祭侄文稿

 

Keywords:

Yanzhenqing

Tang Dynasty

Running Hand

Hemp paper

28.3 cm long 75.5 cm wide

23 lines 234 words

Collected in Tai Wan Palace Museum

Jizhiwengao is also called Jizhijimingwengao. Zhuguantian said “it is the best calligraphy work after the Lantingxu in history, so it is called the second running calligraphy in the world.” This sentence is recorded in the book named The History Of Chinese Calligraphy-the part of Sui and Tang dynasties.

The Jizhiwengao, written by Yanzhenqin when he was 50 years old in 758 BC, together with Lantingxu written by Wangxizhi in Jin dynasty and Huangzhouhanshitie written by Sushi in Song Dynasty are called the most best three running calligraphies in the world. And it is also one of the best ten models of calligraphies. These 3 models are famous, because they are all good at the content and the shape of the words. And they are all drafts. They are written by the calligraphers with profound feeling. Cao Baolin said ”it is just because they didn’t write the work in art purpose. They wrote the work with heart. And then the work reach a perfect effect to astonish the reader. There is no different opinion about these three works are the best three in the world.”

There are two versions of Jizhiwengao in the world. One is sculptured on the wall in TINGYUNGUAN. There are three piece of postscript written by CHENYIZENG, CHENSHEN, WENZHENGMING. It is the same with the record in the book SHIGUTANGSHUHUAHUIKAO written by BIANYONGYI in Qing Dynasty. The second version is written on paper with ink. AINGHESHUHUAFANG, the book written by ZHANGCHOU in Ming Dynasty, says the version with the postscript of XIANYUSHU and ZHANGYAN is the real one.

GUSHUHUA, the book written by XUBANGDA, says” the version in TINGYUNGAN written by MINGWEN is a fake one which is not same with this version.

SUMMURY

In the stage of the rebellion of Anlushan in Tang Dynasty, YANGAOQING, Yanzhenqing’s elder male cousin, was the prefecture of the CHangshan. The enemy attacked the city. At the same time, the commander in TAIYUAN who had a lot of solders, but he didn’t help. At last the city wall was attacked and Yangaoqing together with his son all died. So the article says “the bad commander did not help the lonely city. At last the father and son died. The city was attacked. Everything was ruined in the city.” Later Yanzhenqing send his oldest son to cope with the aftermath, but he only found one foot of YANGAOQING and the skull of JIMING. So Yanzhenqing was angry and wrote the article. At that time Mr. Yan was 50 years old.

There is an old saying in china that the handwriting can express the character of the writer. Mr YAN’s family members are all brave and loyal. They were dignified and redoubtable. And it was expressed in the calligraphy. The reviewers always give the example with JIZHIWENGAO when they talk about that. This art work was finished without stopping. The writer just used a brush pen with some hairs were lost. The line and dot in the art work are plump like seal character. The gradation of the art work is different because the write dipped the brush pen into the ink repeated, but it does not destroy the beauty as a whole.

As JIZHIWENGAO is a draft, it is unavoidable to delete and erase some words in writing progress. This just express MR Yan’s mood swings at that moment. He did not conceal his emotion in this art work. It is the best one among MR Yan’s works.

HOW TO APPRECIATE

1 THE CHANGE OF THE rhythm in the art

There are three famous running calligraphies of YANZHENQING. They are JIZHIWENGAO, ZHENGZUOWEITIE and GAOBOFUGAO. They are all drafts. GAOBOFUGAO was sculpture. It is not very good in calligraphy and the skill of carve. JIZHIWENGAO and ZHENGZUOWEITIE are really perfect, amazing art works.

The calligraphy in draft is often frank and expresses the mood of the writer. the writer drive the brush pen quickly when he wrote the JIZHIWENGAO. It is because the writer was in angry and sad emotion. There are 2 amazing things in the work. The first is that some places in the paper is dense with lines and dots, the second is the places that the words are covered with brush pen. The work has a rhythm with the change of gradation, concentration and black-white by these two kinds of scene. The writer is not serious in detail when he was writing in this art which is the character of the draft. The structure of the art work is kind of relaxed. All the things above form the character of YantiGAOSHU. ZHENGZUOWEITIE has the same character too. But it is a sculpture art, the character of it is not vivid as the JIZHIWENGAO. On the other hand, the erasion and the addition make the work more free style feel. This is come from the draft character. If you do this on purpose, such as erasing something with the ancient poem, it will be vulgar.

In the work of letter or draft like JIZHIWENGAO, the writer abandoned the skill of serious first stroke, serious risen stroke and turn stroke used in regular script. But he kept the hard and heavy line in the art work. The structure of the work is loose and comfortable different with the regular script, which is strict and dignified. This express the beauty of Mr. Yan’s ability in Chinese calligraphy.

