在複製的時代看書法臨摹及其可能

Calligraphy Coping and Its Possibilities in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

臨摹碑帖是傳統書法入門的必經階段，因為文字是由人類理性所創造，是抽象的智性工具。書寫物質可以取自大自然，但筆法和字形必須得自歷代書跡和人的傳授，無法直接在自然中取得其形象，雖然書寫意識和線條造形常以自然萬物為比喻。透過碑帖等經典書法字跡加以模仿練習，逐步了解字形創造及書寫運動的原理，這是所有書法家必經的歷程，無一例外，換言之，不存在看不出其書法來歷的書法家，所有書法作品都有其前代書跡的影響，以「似與不似」作為融會各家風格的高超展現，這種作用類似於人類家族基因延續的相似性，說明人文思想的延續不是斷裂性思考，在「似與不似」之間，其實正保有調適環境變動的積極思考作用，若以臨摹為刻意模仿，是現代複製觀念下的誤解，也不明白書法實踐的道理。至於碑帖的製造及其讀法與運用，以及毛筆吸收拓本上對刀法所形成線條的風格特性，石刻與拓本生成的關係和各自的閱讀意義，這些都是書法實踐的核心問題，在此分別加以說明。當前的書寫環境是：機器手臂可以生產製造書寫產品；電腦透過資料運算可以寫詩，所以，人類作為書寫者－文字的生產傳播者，當前及未來的可能身分是：延續執筆書寫的繼承者；程式設計者；在廠協助機器的維護人力，或者是不斷衍生的各種可能。

Copying exemplary works from reputed masters is the elementary stage the calligraphy apprentice has to go through. Characters, rationally invented by human beings, are but abstract, intellectual symbols. The invention of material symbols can be derived from nature, that is, the ideology of writing and the form it produces are often provoked by the material world. Nevertheless, the strokes and the shape of a character can only be taught by calligraphers themselves and by the act of copying their works. Without exception, copying is the requisite stage all apprentices need to undergo so as to realize the ways how a character has been given a form and how its writing is related to kinetics. In other words, all calligraphy works definitely show the traces of their previous parameters. All calligraphic works are indeed the supreme, synthesized performances oscillating from the end of“likeness”to that of“unlikeness.”One can thus say calligraphy bears the feature of affinity that can be likened to the function of the human gene. This explains well the continuality of humanistic thinking. The act of copying also has a reason: it is positively adaptable to the change of time and space. It is wrong to regard copying as the mere imitation of exemplary works. Such a misunderstanding might be caused by the notion of the art in the age of mechanical reproduction when the practice of calligraphy is wrongfully conceived. The core issues of the practice of calligraphy are the production, reading, and application of exemplary works, the interpretation of the linear texture the calligrapher lets his brush move and turn while copying, and the relation between stone carving inscriptions and its coping as well as their individualities. The author of this paper is concerned about calligraphic writing in the contemporary age of mechanical reproduction. The mechanical arm can produce all kinds of products about writing nowadays, and mechanical robots can compose poems out of deliberate computing. Inevitably, the possible identities of human beings, at the present and in the future, can be the inherited writer, the computing program designer and the manpower needed for the service of machines, their maintainer, and some other sinister possibilities.