On April 20, 2024, the launch ceremony of "The Complete Works of Wang Mingjiu" was held in Tianjin.
Postscript to the Complete Works of Wang Mingjiu
Written by Wang Guanfeng
At the beginning of the new year, the "Excellent Tianjin Local Culture Books (Set of Books)" selected by the Tianjin Press and Publication Bureau - "The Complete Works of Wang Mingjiu" (19 volumes of hardcover books, nearly 5,000 pages, more than 2.7 million fonts) was published and distributed by the Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences Press. This is the first time that a calligraphy scholar in mainland China has created and edited two large-scale calligraphy monographs, "Compilation of Chapter Grass" and "Compilation of Cursive Script", as well as a complete collection of Chinese characters and traditional calligraphy art.
Wang Guanfeng, the philosopher of Mr. Wang Mingjiu and the executive editor-in-chief of "The Complete Works of Wang Mingjiu", introduced the relevant situation of the "Complete Works".
As the representative of the children of the elder Wang Mingjiu (1913-2001), I participated in the editorial work throughout the process. Here, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences Press for its strong support! I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the consultants, editorial board members, and editors in charge who have worked hard for "The Complete Works of Wang Mingjiu"! I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Mr. Qi Jue, the author of the "Wang Mingjiu Academic Yearbook" and the president of the Tianjin Art History Society, who wrote the "Complete Works" for a span of 109 years! I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the relevant leaders, friends from all walks of life and colleagues who care, support and help the publication of this complete work!
In the more than 80 years of Hanmo career, my father took Chinese culture as the foundation, between the 5,000-year-old splendid culture of China and the 3,000-year-old classic inscriptions, he collected and learned a lot, wrote more than 160 kinds of calligraphy with the bow of his left and right hands at the same time and gave him a new artistic conception and charm, and walked out of a self-contained artistic path that fused the ancient and modern, forming a specialized, extensive and unique artistic style, and was a practitioner and theoretical researcher of the classic law book formed in the history of Chinese calligraphy and the development of Chinese characters, and was the founder of the study of the history of Chinese calligraphy and calligraphy. It is one of the few modern and modern people who collects inscriptions and posters, and is an important founder of the development of Zhangcao theory, so it is known as a famous calligrapher, philologist and calligraphy theorist in Tianjin.
When Mr. Sun, an old man of the Xinhai Revolution and a birthday star in the world of calligraphy, praised my father's calligraphy: "The great achievements of the old Linchi Kung Fu in the Ming (Nine) Dynasty can be said to be second to none in the past 500 years. His chapter grass is comparable to that of the previous sages, and it is worthy of the origin of the chapter grass from tadpoles, seals, imperial elephants, Zhong Xuan, and Wang Youjun"; He praised my father for "perfecting the inscriptions." Ming Lao's chapter cursive script interpretation is good, ethereal and untransmitted"; He also wrote a long preface to the Thousand Character Songs and Commentaries on Chapter Cursive Calligraphy, in which he highly praised my father's calligraphy art and theory.
"The Complete Works of Wang Mingjiu" is a summary of my father's more than 80 years of Hanmo career. Throughout his life, my father continued the calligraphy culture with a high degree of cultural consciousness, firm cultural self-confidence, a strong sense of cultural responsibility and the mission of not talking empty words and doing more practical things, and set a new milestone for the extension of calligraphy culture to the practical field and approaching the people. With his lifelong energy, his father inherited and carried forward the Chinese calligraphy culture with his feelings and practical actions to eulogize the new era: patriotism and support for the army, dedication to the motherland, and dedication to the people. Since the 80s of the last century, Comrade Chen Yun and Comrade Deng Yingchao, proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation, have entrusted special personnel to give my father cordial care and encouragement. Party and state leaders Bo Yibo, Lu Dingyi, Zhang Aiping, Yang Jingren and other leading comrades inscribed the title of my father's calligraphy exhibition.
The Complete Works of Wang Mingjiu consists of five series.
