Why does the "horizontal" in calligraphy always tilt?

As the ancients said, painting horizontally and vertically is a good book.

(Excerpted from Bao Shicheng's Art Boat and Twin Towers)

But anyone who knows something about calligraphy knows that the so-called "horizontal and vertical" in calligraphy is not really horizontal and vertical.

Then, taking "horizontal" as an example, why does the "horizontal" in calligraphy always tilt?

Today, I will try to answer this question for you again.

The above picture shows the word "Xuan" in line 13 of Wang Xianzhi's Ode to Luoshen. If you measure the inclination of the long horizontal line, you will find that the angle is almost 30 degrees!

Have you ever thought about:

Why are almost all calligraphers so inclined?

Some people say, "This is because of the natural movement of the right hand, which makes writing easier."

But this view can't explain why the words are still not ugly after such oblique strokes. If you tilt like this, the words will become ugly, and certainly no calligrapher will sacrifice his aesthetic feeling for convenience.

0 1 Since it is written like this, it must be because it looks good!

Look at the word "small" below:

If we connect the left and right points with dotted lines, we will find that they both show an upward trend to the right, which is somewhat similar to the feeling of sideways.

There seems to be nothing wrong with this situation, and this "small" has no obvious sense of disobedience.

But, pay attention!

When I lower the point on the right and form a downward trend to the right, the whole word will be particularly inconsistent in an instant.

The change in this direction seems to include the reason for the inclination of the cross.

That is to say:

Diagonal lines go up to the right, giving people a good-looking feeling;

The diagonal line goes down to the right, giving people a sense of disobedience.

02

Ben clements and David Rosenfeld's Photographic Composition said:

"Oriental culture has a particularly profound traditional concept in the philosophical significance of calligraphy, decorative design and painting lines.

Long-term accumulated experience tells us that specific feelings are often associated with certain objects or phenomena, and these objects themselves are associated with certain shapes, thus forming a traditional concept, that is, taking the position and direction of lines as symbols can make people have certain associations.

The vertical line represents life, dignity, eternity, strength and the ability to resist change. Horizontal lines tend to represent quietness and stability, the calm of the sea, death, the earth and the sky. Slant lines mean action, danger, collapse, uncontrollable feelings and actions. "

In photography, horizontal lines imply a feeling of horizon, so they are steady and lack of change.

Parallelism is embodied in calligraphy, just like printing, which is rigid. (as shown in the figure below)

In order to get rid of this rigidity, the calligrapher leans sideways, giving people a lively psychological hint, just like composing a composition with diagonal lines in photography.

03

So, why do you want to tilt to the upper right instead of to the lower right?

This is because, in general, people's eyes always instinctively follow the order from left to right and from top to bottom, which will undoubtedly affect the viewer's psychological feeling of the picture.

Tilting to the right will give people positive psychological hints.

Incline to the right, then the negative end, instantly lead the vision to the end.

Therefore, in order to break the sense of mediocrity of "horizontal", calligraphers tilt it to the upper right, which makes it more vivid.

Of course, there are more ways of composition used in photography.

Like photography, calligraphy, as the carrier of art and the expression of ideas, has more or less the same effect in structure and layout.

Read the answer above. I wonder if it inspires your writing?