Thursday, December 30, 2010

New Chinese Calligraphy Style 发展新书风

Chinese calligraphy is a unique form of arts that writes Chinese characters. For Chinese calligraphy to remain a vibrant art, it must follow closely the evolution of Chinese writing system and the calligraphers’ ability to do so will ensure its practical functionality. In the last century, the Chinese writing system has gone through some major changes unseen in the last two thousand years of its history and these changes provide a rare opportunity for calligraphers to develop a new Chinese calligraphy style (NCCS). However, we have not seen any major effort in China in the development of NCCS; perhaps calligraphers there are too overwhelmed by the popular use of pens and computing systems as writing tools, which they think would drive Chinese calligraphy to become a pure art form. But, this may not be the case, as it is the writing and reading habits of people that give life to its functionality. It is exactly with this in mind that we should focus on evolving a NCCS.

So far, we have seen at least the following changes that have happened to the Chinese writing system:

1. A new Simplified writing system has been introduced and is now the official writing system in mainland China and ASEAN countries which include Singapore and Malaysia. This provides the most challenging and rare opportunity for calligraphers to create a new style of writing the Simplified characters.
2. A new writing and reading habit has been evolved today that the text is to be written and read from left to right instead of from right to left. The NCCS should reflect this new writing and reading habit.
3. The use of Gregorian calendar is the common and well understood among the ordinary people. NCCS should use it in writing the inscriptions (supplementary notes). (I wish to acknowledge that this point was brought up by my calligraphy classmate Low Chee Keong (Lu Zhiqiang)).

It is our wish that the NCCS would sustain the practical functionality of Chinese calligraphy, so that it can continue to be part of our life and living, appear in our hawker centres, offices, buildings. Our school also can use it as a teaching tool for the Chinese language subject.

NCCS can be written in the following Chinese scripts:

1. The standard scripts which include official, clerical, regular or simplified script.
2. The running scripts which include running-regular, running-cursive or running-simplified script.
3. The Cursive scripts which include zhang-cursive, cursive or wild-cursive.

Shown here are some examples that conform to the NCCS format written by famous contemporary calligraphers.
这里所展示的是符合‘新书风’的一些当代书法作品范例。
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中华书法是书写中文的一种特有形式艺术。如果中国书法要继续保存旺盛生命力,它就应该紧密的跟随中文书写系统的演变。书法家在这方面的能力可以确保书法的实用性。上个(20)世纪,中文书写系统经历了两千年历史以来未见过的几个重大改革;这些改革为书家发展‘新书风’提供了一个绝对少有的契机。但是,在中国,我们却看不到他们对发展‘新书风’的努力。这可能是他们对钢笔与电脑书写的普遍应用感到不知所措,认为这会导致书法走向纯艺术的道路。可是,事实可能并非如此,因为书法的实用性其实来自文字的书写与应用习惯。就是基于这个理由,我们应该集中精力来发展‘新书风’。

中文书写系统至今至少有着以下的变化:

1. 简体字的引进。简体字已经是中国大陆及包括新加坡与马来西亚在内的亚细安的正式书写系统。这给予书法家提供了一个最具挑战性与绝对少有的良机来创造简体字的新书写风格。
2. 一个新的书写习惯正在演变。这个新的习惯是由左到右的书写与阅读习惯,而不是由右到左。新书风应该反映这个习惯。
3. 阳历的年与月以为一般民众所普遍使用与了解。新书风中的题款应加以应用。(这一点是书法同门师兄卢志强提出的,特此致谢。)

我们希望‘新书风’可以使书法的实用性得以持续,继续成为我们生活的一部分,在我们的小贩中心、办公室、建筑物出现。我们的学校也可以用它来作为华文语文的教科工具。

‘新书风’可以用以下字体来书写:

1. 真书:包括篆、隶、楷、简。
2. 行书:包括行楷、行草、行简。
3. 草书:包括章草、今草、狂草。

I have re-formatted some famous calligraphic works into NCCS as shown below.
我也将一些著名书法作品更改为‘新书风’格式,见以下图片。
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Below are the corresponding original works.
以下是原作。

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6 comments:

  1. 许多朋友对新书风的反映是,横写由左到右很自然,但是直写时,比较习惯由右到左。
    对于简体字作为书法字体的新的一种选项,一般是持着欢迎态度。问题是目前缺乏简体、行简法帖。

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  2. 横写从左,直写从右,一文字系统两种排法乎?新加坡中文书写早就完全改为横向排版。中国出版的书,一般是横排向左开,少数如中国书法杂志,完全直排向右开。在台湾,同一版面,左右兼而有之,时从左看,时从右看,可谓奇观。华人世界,横写招牌,时左时右,迷惑大众。书法界人士,墨守成规,莫过如此。

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  3. 个人的看法是,启功的学为人师及王羲之的丧乱帖,新书风比原帖明显的好,看来更顺眼。启功的左高右低,刚好适合新书风的章法。王羲之的丧乱帖,行列由上而下向右倾斜,看来也适合新书风的格式。不知各位学习书法的朋友意见如何?

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  4. 朋友间最近谈新书风的问题,对中国既然推行简体字,但简体字在书法界并不能发展起来,深感不解。记得沈观汉先生有个见解,就是因为毛泽东也不写简体毛笔字的关系。我看这个见解是很有见地的。西方人以法治为重,领袖行为不成典范。华人以领袖典范为重,法制为辅。毛主席为当代伟人,又是书法大家,自然为我们最好的典范。新书风之推行且慢,可能不久将来回复旧字体,那不是白费心机了吗。

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  5. 新书风课题开讲以来,阅读的人很多,但是参与讨论的人却很少。为期一个月的小调查也于今天结束了,只有16位读者参与,其中12名(75%)认为应该推行新书风,3名(18%)反对,1名(6%)没意见。虽有位读者电邮中认为简体字为大势所趋,势在必行,看来新书风能不能流行,很大程度却要看资深书法家有没有起带头作用。

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  6. 新书风可以写传统字体吗?当然可以,因为简体字只是其中的一个选项。书法本来就是广采博取,兼收并蓄。除了正体简体字,当代书家若能写出行简、隶简等法帖,则是书坛之大幸矣。依我看,只要是从左写到右,题款用公元年号,让人一看就知道是二十一世纪人写的书法,那就是新书风。但是在学校,提倡新书风如能由简体字逐渐进入传统字体,那我们的学子有幸了。

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