Mr. Yan’s normal calligraphy is serious, but his running calligraphy is freedom. It is not be limited by the normal rule in ink. It has sprit and feeling. The materials for the study of Mr. Yan’s calligraphy are his crafts and letters. And these were not written in the serious way. So these works can express the real mood of the writer.

【名称】祭侄文稿

　　【作者】颜真卿

　　【年代】唐代

　　【书体】行书

　　【材质】麻纸墨迹

　　【规格】纵28.3厘米，横75.5厘米

　　【字数】23行，234字

　　【收藏】台湾台北故宫博物院。[2]　《祭侄文稿》，亦称《祭侄季明文稿》。朱关田《中国书法史·隋唐五代卷》谓：《祭侄文稿》“书之奇绝，论者以为《兰亭序》之后惟此为高，故有‘天下第二行书’之誉”。[3]

　　颜真卿公元758年（约50岁时）所书的《祭侄文稿》与晋代王羲之的行书《兰亭序》（书于公元353年作者约50岁时）、宋代苏轼的行书《黄州寒食帖》（书于公元1082年作者约45岁时）并称为“天下三大行书”法帖。亦系中华十大传世名帖之一。 上述三大行书法帖，因其辞、书皆佳，且均为文稿稿草，情切意真。曹宝麟谓：“他们正是在无心于书的创作状态下任情恣性地挥洒，才不期而然地达到了最佳的感人效果”，天下三大行书，“这一推崇世无间言”。[4]

版本

　　《祭侄文稿》传世有二：一是停云馆所刻祭侄文稿，有陈绎曾、陈深、文徵明三跋，与清卞永誉《式古堂书画汇考》所载相同；二是墨迹本，明张丑《清河书画舫》云，《祭侄文稿》定当以鲜于枢、张晏跋尾本为真迹。[5]

徐邦达《古书画过眼要录·晋隋唐五代宋书法》谓：“明文氏《停云馆帖》所刻一本，与此不同，当是伪迹。”[6]

概述

　　安史之乱，颜真卿堂兄颜杲卿任常山郡太守，贼兵进逼，太原节度使拥兵不救，以至城破，颜杲卿与子颜季明先后罹难，所以文中说“贼臣不救，孤城围逼，父陷子死，巢倾卵覆”。事后颜真卿派长侄泉明前往善后，仅得杲卿一足、季明头骨，乃有《祭侄文稿》之作，时年鲁公五十岁。评论书法作字、向有字如其人之说。鲁公一门忠烈，生平大节凛然，精神气节之反应于翰墨，《祭侄文稿》最为论书者所乐举。通篇使用一管微秃之笔，以圆健笔法，有若流转之篆书，自首至尾，虽因墨枯再醮墨，墨色因停顿起始，黑灰浓枯，多所变化，然前后一气呵成。

　　《祭侄季明文稿》既是起草文稿，其中删改涂抹，正可见鲁公为文构思，始末情怀起伏，胸臆了无掩饰，当是存世鲁公手书第一名墨迹。[7]

章法节奏变化

　　

颜真卿著名的行书作品还有“三稿”——《祭侄文稿》、《争座位稿》（按：亦称《争座位帖》）、《告伯父稿》（按：亦称《告伯父文稿》）。其中，《告伯父稿》为刻本，书、刻皆不足以称善。《祭侄文稿》与《争座位稿》实为绝妙之品。

　　草稿因其性质，书法尤为率意，但率意显真情，无刻意之迹。《祭侄文稿》运笔迅疾，情绪激动，与其悲愤之情有关。其书法最妙处，一在其字的点画密聚，草成一个块面之处；二在其枯笔连 擦写数字之处。这两种现象交相映衬，造成虚实、轻重、黑白之间的节奏变化，再加上草稿特有的率意所造成的用笔“不拘小节”，和结体的偏于松散，形成了颜体 稿书风格。《争座位稿》也有这样的特点，只不过因是刻本，这些特征不似《祭侄文稿》那么真切而已。此外，草稿的涂改、添加之处更增添了率意感，这本是因草 稿而自然形成的，如果有着意仿者，将古人的诗文拿来再行涂改一番以追求率意之趣，不免东施效颦，流于浅薄庸俗。[15]

线质沉实挺劲

　 　颜真卿的行书信札、草稿，如《祭侄文稿》等。因其用途和行书书体的形式特点，使其点画用笔中舍弃了对起笔、收笔和转折、勾趯等处的刻意求工，但却保留了 沉实挺劲而浑厚的线质，结体则变严谨端庄而为宽松多态，章法又随势产生紧松、疏密的变化，这正体显出颜真卿书法的艺术创造力和高层次的书美意趣。

　　颜真卿的真书严谨至极，而其行书却能放任随意，不拘绳墨，轻松空灵，富有情韵。研究颜体行书，所依据的是他的信札草稿，而这些作品都是在平时的非郑重的实用用途中产生的，由于是随意所为，无意于佳，所以能表现出真情实意。