A Study Of Kai 's Calligraphy Thought And Practice

Qi Gong was a renowned Chinese calligrapher, painter, sinologist, Chinese painting and calligraphy connoisseur in modern China. He was skillful in ancient Chinese prose and good at writing poems. With his rich works, Qi Gong made significant contributions in those areas,especially in calligraphy. His life has extended into nearly a century, from the Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China. It is under this major background of modern Chinese calligraphy history that his calligraphy thought and its achievement in calligraphy practice are emerged and developed. There are a number of wisdom words in Qi Gong’s calligraphy thought,among which ’Learning from the past, but not adhere rigidly to it’, ’Do away with blind faith’ and"New things do not necessarily come from reformation’ are famous ones. These words not only carry on the ancient Chinese scholars’ valuable spirit of deeply researching in traditions and seeking truth and pragmatism, but also cleverly resolved some ’complicated issues’ in the history of calligraphy, and thus formed his own unique concept of rubbings and history. In addition, he applies it in his own calligraphy practice. These greatly influenced future generations and are tantamount to practicing what he preach for those Chinese calligraphy learners. Qi Gong’s calligraphy style under the influernce of his calligraphy thought is developed in the 1970 s, and is reaching the acme of perfection in the 1980 s, and then formed the ’Qi Style’ whose characteristics are getting new things from learning old things and remaining aloof from the world. ’Qi Style’erects the last monument of traditional literati calligraphy for the present calligraphy community prevailed by the market economy, cultural diversity and mechanism of competition and exhibition.This paper describes Qi Gong’s life and historical background in the part of the introduction. In Chapter One, the focus is placed on the calligraphy thought reflected in his works. And the chapter is briefly divided into three parts, i.e. concept of rubbings, calligraphy-historic concept, concept of learning calligraphy. Chapter Two is about Qi Gong’s calligraphy practice, analysis of his calligraphy style stage and feature. This chapter attempts to discuss Qi Gong’s calligraphy from strokes, character structure, methodicalness and style respectively. And in Chapter Three, the influence of Qi Gong’s calligraphy thought and his practice on contemporary calligraphy is presented. And the position of Qi Gong in the history of calligraphy is objectively established.