First, my father's "Commemorative Essays" (Volume I). There are photos of my father who has held many public welfare calligraphy exhibitions; Father's TV feature commentary; Some of the inscriptions, plaques, ship names, and park names inscribed by my father are in the list and inscriptions; When his father lived in Shanghai to study and work in his youth, he was personally admitted by Mr. Yu Youren as a member of the Chinese Standard Cursive Society. Mr. Cheng Zongyi, the former Qing Dynasty Taishi, my father's mentor, Mr. Jin Mengshi, a master of calligraphy and painting in Shanghai, and other literati and scholars gave me poems, fans and portraits of my father; Fifty years ago, Mr. Sun, the birthday star of the book world, praised my father's calligraphy theory and practice in the preface and letters; The famous writer Mr. He Chi published a poem and book review of "Hanmo Song" written for my father in Tianjin Daily more than 40 years ago; In his later years, with nearly 1,000 works, my father held many calligraphy exhibitions praising the party, the motherland, the people, and the people's army. Some newspapers and magazines that introduced my father's overseas dissemination of China's quintessential art and calligraphy exhibition; Before the father was twenty years old, Yan and Liu Kaishu Linchi character classes, some of the original large bookmarks written in middle age, sketch paintings, iron pen seal carving, poetry inscriptions, etc. The letters, speeches, congratulatory messages and prefaces to publications of leaders and cultural scholars at my father's calligraphy exhibition, as well as the speeches and writings of some cultural scholars at my father's calligraphy art seminar, are included in the complete collection.
Second, "The Collection and Commentary of the Essence of Chinese Ink for 3,000 Years". Throughout the ages, calligraphy has been known as a galaxy, and calligraphy works are even more vast. My father collected the strengths of hundreds of schools, wrote about his own face, and wrote 119 kinds of masterpieces representing calligraphy masters in various historical periods over the past 3,000 years, and discussed them one by one from the three heights of famous masterpieces, calligraphy theory, their status in the history of Chinese calligraphy and their role in promoting the development of Chinese characters. When my father was about to reach the age of 90, he also translated some rare ancient inscriptions into today's common script, leaving research materials for the history of calligraphy and the development of Chinese characters. The living fossils of these classic inscriptions and cliff inscriptions activated by my father's handwriting make people see that these classic works that have been handed down through vicissitudes are no longer damaged and mottled, and open up a new way to learn classic calligraphy. This calligraphy epic also recreates or awakens a variety of brushstrokes that have been dormant for thousands of years, creating a new way for the inheritance and development of classic calligraphy.
Thirdly, the work "100 Tang Poems. 100 Kinds of Calligraphy. In the form of a Tang poem and a kind of calligraphy, my father introduced the representative works of the representative figures of the major changes in the period from the occurrence, development to finalization of Chinese characters in the period of 3,000 years, along the historical context of the Yinjia Zhou Ming, the Qin Seal and the Han Dynasty, the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, as well as the Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties over the past 3,000 years. Each article is accompanied by a concise and vivid introduction and commentary on the style and genre of the font in the book, so as to help readers understand the profound and profound cultural accumulation and the breadth and profundity of Chinese culture through calligraphy and Tang poetry, two unique quintessences of China. The book was published by Fujian People's Publishing House in 1989 and won the Outstanding Book Award at the East China (Shanghai) Picture Expo in the same year.
"One Hundred Ancient Poems and Essays of Wang Ming's Nine Books". Including Cai Wenji's "Hu Ji Eighteen Beats", Zhuge Liang's "Before and After Teacher's Table", "Chen Shou", Longzhong's "Wang Xizhi", Lan Tingxu, Bai Juyi's "Long Hate Song", "Pipa Xing", Du Mu, "A Fang Gongfu", "Su Dongpo", "Chibi Fu", "Wen Tianxiang", "Righteous Song" and other famous works that have been recited through the ages. It is this generation after generation of sages who have consciously shouldered a heavy historical mission, leaving behind towering artistic peaks, which together form the Chinese cultural context, so that the unparalleled traditional culture of the Chinese nation can last for thousands of years and be eternal. In the face of this heavy Chinese epic, my father used a huge pen like a rafter to perfectly match calligraphy and poetry to express the feelings and thoughts of the poems of the former sages. This work has been exhibited in Beijing, Tianjin, Hong Kong and other places, and has also been invited to Harvard University in the United States, Chiba in Japan, Copenhagen in Denmark, and North Calais in France and other places to exhibit and has been widely praised, especially by overseas Chinese, which is a valuable contribution made by my father to spread Chinese culture and inherit the art of calligraphy.
Fourth, my father's cursive art system.
A "Chapter Cursive Calligraphy Thousand Character Song and Commentary". In the book, my father refined and sublimated 1,000 different cursive characters into the rhythm of the poem, and annotated them in more than 20,000 words, comprehensively, completely and systematically discussing the art of calligraphy.
In this monograph, my father combined his years of study experience to unravel the extremely mysterious calligraphy terms left by many ancient calligraphers, and the scientific and practical value of these terms is amazing. My father expanded and extended the practice system and application field of calligraphy art from a new perspective, which greatly enriched the research results of the history of Chinese calligraphy.
