Sun Guoting

Sun Guoting

Sun Guoting (646-691) was named Qian Li, which was written in Chinese characters. Hangzhou Fuyang (now Zhejiang) people, a Chen Liu (now Henan Kaifeng) people. Calligraphers and calligraphers in Tang Dynasty.

Two volumes of Shupu written by sun Guoting have been lost. This book is composed of six parts: tracing the origin and development, distinguishing the style of calligraphy, commenting on famous works, describing the technique of writing, admonishing scholars, and hurting bosom friends. It is well thought, simple and meaningful, and occupies an important position in the history of ancient calligraphy theory. Many of these arguments, such as the three stages of learning books, the five obedient and five combined in writing, are still meaningful today. There are ink "Shupu" handed down.

Life of the characters

Sun Guoting was once a member of the Youwei Zhou army and a member of the local government. Be ambitious, broad-minded and good at antiquity. He is good at regular script and running script, especially cursive script. He imitates Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi, and his writing style is strong enough to keep up with the two kings. Song MiFu thought that Tang Cao had won the second king's Dharma. However, some commentators, such as Dou Wu, ridicule his books as a kind of thousands of papers, with ten thousand words.

Sun Guoting was born in a humble family. In his "year of ambition", he paid attention to calligraphy and studied calligraphy. He was very good at calligraphy for 20 years and finally became a self-taught talent. When he was 40 years old, he became a junior official who "led the government to join the army". Because of his high integrity, he was slandered and lost his official position. When he returned home from his resignation, he devoted himself to studying calligraphy and writing a Book Theory. Unfortunately, he did not finish the manuscript. Sun Guoting died of poverty and illness in the guest house of Luoyang plant industry. Chen Zi'ang, a great poet in the early Tang Dynasty, wrote the epitaph of Sun Jun and the essay of Sun Jun in the Wei Dynasty, saying that "after the death of Yuan Chang (Zhong Yao), the Mo Miao is not passed on, the emperor's legacy is Han, and the Kuang Dynasty is the same immortal.". Comparing sun Guoting with Zhong Yao, a great calligrapher in the Three Kingdoms period, we can see that he was highly respected in the early Tang Dynasty.

Native place dispute

There are two theories about sun Guoting's native place: one is from Fuyang (now southwest of Hangzhou); the other is from Chenliu (now Kaifeng, Henan). Generally speaking, he is from Fuyang, but he calls himself a native of Wujun in Shupu. Chen Zi'ang made an epitaph for him, saying that Guoting "saw you at forty and was slandered." He was born in the time of Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty. He served in the army as an official right guard. He is good at calligraphy and calligraphy theory. He is erudite and able to write. He is good at cursive calligraphy. The cursive script imitates the "two kings". "Work in the pen, junta just off" (shuduan), such as "Dan cliff Jue gully, pen strength" (Tang Wei continued "continued book products").

He is good at cursive script, especially good at using pen. He is also curious. He is also good at copying ancient calligraphy, which is often difficult to distinguish between true and false. Emperor Gaozong of Tang Dynasty once said that tingxiaozi was enough to confuse Xi and Xian. Chen Zi'ang's "Jili Fu sun Lu Shi Wen" said: "since Yuan Chang died, Mo Miao did not pass on, the emperor left Han, Kuang Dai with the immortal." Comparing sun's calligraphy with Zhong Yao of Wei Dynasty, we can see that he highly praises sun's calligraphy attainments.

Calligraphy achievements

Sun Guoting "good ancient and elegant, gongwenci, named in Hanmo room". He is good at regular script, running and cursive script, especially cursive script. There are three kinds of calligraphy traces handed down by sun Guoting: Shupu, QianZiWen and jingfudian Fu, all of which are in cursive writing. Among them, Shupu is the most successful and influential one.

Soon after sun Guoting's calligraphy came out, some people criticized it. For example, Dou Ji of the Tang Dynasty said in shushufu that sun's cursive script had the style of "Lu Yan (ordinary people), a thousand pieces of paper, one word is the same". This view was refuted by later experts. Wang Shen of the Song Dynasty said: "Qian Li (sun Guoting) studied cursive calligraphy from the second king. The Qianwen collected by Guo Zhongwei has a strong style. Although he doesn't feel very elegant, he is more unrestrained than Yongshi (Zhiyong). The book of Dou Ji, which is called Guoting, is a thousand papers, and has the same words. Yu Gu has deeply doubted this statement. Since he has got this book again, he has studied it for a long time. Depending on the combination of his works, he should not be less than the Wang family and his son. As far as he is concerned, he is still sparsely established, which is not well known. "

Although Mi Fu in Song Dynasty was very strict with the former calligraphers, he was very satisfied with sun Guoting's cursive script. He said in Haiyue Mingyan: "sun Guoting cursive" Shupu ". There is a lot of right military skill. It's a way to go through the court. It is generally called the book of the right army. If there are such words, they are all written by sun. Every Tang grass has the second king's law, which is the best. Jiao said in the Ming Dynasty: "in the past, when people commented on Sun Shu, they said that a thousand words were the same, just like the wind and the grass. Yu said that although Shupu was skillful in writing, it was well versed in the method of collection. When you see the true work of Qianwen, you can see the meaning of Jin people's writing. According to the Zen sect, "if you don't ask for Dharma, it's not Dharma binding. If you don't enter samadhi, you can't do it." Wang Shizhen also said: "the title of the book of piety and propriety, for a time, Du Dou was demoted to Cao Lu Yan and so on. Shupu is rich and mellow. It is in Shanyin (Wang Xizhi) hall. After the complex vertical release, there are thirsty dragon swimming potential. If you play with it carefully, you can't hide the flaws of Meibi. " These analyses and evaluations are much more comprehensive and pertinent than Dou Ji's.

