see the struggle for travel and stay. And almost every stroke of Zhang Xu's "Four Posts of Ancient Poems" shows the momentum of struggle between walking and staying. Throughout all the masterpieces of the past dynasties, there are changes in the line and astringency, giving people different emotional ups and downs; In particular, cursive writing and line writing are even more so, often after a period of rapid travel, suddenly stop or slow down to progress with astringency, forming a strong sense of rhythm, such as Huaisu's "Self-Narrative Post" and Yan Zhenqing's "Fighting for Seats" are all of the same nature. Sun Guoting said in his "Book Pedigree" that "the guide is the spring note, and the sudden is the mountain", such as Huaisu wrote in the "Self-narrative Post" that "Dai Gong......The word "Dai" in the "Dai" is written up and down, and it is impossible to stop, and then it suddenly stops, struggling with the word "Dai", which is the case.
Closely related to travel and stay are illness and astringency. Sun Guoting clarified this point well, he said: "The one who is fast is the opportunity to be super easy; Those who stay late will be rewarded. "Sickness is the speed of the pen, and the trick of the pen is to lift the pen and let it run quickly; Astringent, that is, difficult, the line extension seems to encounter obstacles, it must do all kinds of resistance. The pen and the astringent pen should be both, and the power of speed and the power of struggle will be available, and the magic of calligraphy will be obtained. However, in practical application, it is more difficult to grasp astringency, and it is easier to grasp disease, so here we will talk more about astringency. However, it is not easy to achieve speed, and it is generally easier to appreciate speed, and most of them are difficult to understand when it is sluggish.
There are several very vivid metaphors and vivid stories about astringency. Su Shi likened the use of the pen to supporting the boat against the current, and the boatman tried his best to push the riverbed with a penny in order to make the boat move slowly. Xian Yushu studied books in his early years, and felt that he was always inferior to the ancients. One day when he went to the suburbs, he saw two people pulling a car on the muddy road, and the car was heavy and slippery, and then the driver pulled the car up step by step. Therefore, he learned the trick of calligraphy, that is, only by letting the lines run in the struggle can they show their strength. It can be seen that "astringent" and the aforementioned "stay" are not exactly the same thing: "astringent" emphasizes strength, and "stay" emphasizes speed. Of course, because of the astringency, the pen runs slower, and there is an inseparable connection between them.
In ancient times, the horizontal and vertical paintings in regular script were called "le" and "crossbow" respectively, and both of them contain the meaning of emphasizing the use of astringent brushes. "Le" is the mouth of the horse, and its extended meaning is to control and coerce. If the horse runs too fast, he uses "le" to make it slow down. One wants to move forward, the other does not let it move forward, and it is precisely in this contradiction that the calligrapher should be good at manipulating it. Zhang Huaiqian said: "I can't lie down on my pen." Tang Taizong said: "For the painting is billow, expensive and late." This also emphasizes the need to draw horizontally slowly and with greater intensity. "Crossbow", also written as "nu", is a metaphor that comes from drawing a bow and shooting an arrow, trying to pull the bowstring apart, bend the bow arm, and then release it violently, so that the arrow can be shot far away. Zhang Huaiqian said: "The crossbow is not painted directly, but it is noble and strong." This also means that the pen should be practiced in the struggle.