A "Compendium of Chapter Grass". Zhang Cao was founded in the Qin Dynasty in the Han and Wei dynasties, and its penmanship inherited the Qin seal and Han Li, and the Wei and Jin dynasties were opened. Its appearance changed the complexity of the seal from the knot, and made the first innovation and breakthrough for the text to tend to cursive. However, after all, Zhangcao belongs to the ancient text, and with the passage of time, there are bottlenecks that are difficult to write, difficult to recognize, and difficult to speak, so that they gradually tend to disappear. In the mid-70s of the last century, my father compiled nearly 10,000 ancient chapter cursive characters that were on the verge of oblivion into a dictionary according to the radicals and compiled them into five volumes. This is the first Zhangcao dictionary in the history of Chinese characters, and it is also one of the few ancient dictionaries after Han Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jie Zi", Qing Gu Aiji's "Libian", and Tianjin's predecessor Xiangxian Wang Xiang's "Yan Room Yin Qi Classification", and its compilation has filled a gap in the history of Chinese calligraphy and philology.
A Cursive Compilation. Emperor Wu of Liang Xiao Yan's "Cursive Script" said: "In the past Qin Dynasty, the princes competed for the long, and the simple and simple passed down from one to another. Xu Shenyun, the word saint: "Hanxing, there is cursive." It is a collection of more than 30,000 cursive characters from 344 top calligraphers such as Cheng Miao of the Qin Dynasty to Wang Duo of the Qing Dynasty, and after repeated verification and scrutiny, according to the radicals and the order of each word in the Kangxi Dictionary, and the regular script is marked at the beginning of each cursive script to help readers search, compiled into six volumes. Mr. Li Yanwu, a veteran leader of Tianjin Municipal and honorary chairman of the Municipal Calligraphers Association, once praised it as "a cursive dictionary with the highest level and the richest content at home and abroad." ”
This book and two dictionaries together constitute my father's cursive art system, which is my father's exquisite calligraphy for Chinese characters, for the chapter and grass to learn and speak, and to leave a remarkable and fruitful result for the world. The compilation of these three books marks the establishment of a new and independent academic system by my father in the study of the history of calligraphy, and he is known as the master of the calligraphy world, and has erected a new monument in the history of Chinese calligraphy.
Fifth, his father's handwriting has the essence of the Wei and Jin dynasties. Including "The Emperor's Elephant is in a Hurry", "Zhong Xuan's Declaration Table", "Suo Jingyue Yi Post", "Chunhua Pavilion Fa Ti Wang Xizhi Calligraphy", "Huai Su's Self-Narrative Post", "Xingshu Luo Shen Fu" and "Cursive Du Fu Qiuxing Eight Songs", "Chapter Cursive Ancient and Modern Poems and Seventy-two Articles", etc., these works have exquisite penmanship, both god and shape, far-reaching artistic conception, and enlighten future generations. In 1965, my father also rebound the abbreviated copy of the first tablet of the list book "Taishan Shiyu Diamond Sutra" written in Shanghai before the age of 30 (the ninth volume of the complete works) and added a postscript. My eldest uncle, Mr. Wang Yatang, made a long inscription, telling the anecdotes of my father's 12 years of study and work in Shanghai, and his interaction with his mentor Mr. Cheng Zongyi, the famous Mr. Yi Lixun, Mr. Zhu Ruzhen, and friends in Shanghai. After my father and his old friends, fellow Taoists, and classmates Feng Pu, Wang Jianbai, Yu Zhiqiu, Yuan Xiyi, Gong Wang, etc., observed and exchanged views, they praised them with inscriptions and inscriptions, and recorded this good story in the book world that was continued from the old work.
Over the past five years, in the process of collecting, collating, and editing The Complete Works of Wang Mingjiu, I have often remembered my father's energetic and tireless and firm gaze, which is my father's ardent expectation to encourage his children to work harder in the future.
"The Complete Works of Wang Mingjiu" is the brainchild of my father's lifelong study of calligraphy culture, and is a precious cultural relic of my father's lifelong dedication to the motherland and the people, and reflects his father's profound knowledge in many disciplines such as history, archaeology and compilation, writings, exegesis, poetry and research, editions, catalogs, etc., and is praised as a grand view of calligraphy culture with important documentary significance by relevant cultural scholars. The advent of this complete collection will undoubtedly lead the calligraphy culture to further approach the people, add color to the development and prosperity of the calligraphy and calligraphy and Tianjin's regional culture, and look forward to more post-scholars composing a more grand chapter of the times and striving to climb a higher artistic peak!