The following remarks are selected from Niu Sinong's circle of friends, in random order, incomplete articles, and the title is excerpted from the content of the circle of friends.
1: I narrowly believe that from a single point of view, there are some aspiring calligraphers in this era, whose own understanding and practical ability have surpassed that of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but they have not been able to integrate these understandings and experiences into one. Whether I run a website or do training, I hope that our younger generations can have an opportunity to gather the strengths of today's people from all angles of calligraphy, and then unlock the hidden calligraphy codes in the classics in an all-round way, so as to save this era of calligraphy with demons dancing wildly. As far as calligraphy is concerned, transcendence is the only way out for calligraphy today. Calligraphy has been pessimistic for thousands of years, the so-called "Tang is not as good as Jin, Song is not as good as Tang, Yuan is not as good as Song, Ming and Qing are not as good as Yuan... "This kind of situation where a crab is not as good as a crab, and even the calligraphy of warlords like Wu Peifu and Zhang Zuolin can be worshipped, if you choose calligraphy, if you don't have the determination to boost, it is like applying for a job in a sunset industry, it should be in the water of your brain. At present, the development of information is the convenience of the times, and you can obtain first-hand historical calligraphy resources vertically without much effort, and horizontally explore the thoughts and practice dynamics of calligraphers from all over the world. At the same time, it is also the sorrow of the times: as long as you have a little bit of excellence or can pretend to be ugly, you can get better living conditions under the conditions of this era, so that many young people with a little qualification, after a little achievement, lose the original intention of asking for progress, all kinds of influence, rush to the field, go to the market to eat the old book. In this inferiority complex such as the present, the mention of "transcendence" is regarded as a fool's dream, since you dare not have the "great wish" of "transcendence", then strive to earn more false fame, fill your pockets. "Transcendence" is the only way out for calligraphers in this era, and its significance lies in the need to unify the bloodline with classic calligraphy and abide by the rules: only under the same track and the same game rules can we talk about transcendence. It is by no means a change of track to "find another way", and to engage in an inexplicable gadget to advertise the so-called "creation", which is actually an escape. I often admonish my students to "take the present sages as friends and the ancient sages as enemies", on the one hand, to discover and learn from the strengths and strengths of today's people, to brainstorm and accumulate a wide range of gains; On the other hand, it is much more positive in attitude to treat Gu Xian as an opponent than to "revere" Gu Xian. What is an opponent? You must carefully study the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents, and try to find their flaws and weaknesses. When you face the classics, you are like facing a great enemy, go all out, and ponder how to break the tricks for decades, how dare you slack off. And the so-called "awe" is to respect and stay away, to be afraid and bow down, offering the statue of the god to the Taiwan case, the heart is already weak, not to mention what "great wishing power". This kind of mentality will inevitably "hold on to the defects", and the defeat is already decided.
2: The goal is to transcend, but the practitioner who is truly confident in the field will not go around shouting how unique he is, how to surpass. Because transcendence is loneliness, that is, it will not be understood by the masses, if you are really confident, you should be happy to "not be understood", not angry, and you will be concerned when you meet a bosom friend. The kind of people who want people all over the world to know that they are "transcendent", and who resents not being understood by the world, are probably mostly those who dig the dividends of the world on the grounds of "transcendence". Growth itself is the pursuit of a lonely road, only when the companions also go to the road you have walked, will understand the joys and sorrows you have had. If we seek widespread attention and universal recognition, we can put it within the reach of the masses. How can there be a good thing that wants to climb high and is not willing to pay attention!
3: After a thousand years, when it comes to calligraphy, is it represented by Wang, Yan, Ou, and Chu, or is it Liangkuan and Inoue Youyi? If we still recognize Wang, Yan, Ou and Chu, it means that the core value of Chinese calligraphy remains unchanged, and what our younger generations should strive for is to unremittingly get close to the classics, read the classics, excavate the classics, and practice calligraphy on the basis of the core values of the classics, combined with personal cultivation and temperament, in order to continuously strengthen the cultural bloodline and boost the confidence of calligraphers. At present, the so-called "innovation" is not daring to face the core values of calligraphy, it is all confusing the standards, and it is just looking for a self-talking angle to deceive itself. Although the people of the Qing Dynasty went far to ancient times in terms of science and law, it was also due to the scarcity of research materials, the cost of obtaining a rare book was too great, and there were very few people who could see the true face of Wang Xizhi and other famous deeds, and they could be forgiven for not doing well, but they still thought that they could enter and exit the Jin and Tang dynasties as the ideal of calligraphy, but they had no chance to enter the channel. At a time when first-class calligraphy resources are readily available, what are we calligraphers doing? You ask yourself, have you touched the hair of the ancients in those achievements you have made? Modern people live a long life, you live longer than the ancients, live so long, but constantly repeat yourself at a low level, reluctant to abandon the market and influence, and don't even dare to make up the determination to change your deeds for three years, what else can such a calligrapher do.
