Photographer Liu Kai

People engaged in calligraphy, as long as they hear the name Yang Zaichun, will not feel strange. Although they can't tell all his experiences, they can tell some stories about him more or less. More than 20 years ago, Yang Zaichun was so famous that it is no exaggeration to describe him as a star in calligraphy. Usually, in the contemporary calligraphy circle, Yang Zaichun's name is rarely mentioned, and his calligraphy seems to be no longer beautiful, which is in sharp contrast to the previous calligraphy lovers scrambling to buy his copybooks and CD-ROMs of calligraphy lectures. Nowadays, Yang Zaichun has another identity-photographer, besides writing and occasionally publishing some calligraphy works.

Yang Zaichun, born in Tangshan, Hebei Province in the 1940s, is one of the founders of China Calligraphers Association.

1976 65438+In February, 33-year-old Yang Zaichun and a group of congenial young people such as Liu Bingsen, Su Shizhu and Fan Ceng jointly founded the "Beijing Calligraphy Research Association", and then organized a large-scale exhibition called "Beijing Tiananmen Poetry Copying Calligraphy Exhibition".

In these two activities, Yang Zaichun showed excellent harmony ability, and he can write a good hand. These two advantages are praised by Zhao Puchu, Qi Gong and other calligraphers of the older generation. Then, these young talents founded the China Calligraphers Association on the basis of the Beijing Calligraphy Research Association.

1981May, with the concern of all walks of life, China Calligraphy Association was formally established. It can be said that Yang Zaichun has made great contributions to the establishment of China Calligraphy Association, and he can be said to be the elder of China Calligraphy Association.

After the establishment of China Book Association, book associations have been established all over the country, and people seem to see the coming of "calligraphy fever". But at this time, few people engaged in calligraphy, the improvement of the level of mass calligraphy and the aesthetic level of mass calligraphy are not high.

There is no calligraphy major in colleges and universities, and calligraphy education is blank. The classic copybooks of famous ancient calligraphers are rarely seen in major bookstores across the country. Even if there is, it is only a rough and illegible copybook. For the vast number of calligraphy lovers who are looking forward to learning, integrity is powerless because there is no reference for learning.

Yang Zaichun was keenly aware of all this, so he gave full play to his expertise. On the one hand, he works hard, on the other hand, he organizes and participates in various calligraphy exhibitions.

At the same time, based on his own knowledge, he has compiled and published a variety of Copybook for calligraphy and reference books since the mid-1980s, such as Structure and Composition of Chinese Characters, Calligraphy Style and Lanting Preface, Calligraphy Style, Calligraphy Style and Symbol, Overview of Ink Style, China Calligraphy Tool Manual and Yang Zaichun Calligraphy.

In that era when calligraphy materials were relatively scarce, these books rained down on the hearts of calligraphy lovers, which made people harvest great treasures, and the whole society immediately set off an upsurge of learning Yang Zaichun's calligraphy.

The early 1990s was the most glorious period in Yang Zaichun. Since 1990, CCTV has set up a series of lectures on China's calligraphy, which is a lecture column for the masses to improve the art of calligraphy. Yang Zaichun was lucky enough to be the keynote speaker. In this column, he explained three programs, namely, running script techniques, cursive calligraphy techniques and calligraphy hospital, which solved many people's doubts.

With the help of this platform, Yang Zaichun immediately became a well-known calligrapher, enjoying a high reputation among the people and the reputation of "calligrapher of thousands of students".

Since then, Yang Zaichun has been popular until the beginning of this century.

However, since 10 years ago, Yang Zaichun's reputation has declined, and his calligraphy is no longer beautiful and almost forgotten. Why is this?

If carefully analyzed, there are three reasons.

First of all, Yang Zaichun's honesty is inconsistent with his original reputation. He belongs to the "calligraphy celebrity" cultivated in the period. When everything returned to peace, his shortcomings were revealed.

From more than 30 years ago to more than 20 years ago, ordinary people had few opportunities to contact calligraphy, and calligraphy talents were also very scarce. If a person has no strong points in calligraphy, he will be worshipped by everyone.

But at the same time, the masses can't accurately judge the quality, beauty, ugliness and elegance of calligraphy, which is caused by the generally low aesthetic level of calligraphy.

Similar to Pang Zhonghua and others, Yang Zaichun was the earliest calligrapher of his generation and was promoted during this period. With the help of newspapers, television, radio, publishing houses and other platforms, they quickly became public figures, and many people regarded them as teachers. Coupled with word of mouth, they quickly became celebrities in calligraphy.

If there are too few traditional things in Yang Zaichun's calligraphy, especially his running script, which is written too casually, it is difficult to see the creation and absorption of traditional elements from brushwork, ink method and composition. For example, Wang Xizhi's running script is beautiful and elegant, Yan Zhenqing's running script is clumsy and simple, Huang Tingjian's running script is majestic and overbearing, and Xu Wei's running script is fantastic and wild, which are all invisible to Yang Zaichun's running script. In the final analysis, because he didn't have enough experience in tradition, he completely abandoned the statutes of the ancients and wrote at will, thus showing full Jianghu spirit and craftsman spirit.

Compared with official script, his regular script is better, but it still seems a little restrained in writing and stippling, which gives people a dull and rigid feeling.

After these shortcomings of Yang Zaichun were exposed, people saw his true degree and stopped praising his calligraphy.

Secondly, with the improvement of people's calligraphy accomplishment, the aesthetic level of calligraphy has been improved from time to time, so naturally he is not optimistic about his calligraphy.

At present, thousands of calligraphers have joined the calligraphy associations at all levels, and nearly 200 colleges and universities across the country have opened calligraphy majors or calligraphy classes. There are countless calligraphy training classes in the society, and there are also many picture books, exhibitions, lectures and teaching videos about calligraphy. People can learn about calligraphy from various channels, learn calligraphy and improve their calligraphy cultivation.

The eyes of the audience are always critical. When the viewer's aesthetic level improved, Yang Zaichun did not keep pace with the times and changed his calligraphy style in time. It is still a writing style decades ago, so people naturally don't value his calligraphy.

Third, Yang Zaichun usually grows older, the number of times he participates in activities decreases, the exposure rate in front of the masses decreases, and he gradually fades out of public view.

Yang Zaichun used to be an old man who was nearly 80 years old. Even if I want to take part in some calligraphy activities, I have no choice.

In today's information explosion, even if a person is famous, if he doesn't show his face in time and introduce his new work to you, he will gradually be forgotten by everyone.