Autobiographical Scroll: From Imitation to Creation

Author: Jiang Liping
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Features: From copying to creation, it is a topic that every calligrapher must face. The artistic characteristics of calligraphy determine that it places greater emphasis on "copying" as an entry and practice method compared to other arts, while also pursuing the realm of "creation" as a transformation and sublimation. However, the relationship between the two is not a simple or absolute causal one, but rather involves a transformative mystery that transcends causality. Since ancient times, accomplished calligraphers have all achieved success by penetrating this mystery. However, due to differences in the context of calligraphic studies, the ancients rarely preserved their copies, and their views on copying and creation were not as distinct or clearly defined as they are today. The practical trajectories and mental journeys of generations from copying to creation have also become blurred and lost over time. To promote the development of contemporary calligraphy and explore the transformative mystery from copying to creation, we have organized the writing of this series of books titled "From Copying to Creation." Through the excavation of methodologies and values in the ancient calligraphic system for progressing from copying to creation, these books take individual calligraphers or specific works as their subjects of explanation, striving to comprehensively integrate multiple forms of information, such as origins and schools, inheritance and innovation, subject and object, will and law, as well as textual materials and visual resources, in order to provide readers with beneficial reflections and insights. For those calligraphers in calligraphic history who established schools, bridged the past and the future, and left a lasting legacy, we not only organize their works and documents related to copying and creation but also attempt to analyze their implicit or explicit, relatively rational approaches and transitional methods. For those brilliant and timeless masterpieces in calligraphic history, we not only analyze their technical characteristics and artistic styles but also focus on how later generations understood, drew inspiration from, and made selections from them at different levels across various eras. Of course, during the writing process, the same documentary materials may lead to different perspectives, interpretive methods, and presentation effects; and the same interpretive subjects may result in certain degrees of overlap. However, all of this will help us seek the points of convergence between tradition and contemporary from a broader, more flexible, and thus more comprehensive standpoint. This is also the overall effect that this series of books aims to achieve.