Study On Aesthetic Imagery Of Calligraphy

On the basis of Chinese philosophy and Western philosophy thought as well as literatures on calligraphy theory from Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty,the author deems that Chinese calligraphy is an imagery art to express emotion,idea and physical Tao with writing Chinese characters as the carrier;the author deems that the aesthetic imagery of calligraphy is,on the form of aesthetic theory,the intermediate link between the subject of calligraphy and the entity of lines of Chinese characters;and it takes an aesthetics perspective to study the imagery question in calligraphy theory;the author deems that in calligraphy theory of Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty,aesthetic imagery of calligraphy, as a thinking mode,which is in a dominant position and a sharp tool for thinking of calligraphy theorists to study and understand the beauty of the art of calligraphy;the author also deems that the aesthetic imagery of calligraphy is a category system with clearly defined structural hierarchy and clear logic subsumption.The aesthetic imagery of calligraphy consists of entitative aesthetic imagery and subjective aesthetic imagery,and the subjective aesthetic imagery includes formal aesthetic imagery and style aesthetic imagery,and to form a structural system of aesthetic imagery with three clearly defined levels,i.e.entity,form and style.The entitative aesthetic imagery is called strength imagery;formal aesthetic imagery is divided into special formal aesthetic imagery and general formal aesthetic imagery;the contents of special formal aesthetic imagery include stroke imagery,structural imagery, chirographic imagery and appreciation imagery;general formal aesthetic imagery includes symmetry,solid and dash strokes,transformation and compromise;style aesthetic imagery includes three kinds,i.e.virile,feminine and neutral.Entitative aesthetic imagery,i.e.strength imagery,deems that the essence of entitative aesthetic lines is the aesthetic feeling of strength of the subject after its vitality is objectivated; calligraphy theorists in Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty used to compare the strength of strokes to various objective images and formed the aesthetic tradition of "including strength in characters","beauty of muscle and skin","strength is the bone" and valuing "mental strength".Stroke imagery of subjective aesthetic imagery formed a mature theory of "Methods for Writing the Eight Strokes" and described the formal beauty of the eight strokes with vivid imageries,i.e.sidling(point),tightening(horizontal line), standing(vertical line),kicking(left hook),whipping(short vertical line),sweeping(long left bias),pecking(short left bias) and chopping(right bias).General formal aesthetic imagery of strokes includes two kinds:the one is 2-dimensional time form,i.e. quiescence or motion,fast or slow and leftward or rightward,and another one is 3-dimensional space relation form,i.e.lifting or pressing,thick or thin,and solid line or dash line.Calligraphy theory in Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty,on the basis of formal imagery of strokes,formed abundant aesthetic imagery and connotation.Structural imagery is based on the structure of Chinese characters and consists of 2d plane space form of strokes and internal space form and external space form of stroke combinations. Structural imagery is the practice and development of the idea of Yin and Yang in Chinese philosophy,which experiences in the construction of lines the beauty brought by symmetry,solid and dash strokes,transformation and compromise.Chirographic imagery is the result of mutual effect between historical development and aesthetic pursue.Every kind of chirography formed its unique aesthetic imagery,and so called "iron-hard picture and flying characters","silkworm head and swallow tail,as square as framed","beautiful as a silver hook and elegant as a disturbed phoenix",and "not Cao,not Zhen,yet flexible" are respectively the unique aesthetic imagery symbols of Zhuan,Li,Cao and Xing.Appreciation imagery is the common aesthetic reception between calligraphy subjects,which facilitates the development of the art of calligraphy through aesthetic criticism and communication between the subjects.Overall imagery appreciation was especially outstanding in Han-Wei Period,and formed the appreciation mode with three levels and nine grades under the influence of the social ideology of character appreciation.Till Tang Dynasty,Zhang Huaiguan advocated to appreciate calligraphy with "reason" and therefore made the appreciation standards more reasonable and the content of appreciation more complete.General formal aesthetic imagery extends through special formal aesthetic imagery,and shows through the unique formal aesthetic imagery of Chinese calligraphy such as spirit,harmony,dash and solid lines as well as blank arrangement.Style imagery of subjective aesthetic imagery is the highest level of aesthetic imagery of calligraphy as well as the integration of entitative imagery and formal imagery,and it represents the organic integration of aesthetic concept of an era and personal creativity of calligraphers.Style imagery is the embodiment of Chinese ideology of Yin and Yang in the field of the art of calligraphy,and it has apodicticity in aesthetic concept and interprets virile,feminine and neutral beauty.Virile beauty includes power and strength and feminine beauty includes elegant beauty and peacocky beauty.At the same time of experiencing philosophic and aesthetic concepts,the subject of calligraphy builds its own aesthetic style at specific and fine parts of strokes.The logic subsumption of aesthetic imagery includes intention and objective image imagery,will and visual image imagery and emotion expression and physical Tao embodiment imagery.Intention,will and emotion represents the subject's idea;objective image,visual image and Tao expression represents the objective existence of entity. Those two elements integrate and form the concrete content of aesthetic imagery of calligraphy.Intention and objective image imagery means that the aesthetic concept of the subject is not clear enough and mainly embodied through objective images,which was significant in the Han-Wei Period.Will and visual image imagery means that the subject is strong,the objective image is relatively weak and the aesthetic concept tend to be more mature;such trend was significantly strong in Tang Dynasty and represented an important symbol of calligraphy theory gradually becoming mature.Emotion expression and Tao embodiment imagery indicated further perfection of calligraphy theory.Since Tang Dynasty,in calligraphy theory contents about emotion expression has become more and more,yet Tao embodiment has always been the core of the aesthetic theory of calligraphy.Emotion expression and Tao embodiment,i.e."to express the emotion and visualize sadness and happiness","to learn externally from the nature and internally from the heart",have become the main functions of the art of calligraphy.The logic subsumption of aesthetic imagery of calligraphy cuts through the dissertation of the hierarchy of aesthetic imagery of calligraphy,and they jointly form a complete category system of aesthetic imagery of calligraphy.