4: A piano professor at a conservatory of music asked me, how long do calligraphy candidates have to prepare before they can be admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts? I said that if you have good qualifications or are lucky, you can participate in the half-year intensive training, and those with average qualifications may take two or three years. She said that it is still your calligraphy is good, piano candidates, from the age of three to learn the piano, practice for two hours a day, until the age of eighteen may not be able to be admitted to the conservatory. I was speechless. The professional threshold is low, and I still want to be a cultural representative, and I want to have self-confidence, isn't it? My second girl learns piano, and invites graduate students from the Conservatory of Music to do sparring and one-on-one teaching, one hundred and fifty yuan per lesson; There are many friends who have come to learn calligraphy from me halfway, and they have started classes and training in three or five years, and in a few years, some of them have earned millions a year. It seems that learning calligraphy is cost-effective and has a great employment advantage, which is to catch up with the current situation of "cultural self-confidence". Do you try a different environment with a different cultural soil? If you know how to play a musical instrument and perform on the street, you can earn a few copper plates, can you do calligraphy? Any industry with professional dignity will not be a layman who can casually intervene in the professional field as an industry leader, as for cross talk, acting, they dare to hold a cross-border calligraphy exhibition, they can also sing, why don't they dare to make a record? The threshold is low, the industry standard is low, demons and monsters are coming, there are many people who scold, and if he can attract attention, he will succeed. It is also in this era that calligraphy has become a little girl who can be molested by everyone, can you say that the most molested, the most popular? Do you have a face? In addition to the specious posts every day, how much thinking has your "calligraphy" been thought about, and how much effective information has been excavated? How many common laws have you touched that ordinary people can't detect? There is no strict entry standard, that is, how to practice is right, and the standard of calligraphy entertainment and vulgarization is: just be happy, long live happiness! I raised the standard a little bit in teaching, and some students shouted that it was too difficult, and it was too brain-burning to practice calligraphy like this. The biggest factor that an industry cannot attract elite participation is that it is not highly and challenging. For example, who is playing those simple and fun games?
5: A big name in the design industry asked me that we are looking for many people to cooperate with each other in our professional work, and no one is not convinced by whose design, and they all support each other. Why do you all look down on each other when you are engaged in calligraphy? I was speechless for a moment. I have been working on calligraphy websites for many years, and I have come into contact with calligraphers of all levels, and most of them are like this. If calligraphy is defined as "the core of Chinese culture", then this kind of culture does not make people confident, at least not to become a cultural model. Since the Qing Dynasty ruling class has baptized the "pavilion style" for hundreds of years, the kind of single word as a unit, the words are isolated, not related to each other, and even in the details of shaping, no strong and weak, no master and no auxiliary, only to see "change the ups and downs in the front, the special frustration in the millimang", and not understand the "silk tree and green qin, the special posture is beautiful; Sui Zhu and Bi, heterogeneous and the same Yan", the horizon is getting smaller and smaller, and in the long run, the personality is narrow and self-isolated, and it cannot be compared with the openness and inclusiveness of Han and Tang calligraphy, the harmony of opposites, the mutual reflection, and the magnificent atmosphere of each other's achievements. When we learn calligraphy, we must break away from the calligraphy consciousness of the Qing people, which has had the most recent influence on our times, and turn our vision to the calligraphy classics of the era of cultural tension, so that calligraphers can get more beneficial cultural nourishment.
