书法中国书法 Chinese Calligraphy

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文房四宝 The Four Treasures of Study

1.毛笔 Brush2.墨 Ink-stick3.宣纸 Rice paper4.砚 Ink-stone

Four Treasures of the Study is an idiom that refers to the items used in Chinese painting and calligraphy.

Calligraphy is the traditional art of writing

Chinese char- acters. After centuries of creation

and evolution, calligraphy has become a unique

form of art. Chinese scripts are generally divided

into five categories: the seal script (zhuan), the

official script (li), the regular script (kai), the

cursive hand (cao) and the running hand (xing).

The seal script was the representa- tive script of the Qin Dynasty (221BC—206 BC). The official script was popularly used in the Han Dynasty (206 BC—220 AD). The regular script was the result of development of the official script.

The cursive hand is a fast way of writing the regular and of- ficial scripts. The running hand is the script between the regular and cursive. Neither as neat as the former nor as difficult to rec- ognize as the latter, it is the most commonly used, and is the easi- est way of handwriting.

There have been many famous calligraphers, such as Wang Xizhi, Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhen- qing, Liu Gongquan and Zhao Calligraphy Mengfu, to name but a few. Each, after years of hard practice, has formed a unique calligraphic style, elevating the Chinese cal- ligraphy into a higher level. Chinese brush, ink stick, paper and ink stone are the necessary tools and materials for writing and painting and have always been named collectively as the “Four Treasures of the Study”. To learn calligraphy, one first has to learn how to use a Chinese brush. Beginners should start by copying the regular script.

王羲之Wang Xizhi （ 303-361 ）Eastern Jin Dynasty （ 317-420 ）

汉字 Chinese Characters

汉字是世界上最古老的文字之一，也是世界上使用人数最多的文字。汉字的数量很多，总数约60 000 个，其中常用字约 6 000 个。汉字历史悠久，它起源于记事图画，目前发现的最古老的汉字，是距今 3 400 多年前的甲骨文，它们已是很成熟的文字。

The Chinese characters constitute one of mankind’s oldest systems of writing, and have the most users in the world.There are many Chinese characters, totaling about 60 000,with about 6 000 basic ones. Chinese characters have a long history.It derived from the pictorial recording of events, known as hieroglyph. The earliest Chinese characters discovered up to now are jiaguwen (ancient Chinese characters inscribed on tortoise shells or animal bones), dating back 3 400 years, which were already mature characters.

汉字从古到今形体发生了很大的变化，由图形变为由笔画构成的方块形符号，所以汉字一般也叫“方块字”，经历了甲骨文、金文、小篆、隶书、楷书 等字体的演变。 Chinese characters have big changes over the ages.

From the earliest form of hieroglyph to the more advanced symbol character

composed of strokes, it has experienced a process of jiaguwen, jinwen (ancient language used in inscriptions on ancient bronze objects),

xiaozhuan (small seal character),lishu (official script), and kaishu(regular script).

Holoong for Chinese culture lovers Xiaozhuan was the standard script of the Qin

Dynasty (221BC—206 BC). Lishu was the standard script of the Han Dy n a s t y ( 2 0 6 B C—2 2 0 AD) . Kaishu, also called zhenshu 真书 and

zhengshu 正书 appeared in the late Han Dynasty, and has been in use till now.

汉字的造字方法，主要有以下四种： 象形：是指画出事物形状的造字法。如：“月”，“月”写起来像一个弯弯的月亮。 指事：在象形字上加指事符号，或完全用符号组成字的造字法。如：“刃”，在刀锋上加一点儿，指出这个位置就是刀刃所在。

会意：把两个或两个以上的符号组合起来，表示一个新的意义的造字法。如“明”，是由“日”和“月”组成，太阳和月亮在一起，怎么能不明呢。 形声：用形旁和声旁组成新字。形旁，是表示字的意义；声旁，是表示字的读音。如：“湖”字，“水”是形旁，告诉大家，这是一个与水有关的字，“胡”是声旁，告诉大家，这个字的读音和“胡”一致。

There are mainly four ways of creating a word as follows:

Hieroglyph 象形 refers to the method by drawing the profile of the subject, such as 月 which looks like a curve moon.

Self-explanatory 指事 characters are made up by adding self-explanatory symbols on pictographs, or totally made up of symbols, such as 刃 (blade), which is made up by adding a point on the cutting edge of a knife, pointing out the position of the blade.

Associative compounds 会意 are combination of two or more symbols to represent a new character with a new meaning. For instance, the character 明 (bright) is composed by 日(sun) and 月 (moon). Definitely,it will be bright when the sun and the moon appear in the same place.

Pictophonetic method 形声 is a word formation method combining one element of a character indicating meaning and the other, pronunciation, into a new word.

