Mi Fu

Mi Fu/ Mi Fei米芾, zi Yuan-zhang 元章, Hao Lumen jiushi 鹿門居士, Xianyang manshi 襄阳漫士, Haiyue neishi 海岳内史. 1051/2, Xiangyang (prov. Hubei ‑ - 1107/8, Huaiyang (prov. Jiangsu). Mi Fu is a leading calligrapher of the Song Dynasty and is considered one of the leaders of the art direction wenrenhua ("painting of pundits"). His ancestors on his father's side served in the military department. Mi Fu's mother was in the retinue of Emperor Shen-tsung's mother as an honorary lady of the court, which gave him protection in the service. Mi Fu grew up as a child prodigy, and at the age of ten, he wrote a stele in a legal handwriting. In his youth, Mi Fu was fond of fencing, which will affect his brushwork technique. At the age of 18, Mi Fu enters the civil service, which he does not leave almost until his death. However, due to the complexity of her character, Mi Fu's career was not smooth and was punctuated by retirements. Most often, all appointmentsMi Fu were associated with positions in the province, usually in the south, where he ruled counties. Shortly before his death, Mi Fu participated as an expert in the compilation of the famous catalog of the Imperial Collection Xuan-he shupu 宣和書譜. He copies valuable examples of calligraphy, for which he is generously gifted by Emperor Huizong.

Mi Fu deliberately initiated the eccentric antics, thereby asserting his direct continuity with the heroes of the direction fengliu ("wind and flow"). So, he wore a robe with too loose sleeves and a wide belt in the fashion of the Jin Dynasty period. Mi Fu was a passionate collector and one of the best art connoisseurs of his time. In the last years of his life, spent in southern China, Mi Fu kept his collection on a boat, which he called the "Boat of Calligraphy and Painting" (Shu hua fan書畵舫). It was a kind of "floating museum" where the calligrapher invited his friends to see the works of art he had collected.

Mi Fu wrote treatises that became classics of Chinese aesthetic thought: Bao zhang dai fang lu宝章待访录 ("Information on the search for Precious scrolls") 1086, Shu shi書史 (History of Calligraphy) 1107, Hua shi 畫史 ("History of Painting"), Yan Shi砚史 ("History of inkwells"), Mo Shi墨史 ("History of ink"), Pin ji te评纸帖 ("Paper examination") and Hai yao ming yan 海窑明言 ("Famous sayings from [the studio] “Ocean and peaks""). The last composition is a collection of epigrams and colophons of Mi Fu, composed in the first half XVII v.

Despite Mi Fu's rare talent, his calligraphy training spanned decades, and he was expected to "wander for a long time in the forest of brushes." He began by studying the large-format charter Yan Zhen-qing颜真卿, and then switched to the style Chu Sui-liang禇遂良. A separate stage was copying the "Diamond Sutra" written by Liu Gong-quan'em柳公權. Only after a thorough preparation based on Tang calligraphy does Mi Fu turn to the legacy of the Two Wangs (Er Wan 二王 In copying their works, Mi Fu achieved such perfection that in later centuries some of his copies, which were in the Imperial Collection, were considered to be originals of the Jin masters. Go to what you created Su Shi蘇軾Mi Fu adds a third component to the synthesis of the Two Wang and Yang Zhen-Qing styles: the Han calligraphy style Cai Yong蔡邕.

Mi Fu calligraphy is characterized by a special rhythm, which is compared to the rhythm of the movement of horses moving freely with inconsistent steps. Mi Fu developed the aesthetic of "single feature calligraphy" (and bi shu 一筆書In his opinion, the great Tang calligraphers Ouyang Xun, Chu Sui-liang, and Yan Zhen-qing followed this path. The principle of a" single feature " implied the ability to feel the unity of brush movement, as a result of which a single energy pulse passes through individual features of the hieroglyph. The feeling of this unity arises meditatively due to the concentration of the calligrapher, and its realization occurs spontaneously in rapid strokes of the brush. In his mature works, Mi Fu freely varies the size of hieroglyphs, placing four or only one character in columns. In the hovering of his masterful brush, unexpected stops are replaced by sharp strokes, pulsing hand signals and rhythmic turns. Precise use of tonal gradations of ink enriches the plasticity of the stroke, bypassing the surface decorativeness. Mi Fu's later masterpieces are characterized by a profound laconism, sublime purity and liberating lightness.

Mi Fu's exactingness prompted him to destroy those of his works whose quality did not satisfy him. So, at the age of 30, he burns all his early works, and before his death again destroys many works. The heirs ' collection (about 100 scrolls) eventually spread around the world. There are few authentic works of Mi Fu that have survived to this day, but they are all masterpieces of calligraphic art: the scroll Tiaoxi shi juan 苕溪诗卷冠1088, handwriting shin-shu (Gugong Museum, Beijing), scroll Shu su te 蜀素帖 1088, handwriting shin-shu (Gugong Museum, Taipei), scroll Wuqiang zhou zhong shi 吳江舟中詩1095, handwriting xing-cao (Metropolitan Museum of Art), scroll Hongxian shi 虹縣詩, 1106, handwriting shin-shu (Tokyo National Museum), etc. It is known that Mi Fu himself was most proud of his achievements in the charter of small format, but there are no reliable samples of his charter letter now. Mi Fu only started painting in the last years of his life, after about 1100. None of his paintings have been preserved.

Mi Fu's calligraphy style is so individual that he had no direct predecessors or significant followers, with the exception of his own son Mi Yu-ren米友仁. However, all subsequent generations of calligraphers were inevitably influenced to one degree or another by his creative personality.

As an artist, Mi Fu became famous primarily for landscapes, although he also painted portraits and genre compositions. The original Mi Fu painting style was included in the mandatory set of stylistic interpretations of artists of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Its distinctive features are the abundance of washouts of wet carcass Shi mo 濕墨and modeling shapes using parallel horizontal points heng dian 横点 that received the name Mi dian 米点. The difficulty of drawing these dots was to convey the internal unity of the rhythm of energy circulations, without which the dots looked either like beans strung on a wire, or like a chaotic cluster of blots. In Mi Fu's performance, the oval points of the juicy carcass glowed like stars in the midst of thick fogs, embodying, according to the standards feng shui, energy circulation chi. Mi Fu considered the main goal in painting to be tian zhen 天眞 – the embodiment of "heavenly truth".