6: I heard some people say that you are professional in calligraphy, but you are only very skilled. As soon as he said this, his cognitive level was exposed. Technique and Tao are unified, what kind of Tao matches what kind of technique. You can't say that Jianghu calligraphy has no technical content, but it is just that he chooses that kind of means of expression at the cognitive level. We continue to deepen the classics, constantly improve our understanding, and constantly change the technical means. Therefore, I don't emphasize the performance of solidifying the language of pen and ink through a single training, you only need to choose a means that basically matches your current understanding, and when your understanding improves, this means will be replaced accordingly. I often tell my students that some people grow through "practice", and we need to grow through "not practicing". "Not practicing" is not not practicing, but not solidifying practice. There are many young people with intelligent qualifications, when they participate in a certain exhibition competition and achieve the effect of "experts nodding and the crowd applauding", they think that they have found their own artistic language, and constantly solidify the style and expression language through proficiency. I use this sentence to encourage students: "Always on the track, never stand out, never fall behind", it is not easy to do. "Meet for 30 years", not "meet for 30 years to practice calligraphy", you have to go from elementary to advanced, from naïve to mature, from shallow to profound, from single to diverse, and you must enter the country every year.
7: The penmanship is divided into two veins, one vein of ancient quality, and one vein of Jinyan. The ancient quality is pragmatic and pragmatic, and the ancient quality is hidden and now it is revealed. The calligraphy of the Wei and Jin dynasties was in between, so from the Song and Yuan dynasties to the king of Xi, you can't dream of Wang Xi's feet sweating. As for the Qing Dynasty stele study, calligraphers paid more attention to the expression of pen and ink brought by tools, and devoted all their efforts to a little painting, the texture effect was better than that of the predecessors, and the law of reason was far from ancient times. In the face of the sages, we must not understand and understand from a single perspective, and try our best to restore and grasp the values and fashions of the times, so that we can learn from the parents, and only then can we know that the past dynasties and dynasties must gain from the loss of calligraphy, and the elites of any era are providing different nutrients for calligraphy, and the elites of any era dare not underestimate them.
8: I often see some calligraphers listing the aesthetic tenets pursued by calligraphy, such as "clumsy and thick", "elegant and elegant". Whether a calligrapher has cultural thinking or not, it can be seen from this four-character slogan. Let's first take a look at a group of cultured, said "clear and thick and strange": there are bones "clear", there are muscles "thick", there is unexpected beauty is called "strange", but also the accumulation of knowledge and elegant demeanor, which is called "ancient". These four words cannot be reversed, because their internal logic is interlocking, and they are mutually restrictive and balanced. Thick side effects bulky and dull wood is strange, bizarre, easy to contrive, then it is quaint. The four virtues of "Qinghou Qigu" are masterpieces. If you don't have a deep understanding and knowledge of traditional Chinese culture, you can't mention such a high degree of aesthetic pursuit. Those "clumsy and simple" and the like only represent a pursuit of his taste, isolated from each other, not related to each other, and it is easy to form a negative effect of aesthetic singleness and bias. If the clear pole is frugal, the clumsy pole is ugly, the simple pole is bland, how to understand, let the pen be the body, jump away from the rules and fool around.
9: The biggest value point of calligraphy lost in this era is the substitution of lines for dot painting, which is the part of calligraphy with the most character tension and the most able to reflect the aesthetic temperament of personality, and its formation is also the slowest. The current exhibition body has its roots in this. Young people are anxious to produce results, hastily build a structural shelf, engage in some superficial effects, and meet the layman judges who are already wandering outside the door, but it is also a feeling. Once the vitality of pen and ink is lost, the work becomes a walking corpse, without a soul to speak of. Words are built out, not grown, and can only be used in the form of the brain. No matter how good it is, it's just a beautiful puppet. The ancient rhyme we feel from the ancient posts is first established in the link of pen and ink generation, so the structure is also varied due to the instant changes of pen and ink. At present, some old gentlemen, still retain the experience of pen and ink, but unfortunately the body of the deep pavilion is poisonous, the calligraphy is pedantic and not fresh, and the picture effect can not move the young generation, but if you compare with the original, you can still feel the difference between life and puppets.
10: But for beginners, I don't advocate focusing on dot painting in the study of calligraphy, not that the so-called "brushwork" is not important, but that "brushwork" carries too much key information, and the advanced part is very mysterious, and it is easy to confuse people, so in the initial stage, it is best to solve those clear and clear basic parts, and then gradually improve the ability to perceive the mysterious part. And the performance of "brushwork" is constantly changing with the improvement of cognition, and it does not have to be fixed on a certain interesting point all the time. Famous artists since modern times, the growth experience is basically based on a family lineage, a lifetime of staying in this interest, is constantly solidified to strengthen the effect of "brushwork". But the problem is that with growth, aesthetics also change in a timely manner, cognition and aesthetics are changing, while the means are lingering in the old tastes, if the courage to break (change) is not enough, then growth is limited to this. Therefore, I personally think that if you pass the performance of dot painting, think more and build the basic ability that is easy to solve, and think less about the effect of expression, and extend the growth period to decades or even life, the road of calligraphy may go farther.
