中國的文字與書法藝術 (一)

各位先生 , 各位女士 : 今天我感到非常榮幸 , 在這裡和各位談一談「 中國的文字與書法藝術」

今天我要演講的內容，有下列五點：

一、中國文字的起源。

二、中國文字的演變與字數。

四、書法與文學的關係。

五、中國書法，為何成為藝術？

六、中國書法的學習－臨摹、讀帖、個人風格的養成。

( 一 ) 中國文字的起源

文字是人類用來表達意思的工具，在語言文字還沒有發明之前，人類最初只能用姿勢來彼此表達意思，但因人類的思想情意相當複雜，所能做出的姿勢，又十分簡單有限，人類便想到用聲音來表達意思，這樣便形成了語言。後來，人類感覺到語言仍然受著空間和時間的限制，距離稍遠，或時間稍久，便無從傳達或記憶，人類就想到用結繩來記事，用圖畫去傳達給較遠的人，古代各民族都用結繩或圖畫而創始文字，中國自然也不例外，所以自古以來，中國有著與這推想相合的傳說，便是，

伏羲時畫卦

神農時結繩

黃帝時初創文字

當時，黃帝有一位史官，名叫倉頡，參與從事創造文字工作，一般把他看作創造中國文字的代表，事實上造字工作，絕不是一個人所能完成的，時間是在西元前二六七四到二五七五年。至於黃帝時代的文字，在考古上雖然還沒有發現，但從清朝光緒二十五年 ( 西元一八九九年 ) 安陽出土的殷墟甲骨文字來看，字形已經相當整齊，書寫上也有很高的技巧，不像初創的形狀，而且字數已經達到幾千個字，顯然不是短時間所能創造出來的，所以可以推想在甲骨文以前，已經有一段時間的發展過程，因此我們可以這樣推斷：

中國文字：開端於黃帝以前。

大備於殷商。 ( 西元前一七五一～一七三九年 )

盛行於周朝以後。 ( 西元前一一○五年 )

因之，我們可以認為最少距離現在四千七百年以前，中國已經有文字出現，到殷代，中國象形寫意文字，已經不太和表現的原物很像，也就是已經從畫圖描摹的美，發展到文字書寫的美了。

Ladies and gentlemen:

 It is indeed my great honour to come here today to discuss with you “Chinese Calligraphy and its relationship with Chinese Literature and Arts”

 The content of my presentation today can summarise into the following 7 points:

 The origin of Chinese characters

1. The development of Chinese characters

2. The number of Chinese characters

3. The relationship between Chinese Calligraphy and Literature

4. Why is Chinese Calligraphy a form of Art?

5. How to learn Chinese Calligraphy－from imitating and reading of scripts to the development of personal styles

    6. How to learn Chinese Calligraphy－from imitating and reading 

        of  scripts to the development of personal styles 

 I shall now first of all talk about the origin of Chinese characters.

Language and words are tools used by the human race to express feelings and ideas. Before language and words were invented, people originally could only express themselves via body language. But the human mind and emotions are extremely complex compared to somewhat simple and limited forms of body language, and thus people started to use sound as a way to express, and it developed into language. Later, it was realized that language still had limitations, it was difficult to get messages across a distance and after a while things disappear from the memory, so people thought of tieing knots on ropes to record thing and drawing pictures to send messages to people faraway.

Therefore many ethnic groups used the knot tieing on ropes and picture drawing

Before they’re written language was developed, and the Chinese was no exception. There has been this saying since ancient times: “ drawing of the diagrams in 伏羲times, knot-tieing on ropes in 神農 times, and invention of the first written words in the time of Yellow Emperor (BC2665).” The Yellow Emperor had a senior official called 倉頡. Just just one person did not do the invention of a written language, but 倉頡 is regarded as the representative for the invention of the Chinese written language in BC 2674 to 2575.

 As to the actual written language invented before the time of the Yellow emperor, although there isn’t sufficient archeological evidence, we can tell from the bone carving on objects from the BC 殷 dynasty found in the late 清 dynasty in 1899 that the character forms were already very clear and neat, with a high level of writing techniques already achieved, and the total number of characters had already reached several thousands, and was a result clearly unachievable in a short period of time. Therefore even before the period of development. So we come to the following summary:

 Chinese written language:

             Originated before the time of the Yellow Emperor (Before BC 2700)

             Main development occurred in the 殷 dynasty (BC 1751－1739)

             Widely used by the 周 dynasty (BC 1111-1105)

 It is widely reckoned that the earliest form of Chinese written language appeared at least 4700 years before present day. The pictographs and metaphoricals of the 殷 dynasty already looked not so similar to the objects they denote, so already the characters had evolved from the simple imitation of pictures of objects to the sheer beauty of writing.

待續