Artistic features

Looking at the ink of Shupu, sun Guoting not only got the true meaning of Erwang's handwriting, but also developed and innovated it. At the beginning of the whole article, the pen is steady. It's like the introduction of a symphony, which is peaceful in meaning. In the middle of the symphony, the writing style is rising, the strokes are gradually turning indulgent, the dots are connected, and the hook and loop are pulling. In the later part, it reaches the climax with the ease, and you can see the wind under the pen, the waves are treacherous, and you can enjoy it. With more than 3000 words at the beginning and the end, the climax rises one after another. It's really "the first idea is to write, then to be natural and unrestrained, then to be free and unrestrained", and to achieve the transformation of "intelligence and dexterity, both hands and hearts". Looking at the brush used in Shupu, it is fluent and tactful, full of changes. "Between a painting, it fluctuates in the front; within a point, it is reflected and pitching, and its Qi runs through. The tip of the pen is as light as a cicada's wing, or as heavy as a collapsing cloud. Although the writing style of Shupu originated from Wang Xizhi, it is more meaningful, rigid and changeable than Wang Xizhi.

The most characteristic is horizontal stroke, long point Na, first stop pen heavy press, then follow the pen out of the front, so that a sudden emergence of two kinds of changes in the pen, waves ups and downs, look suddenly. When the right circle turns down to make the arc pen, the end of the stroke turns from fine to fine. The edge is aggressive, and the spirit is shining. It's like a waterfall suddenly blocked, the water becomes thin, and turns out from the crevice. The Tibetan front, the dew front, the center front and the side front are unrestrained and natural. Its writing style, interest and charm are quite close to Lu Ji's Pingfu tie, Wang Xizhi's hanqie tie and Yuanhuan tie. The more broken the pen is, the more complicated it is, the more elegant it is, and the more graceful and vigorous it is. ". The ink color of Shupu is also dry and moist. In the first half of Shupu, the ink is elegant and elegant, while in the second half, the ink is mostly dry, and "if the zhecha is dangerous, the boulder is the road". Although its structure is flat and upright, its density is appropriate, and its width is flexible. It is even more natural in the uneven composition. For thousands of years, Shupu has won praise and praise from many calligraphers, among which Sun Chengze is the most fair. He said: "in the early Tang Dynasty, all the people imitated the right army, but they all had their own way to find. Sun Qianli's "Book Manual" is naive and natural. He walks alone without any intention of seeking harmony, which is the most wonderful skill of the Tang Dynasty.

Theoretical achievements

Look up to as the standard of calligraphy, sun's theory is also very great. The essence of his book theory is concentrated in the book book. The 3700 characters in Shupu involve the development of calligraphy, learning from teachers, attaching importance to skills, absorbing widely, creating conditions, the right way to learn calligraphy, writing skills and how to climb the peak of calligraphy, which is still of practical significance.

First of all, sun Guoting reviewed the achievements and different styles of the four great calligraphers (Zhang Zhi, Zhong Yao, Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi) in Han and Jin Dynasties, and pointed out that the overall characteristics of calligraphy development since them are "ancient quality but beautiful today". The contribution of Erwang and his son lies in that they were in the forefront of this road, and it was the concentrated embodiment of people's aesthetic views in calligraphy at that time, so they became masters of calligraphy. If you want to learn calligraphy, you must learn from it. Zhong, Zhang and Wang's wonderful writing is the best model for people to learn from.

Secondly, the point painting is the basic element of calligraphy art, and the calligrapher must be very proficient in it, in order to reflect the "shape and quality" through the point painting, and express the "temperament" through the wave writing. Although there are differences between the positive and cursive styles, and there are different emphases on the performance of skills, the "form quality" and "temperament" are always the basic requirements to show the vitality of calligraphy. In order to enrich the vitality of calligraphy, we must absorb new nutrition from other calligraphy styles. For example, to learn regular script and cursive script, we should "bypass the two seal characters, run through 80% of them, including chapters, swimming and flying white". Of course, the success of calligraphy creation depends not only on the skill of calligraphers, but also on people's emotions, the quality of tools and materials, and even the change of weather and season. Only in this way can the art of calligraphy reach an ideal state.

It is an important factor for the success of calligraphers to combine the advantages of various styles, touch the categories and bypass them. In order to clarify this problem, sun Guoting analyzed the characteristics and advantages of Zhuan, Li, Cao and Zhang. He said: "Zhuan is still Wan but Tong, Li wants to be precise and dense, Cao GUI flows freely, and Zhang Wu is simple and easy to use". This is the most concise and incisive discussion on all kinds of calligraphic styles. Its specific meaning is: Zhuan, especially Xiaozhuan, is written with uniform round lines with the front and the back hidden, the center of writing. Round lines have soft, graceful and lyric character; the corner should be round and curved, and the shape should be slender, so that the lines can run through smoothly, fully reflecting the artistic characteristics of gentle circulation. Therefore, it is said that "Zhuan is euphemistic and fluent".

The round pen of the official script was changed to the square pen of the seal script. The square pen was straight and powerful, and the corner was also changed from round to square fold. The knot must be strict instead of "gentle and smooth", and the rectangle should be changed into horizontal width, so as to be consistent. Therefore, sun Guoting stressed that:“

Chinese PinYin : Sun Guo Ting