Quiet but broken — Xu Jing created the four works during the epidemic period

In the new section of the Beijing Time Museum, the space above time is fortunate to usher in four moving calligraphy works, with a splash of ink, free and easy, elegant and neat. I don’t know if you have noticed it, especially those who like to watch movies. Subtitles will appear at the beginning and end of every movie, including posters and even calligraphy elements in the movie. But who actually came from these words is rare. Someone knows.

The movie posters shown above are all from a Nanjing artist, Xu Jing.

The four works in the space above time are the works of this artist in recent years. They have lived at home for a long time due to the epidemic spreading all over the world, and they have extracted their thoughts and insights from their own feelings. After appreciating Xu Jing, people who know Xu Jing commented that this is her most touching work in recent years.

Xu Jing, a female calligrapher, was born in Jinling and holds a master’s degree. Graduated from the calligraphy major of the Academy of Fine Arts, Nanjing University of the Arts. Under the tutelage of Professor Huang Dun. Now he is a full-time calligrapher at Nanjing Academy of Painting and Calligraphy. It can be said to be an authentic Jiangnan woman. But her calligraphy has a completely different domineering and unrestrained temperament. Compared with the journeys of other calligraphers, Xu Jing’s career as a calligrapher is very different. The extremely tense writing style made her attract attention very early. Directors such as Zhang Yimou have repeatedly invited Xu Jing to write the titles of many of his movies, which gradually made Xu Jing’s words into the public eye. For the career of a calligrapher, Xu Jing is very lucky!

“One day self-denial and ritual, the world returns to benevolence”, the Chinese literati philosophy has always taught that a gentleman must have an attitude of self-denial and self-discipline. Seeing a character is like seeing a person, which makes traditional Chinese calligraphy always advocating writing under regularity and restraint. Calligraphers who are “happy, angry, embarrassed, poor, sad, happy, resentful, yearning, drunk, bored, and unfair, like the grass sage Zhang Xu, who are moved by the heart and must be written in cursive script” are also the wonders of the book world. Wonderful person. In classical calligraphy, there are calligraphers such as Zhang Xuhuai, and for contemporary calligraphy, there is Inoue and Zilong Morita, a group of Japanese calligraphers who set off a revolution that liberated the nature of calligraphy. The contemporary calligraphy style that advocates freedom is instant, explosive, and concentrated, and has a special impact that makes words imprinted in people’s vision. To appreciate Xu Jing’s calligraphy, you can find that it is full of power that people can feel personally. The performance of the pen and ink on the paper is like wild children splashing ink and wild, full of aura and gadgets. The extremely free but aesthetic composition is Xu Jing’s expression in her works.

But Xu Jing will still face a bottleneck. Although the handwriting is full of power, for calligraphy artists, how to make their works have artistic language and arouse viewers’ thinking and resonance is their core pursuit. Xu Jing received traditional calligraphy education since she was a child. It can be said that she has worked hard in all styles, especially in cursive and lower script. Ten years ago, due to chance and coincidence, she started the creation of “Liquor Book”, which opened the way for her to explore contemporary calligraphy, and the size and intensity of writing have been continuously expanded. However, what to write and how to fully express oneself have become more important topics. How can we maximize the freedom of writing? It must be natural fortune.

In 2020, the sudden epidemic will change many traditions in the past. People will be isolated at home, and artists will have the opportunity to have a quieter environment to reflect and create. At the initial stage of the epidemic, I was confused and depressed, but I finally felt the mentality of freedom and liberation in these four recent works. In the past, the names of Xu Jing’s calligraphy works were often the writing itself. The emotion contained in these new works transcends the character itself and becomes a medium for Xu Jing’s emotional expression. Xu Jing also named her work for the first time. I dare not say that Xu Jing broke through her own bottleneck, but she must be less confused and take another step on the road of calligraphy.