Shu Tong Calligraphy Collection

Author: Wu Guanghua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1995-09-01
Features: Shu Tong (1905-1998), styled Wen Zhao, also known as Yi Lu, was a Han Chinese born in Dongxiang, Jiangxi in 1905. He gained local acclaim at the age of fourteen. In 1921, he entered Jiangxi Fuzhou Provincial Normal School. In 1926, he became the Secretary of the Dongxiang County Committee of the Communist Party of China. In 1930, he joined the Red Army and participated in the Central Soviet Region's five counter-offensives against the encirclement and suppression campaigns, as well as the world-famous Long March of 25,000 Li along the Yangtze River. He served as the Political Director of the Division and later as the Propaganda Minister of the Corps. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, he held positions such as Secretary-General of the Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army and Political Director of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region. During the War of Liberation, he served as the Political Director of the East China Military Region and the Minister of Social Affairs, as well as a Standing Committee Member of the East China Bureau of the Communist Party of China. After 1949, he held positions such as Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and Political Commissar of the Jinan Military Region, Secretary of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Vice President of the Military Academy of Sciences. From a young age, he loved calligraphy and, in his spare time, diligently studied ancient steles and inscriptions, emulating the styles of masters such as Yan Zhenqing, Liu Gongquan, and He Shaoji. Starting in the 1930s, he inscribed titles for hundreds of newspapers and magazines, including the Dazhong Daily, Xiamen Daily, and Shaanxi Illustrated Magazine, and wrote plaques for dozens of organizations such as the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, Tongji University, the China Agricultural Exhibition Hall, and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial House. He served as the Chairman of the China Calligraphers' Association. He is currently the Honorary Chairman of the China Calligraphers' Association, the Honorary Chairman of the China Senior Calligraphers and Painters Research Association, and the Honorary Chairman of the Wang Anshi Research Association. He is renowned for his calligraphy. His works have been exhibited nationally and militarily and have been circulated across China and dozens of countries in Asia and Europe. In 1987, he held personal calligraphy exhibitions in Beijing, Jinan, Shanghai, and Fuzhou. He led two delegations of Chinese calligraphers to Japan for cultural exchange. He has published Shu Tong's Calligraphy (divided into three volumes: Regular Script, Running Script, and Cursive Script) and Shu Tong's Calligraphy. Mao Zedong once praised Shu Tong and his calligraphy as the "pen of the Party" and the "calligrapher on horseback." Shu Tong's calligraphy is dignified and steady. Wang Yuanyuan remarked: "Shu Tong's calligraphy, like his person, is elegant and refined yet simple and unadorned, without any pretentiousness, exuding a natural charm of inner spirit and profound demeanor." Shu Tong's calligraphy is rooted in Yan Zhenqing's regular script. His writing style follows the Yan script tradition, which can be traced back to the late Tang and Five Dynasties periods to masters like Liu Gongquan and Yang Ningshi. Su Dongpo of the Song Dynasty particularly admired Yan's script and revered Cai Xiang, who excelled in Yan-style regular script, as the "greatest calligrapher of our era." People study Yan's script not only because of its inherent grandeur and charm but also because of the influence of Yan's character and integrity. Even Mi Fu, who was not fond of Yan-style regular script, could sense in it "a dignified and unassailable presence." Yan's script is personified calligraphy and has become a prototype of the saying "calligraphy reflects the person" for a millennium. These cultural phenomena derived from Yan's script may not be fully understood by middle-aged and young calligraphers today, but for Shu Tong's generation, who were born at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, choosing which ancient master's script to adopt for calligraphy was of great significance. For them, calligraphy was not just a technique or art but also embodied traditional ethical and moral values. Calligraphy is both art and culture. After mastering the brushwork and character methods of Yan's script, Shu Tong's Yan-style script became one with his aesthetic ideals and became a fixed way for his soul and cultural tradition to "dialogue." Shu Tong was a master who established a school of calligraphy but considered calligraphy a secondary pursuit. He never held a solo exhibition, published a specialized collection, or accepted disciples. After declining the position of Chairman of the China Calligraphers' Association in the 1980s, he was given his first solo exhibition by relevant authorities. The Shu Tong Calligraphy Collection published in 1995 is a commemorative volume marking the 80th anniversary of his calligraphic career. This collection includes over 90 works written by the author between 1926 and 1984, featuring regular script, running script, cursive script, seal script, and some paintings, with various formats. Shu Tong's surviving works are mostly in running script, which he derived from Yan-style regular script. Converting the brushwork of Yan-style regular script into running script is quite challenging. In this regard, he may have drawn inspiration from the calligraphy of He Shaoji, a great calligrapher of the Qing Dynasty, and was influenced by his trembling brushwork. However, Shu Tong absorbed the thickness of Yan's script, with the main strokes of his running script being rounded, and he did not use the backhand wrist technique, which distinguished him from He Shaoji. Without having personally witnessed Shu Tong at work, based on the form of his strokes, it can be inferred that he used the central brush almost in every stroke, striving to achieve "straight brush and round lines." At the starting point of each stroke, the tip of the brush was always concealed and not revealed. Shu Tong's running script Mao Zedong · Long March in four scrolls written for Guan Yiwen in the 1950s deeply embodies the "grandeur and elegance" of Yan's script while also showcasing his own running script style, making it a superior piece of Shu's calligraphy. Shu Tong had already incorporated cursive script into his repertoire by the 1950s. The Mao Zedong's Poems in hanging scroll form he wrote in 1964 blends the techniques of running, cursive, and regular scripts, exuding elegance amidst stability and a unique scholarly atmosphere. Purely Shu-style cursive script works were mostly created between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s. Although still featuring rounded brushwork, the swift brushstrokes gave them a dynamic, almost dragon-like vigor. During this period, the author was in a low point of his political career. In 1961, he wrote a couplet: "The giant turtle waves its tail, the great eagle flips its wings," which can be seen as his self-portrait. Retired to a busy but less prominent post, he had time to study cursive script and even found leisure to "experiment with ink" in painting, enjoying the creation of literati-style works depicting bamboo, rocks, plum blossoms, chrysanthemums, orchids, and the like. This was both a hobby and a reflection of his inner state. As a professional revolutionary, Shu Tong's sudden idleness left him with profound loneliness and melancholy. Writing cursive script was also a way for him to vent his inner frustrations and pour out his emotional turmoil. At this time, calligraphy became a spiritual solace that truly matched the author's temperament. Shu Tong's calligraphy excels in its thickness and steadiness. His style is most evident in his regular and running script works, which can be said to be his strengths. Kuang Yaming remarked that Shu Tong's calligraphy, writings, and integrity would undoubtedly shine with a unique brilliance in the history of China.