11: The industry changes thinking, and thinking affects temperament. If we agree with this influence and change, then let's analyze the role and influence of the Qing Dynasty pavilion style on readers. The first choice is to establish the standard of taking the book as a scholar: if you don't choose my direction, don't eat my mouthful. In this way, most of the scholars who aim to obtain merit are delineated. Pavilion body pay attention to "Wu Fang Guang", how to do "Wu", you force evenly, the original "Yongzi Eight Laws" on behalf of the eight directions of the dot painting to be completed through the "side, Le, crossbow, jump, strategy, sweep, peck, 磔" different writing rhythm, a "Wu" requirement, homogenize the writing rhythm, your writing presents a "quiet, calm" state. Different from the glyph standard advocated by the predecessors, if you want to achieve "square", then the Chinese characters themselves are very different glyph characteristics, as far as possible in a unified and harmonious state to express and weaken the difference, with this glyph principle, the psychological habit of the formation is to be herd, gregarious, not unconventional, not independent; The ancients paid attention to "thousands of miles of clouds", "long live withered vines", "insects eat leaves", "sharp swords and long ge...... The stippling is required to present rich and varied imagery changes. And when your rhythm is even, the glyphs are unified, and then you further require a "light", then the dot painting imagery will be further consistent, and the dot painting form will present a "warm and peaceful" surface effect. The pavilion is not unbeautiful, it can also produce a kind of "beauty" that pleases the soul, it is like a robot girlfriend, no matter what time it is pleasant, no character, and suppresses human nature. In the long run, in the daily writing of the reader, day after day immersion, in a word, this is a process of "servitude". It constantly sorts out your obedience, unites your hearts, and molds you into a gentle, reasonable, and difficult tool person to contradict others.
12: My student Jia Guoyuan has been engaged in the art for more than ten years, and the initial focus has always been on seal carving, and has also achieved good results, and he is also a leader among his peers, and has also established some influence in the industry. In the past two years, I told him to make up for calligraphy classes, and start from the basics. Upward growth must be nutritionally balanced, otherwise it will be easy to hit a bottleneck. He can also let go of his false name and face, and he has been soaking in the calligraphy training camp for the past few years, and his concept and understanding have also made some gains. I told a friend that he could not change, and the change is not to change the style and face, but to have an in-depth thinking at the cultural level, and to update the ideological understanding, and the old means and operating habits have shackles on your growth, and to break through this shackle, this is the internal driving force of the change. If you are young, your basic nutrition is not comprehensive, and you have been standing from a single perspective of thinking, how can you establish a new imagination space? How to renew your vision; "I haven't dreamed of it", how can I break through and achieve it? I have been paying attention to the diversity of thinking in art when I do the website and even the training, and strive to invite artists with different concepts and deep thinking to participate in it, so as to expand the artistic understanding of calligraphers and nourish the nutrients.
13: You have copied a lot of posts, but you don't know where to start creating, which is actually a psychological disorder. The so-called creation is a lifelong process of shaping oneself, don't rush for a temporary effect, write boldly, this is a process of continuous adjustment and correction. Many people have read a lot of good information in the post, and their cognition and horizons continue to expand, and they always want to achieve their ideals in their hearts as soon as they put pen to paper, but the result backfires, and their hearts have been in frustration and entanglement, and they are timid and hesitant to write, and this kind of psychological development is not beneficial to the improvement of creative ability. Don't anticipate what you'll write when you put pen to paper, and then find the part that can be adjusted next time from the unsatisfactory feedback after writing... On the one hand, the good cognition you have gained through studying the classics is gradually transformed into each assignment, and you can continue to develop the habit of picking out your own strengths and weaknesses through the assignments, so that the accumulation of time will be a tangible growth, and the results are significant and effective. Don't think that you can "practice makes perfect" the ability to create through years of copying. Those who are good at books will not be able to copy books!
14: If this era is not worthy of complexity and sophistication, only superficiality and coarseness, then we call for the next era.
15: Rules are meant to be broken! But sadly, the world you came into has no rules for you to break, so try to build it.
2024 Calligraphy Jianghu Summer Training Camp Enrollment Guide (Starts on July 15)
Selected examples of Niu Sinong's classroom demonstration: