There is no definite way to hold the pen in calligraphy, and a variety of methods can be found in the statues and paintings of the Han Dynasty, the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties, and the Song Dynasty. The ancients held the pen in a variety of ways, sitting and writing with five fingers, standing facing the wall and writing with three fingers, and holding the tube.
Shen Yin wrote the "Five-Character Method of Holding the Pen", which clarified the confusion between the five-character method and the four-character stirrup method. After presiding over the Shanghai New Calligraphy and Seal Carving Research Association, he devoted himself to calligraphy education, and further promoted the revival of the five-character method of "pulling, rhyming, hooking, checking, and resisting" expounded by Lu Xisheng in the Tang Dynasty and the revival of post learning, which had a great social impact. Nowadays, the three-finger pen and grip method are rarely used. It should be said that the holding method is related to the size and posture of the written characters. In the case of thicker strokes and larger transitions, it is obvious that wrists, elbows, shoulders, waist, legs, and feet need to be used together. A simple five-character pen cannot meet the requirements of writing large characters, so it is okay to grasp the pen and hold the pen tube with a fist. The core problem of holding a pen is that it is convenient to hold a pen and flexible to use a pen.
Su Shi said, "There is no definite way to put the pen, but it is empty and empty." It means that there is no fixed way to hold the pen, only "the wrist is empty". Therefore, when it is necessary to write wide or varied lines, not only will the pen be very flexible, but the barrel will also be used upside down. Whether the pen barrel falls sideways in the direction of the line, or falls sideways in the direction perpendicular to the line, it is a "side pen"; And the pen barrel is perpendicular to the paper surface, which is the "positive pen". Both the front pen and the side pen can be used to make the front and the side edge, and the front is that the front is located in the middle of the line, and it is easy to write a line with a circular three-dimensional feeling, such a line is called a "round pen"; The flank is easy to write square lines with a diamond-shaped three-dimensional effect, which is called a "square pen".
When using the positive pen, the general tip of the pen is perpendicular to the paper, and the middle of the pen tip ** is very pressurous, and the line is most likely to have strength and spirit; When using the side pen and the side edge, it is often the middle of the pen waist with the paper, and the pen waist **. Compared with the pen touching the paper, the pressure of the side pen is small, and it is necessary to use more force when holding the pen, or use a slower line of the pen to pour or penetrate the ink deeper into the fibers of the paper, otherwise the lines are easy to appear frivolous and weak. In addition, there are also pen methods for the side of the pen and the side of the pen, and the amount of power that penetrates the paper needs to be summarized by yourself.
In the case of using a side pen and a side pen, but not good at hiding the edge, the pen edge will easily be exposed outside the ** strip, making the line look flat and thin like a blade, and becoming a poor quality flat pen. Therefore, the technical difficulty of using the side pen is greater, and it is necessary to adhere to the standard pen to be very proficient before it can be hidden. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Ruitu's works were relatively numerous, and he used his strong personality and spirit to cover up these shortcomings, so it was very difficult to learn.
The front takes strength, and the side striker takes Yan". Since the Chinese Confucian tradition does not advocate shortcuts, Yu Shinan said, "If the heart is upright and harmonious, it is in line with the wonderful." If the mind is not right, the book will be slanted; ambition is not harmonious, and words are upside down"; Liu Gongquan said, "The heart is right, the pen is right." All of this expounds the aesthetic evaluation criteria of Chinese calligraphy in pursuit of neutrality, which organically combines calligraphy aesthetics and ethics, and points out that only calligraphers can write good works with "upright hearts". This is not only the requirement of the bookmaker for himself, but also the requirement of the critic for the bookmaker. Therefore, some calligraphers proposed that the pen is sharp. In fact, except for the seal script, it is very difficult to achieve absolute Zhengfeng, especially in the case of embodying the tablet knife technique like the "Tianfa Oracle Tablet", it is especially difficult to maintain the Zhengfeng completely. Therefore, for the Ming Dynasty Fengfang talked about in the "Book Formula", "the following books (li, Kai, line, cursive), the front is eight, and the side is two." Feng Fang means that in a calligraphy work, the occurrence of a flank should not be greater than 20%, otherwise the whole work will appear frivolous and artificial. Although his point of view is based on the principle of penmanship since the Jin and Tang Dynasties, even if you observe and learn the best people who study tablet calligraphy, the vast majority of the pen is trying to maintain a positive edge, mainly with round pen lines, supplemented by a small number of side square pens.
It can be seen from the works of first-rate calligraphers and painters in history that the brushwork has not changed significantly with the times. If we have to cite the counter-example of a certain contemporary master's brushwork, and based on Shi Tao's sentence "the brush and ink should be in line with the times", and use a large number of flanks to take the style of calligraphy and painting, from the past situation, such a cognition is contrary to the principle of "Tao".
In fact, "positive front" corresponds to "side stroke", and "positive stroke" corresponds to "side stroke", and then it is grouped in the vocabulary as the correspondence between "center forward" and "partial front". Since the bias is not desirable, the core of the word "center" is to let the power converge in the middle of the ** strip, which is easy to form a round pen. The use of side strokes in calligraphy is often to adjust the stroke of the pen during the writing process, so as to ensure that the pen is still in the center of the pen in the case of "eight-sided strike". When Mr. Cui Hanbai talked about the use of brushes, one of the key points emphasized was that the rotation of the pen tip when writing is to restore the pen tip to a tapered state as much as possible after writing a stroke. This is a good luck pen, and it is also a guarantee that it can continue to write.
The "side" (point) in the "Yongzi Eight Laws" is the meaning of inclination; The point should be tilted, such as a boulder standing sideways, dangerous and majestic; If the point is lying flat or upright, the dementia loses momentum, and there is no movement. The "point" of the Yongzi ends with a sharp edge, which is to correspond to the horizontal painting below. Note in the "Yongzi Eight Laws": "The side should not be flattened, and the side pen should be right." There may be disagreements about the interpretation of this sentence, but it is speculated that the meaning may be that the writing of "side" (point) needs to be undulating, and the pen must not be straight. Once you have written to the side (point), you should move the pen to the right.
However, these problems are theoretical analysis, and in practice, the most important point of using the pen is that in the actual effect of calligraphy and painting, first of all, to ensure that the round pen has a strong three-dimensional sense of the central line can be realized in the work, and secondly, to mix some square brushes with a three-dimensional sense.