Form element indicates the word’s meaning and characteristic. Phonetic element indicates the pronunciation of the word. For example,

湖 (lake) is composed of three dots indicating water, and 胡 indicating the pronunciation

千百年来，中国人都是用繁体字来书写，但是，笔画繁多的繁体字，难认、难记，也难于书写。 1949 年以后，为了普及教育的需要，中国政府统一对汉字进行了较大规模的简化工作，先后有 2 000 多个繁体字被简化字取代。现在，简化字是联合国的工作文字之一。

For thousands of years, Chinese people had been writing in Complex Chinese Characters

(Traditional Chinese). However, the Complex Chinese Characters are difficult to identify,memorize and write due to their complicated strokes.

From 1949,for the sake of the popularization of education, the Chinese government simplified the Chinese Characters on a large scale.

There were more than 2 000 Complex Chinese Characters that were simplified to today’s appearance.

Nowadays the Simplified Chinese Character is one of the official characters used by the UN.

历史上，汉字曾被朝鲜、日本、越南等国家长期借用，汉字正以其旺盛的生命力和独特的魅力走向世界。 In history, Chinese characters were

borrowed by Korea, Japan,and Vietnam for a long time. It

has been borne out that Chinese characters are of vigorous vitality.

传承、创新 smriti & innovation

Chinese calligraphy world famous

Former first ladyLaura Bush美国前总统布什夫人

The Traditional Chinese Painting

传统中国画

• Chinese painting is one of the oldest artistic traditions in the world.

• In its early days, Chinese paintings were not representational but ornamental.

• It was only during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) that artists began to represent the world around them.

Characteristics and study

• In China, the art of painting and the art of calligraphy are strongly related.

•They both put emphasis on motion and express dynamic life.

• The practice is traditionally first learned by rote. The master showing the 'right way' to draw items, which the apprentice has to copy

strictly, continuously, until the movements become instinctive.

Main techniques

• The four main techniques in Chinese painting are:1. Ink and Wash Painting

2. Fine-brush 3. Freehand

4. Fine-brush with Freehand Style

The "Six principles of Chinese painting"

• Were established by Xie He, a writer, art historian and critic in 5th century China.

• He is most famous for his “Six points to consider when judging a painting”, taken from the preface to his book “The Record of the Classification of Old Painters“.

1. "Spirit Resonance“ – vitality2. "Bone Method“ - the way of using the brush3. “Correspondence to the Object” - the depicting

of form4. "Suitability to Type“ - the application of color5. "Division and Planning“ - composition, space

and depth6. "Transmission by Copying“ - the copying of

models

水墨画 Ink-Wash Painting

• The goal of ink and wash painting is not to only reproduce the appearance of the subject, but to capture its soul. • Chinese ink wash painting may be referred to as an expressionistic art that captures the unseen.• It only uses black ink — the same used in calligraphy, but in various concentrations.

山水画 Landscape Painting

• Many critics consider landscape to be the highest form of Chinese painting. • It embodies the longing of people to escape their quotidian world to commune with nature.• The period between The Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty (907-1127) is known as • “The Great Age of Chinese Landscape".

Scenes and techniques of Landscape paintings1. Pictures of towering mountains - using strong black

lines, ink wash, and sharp, dotted brushstrokes

範寬画家The painter Fan Kuan

董源画家The painter Dong Yuan

2. Pictures of rivers and rolling hill - done with soft, rubbed brushwork

Bird-and-Flower Painting• 按照中国的传统， 花鸟画包含“花， 鸟， 鱼， 虫”。

• According to Chinese tradition, bird-and-flower painting covers “flowers, birds, fish, and insects”.

• 花 Flowers• In Chinese Philosophy,

flowers are emissaries of beauty.• Artists portrayed the outer

beauty of flowers, and they also expressed their subtle spirit, transforming them into objects of people’s feelings.

春風圖Spring Breeze

寫生紫薇Crape Myrtle Sketched from

Life

Intimate Scenery of Pomegranate Blossoms

Beautiful Scenery for the New Year

Cotton Rose

• 鸟 Birds• Master Huang Quan developed the naturalistic style or the “sketch life” style for painting birds. • In time, other painters like Zhao Ji, Shen Zhou, Zhu Da ， Gao Qifeng and Qi Baishi developed new techniques of painting birds.

齊白石 Qi Baishi趙佶 Zhao Ji

高奇峰 Gao Qifeng

趙佶 Zhao Ji

朱耷 Zhu Da

Han and Tang Dynasties Painting

Artists from Han (202 BC) and Tang (618–906) dynasties mainly painted the human figure.

Song Dynasty Painting

• In the Song Dynasty landscapes of more subtle expression appeared 。

Ming Dynasty Painting

• More colours were used in painting during the Ming Dynasty. Especially, dark brown became widely used.

Qing Dynasty Painting

• During Qing Dynasty ， painters rebelled against traditional rules of painting and found ways to express themselves through free brushwork.

Thank You

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