Model Copying Archives - understand-culture

Tracing Red Characters

描红 To trace the red. A beginner’s exercise in calligraphy. The learner follows model characters in red with an ink brush, stroke by stroke.

临摹 To copy. The Song scholar Huang Bosi explained: lin is to copy with the model beside the paper, mo to trace with thin paper laid over it. The Guoyu dictionary calls both “the path every beginner in calligraphy must take.”

字帖 A copybook. The model that learners of calligraphy copy.

范文 A model essay. A text held up in teaching as an example to learn from.

口传心授 Passed on by mouth, received by the heart. The Ming scholar Xie Jin wrote: “In learning calligraphy, without passing on by mouth and receiving by heart, one cannot reach its refinement.”

Three Hundred Tang Poems

Three Hundred Tang Poems was compiled by Sun Zhu, who called himself Hengtang Tuishi. It holds 311 poems in six volumes and was first printed in 1764. A saying about it is still quoted: 熟读唐诗三百首，不会作诗也会吟 “Read the three hundred Tang poems until they are familiar, and even a person who cannot compose poems will be able to chant them.”

One variant ends differently. Such a person “will also be able to make up verses.”

The Mustard Seed Garden Manual

The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, named after Li Yu’s villa in Nanjing, first appeared in 1679. It sets out in detail the techniques for painting landscapes, plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum, and flowers, birds and insects. The bibliographer Zhao Wanli called it “a bridge to the study of painting, used by most beginners.” Huang Binhong, Qi Baishi, Pan Tianshou and Fu Baoshi all used it as a model to learn from.

Before his travels, Qi Baishi’s landscapes followed mainly the manual and the style of the Four Wangs. On learning from others, he said: “I learn from others. I do not imitate them. What I learn is the spirit of brush and ink, whether the outward form looks alike or not.”

The Six Principles of Painting

In the Southern Qi dynasty, the painter Xie He wrote the Classified Record of Ancient Painters. Its preface explains that the ranking of paintings is a matter of their merits, and names six principles that few painters master in full. The first is qiyun shengdong, spirit resonance and life. The sixth is chuanyi moxie, transmission by copying models.

Copies of the Orchid Pavilion

Wang Xizhi’s Orchid Pavilion Preface is called “the finest running script under heaven.” When Emperor Taizong of Tang obtained the original, he ordered Yu Shinan, Chu Suiliang, Feng Chengsu, Ouyang Xun and others to copy it, and gave the copies to princes and close officials.

Taizong’s last will ordered the original buried with him. Of the surviving copies, the Shenlong copy, identified as the work of Feng Chengsu, is considered the best. It is in the Palace Museum.

What is known today as the Orchid Pavilion Preface is a copy.

Model Operas

On May 31, 1967, a People’s Daily editorial named eight “revolutionary model works,” geming yangbanxi, then playing in Beijing. Five were Peking operas, among them Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy and The Red Lantern. Two were ballets, The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl. One was the symphonic Shajiabang.

From 1969 to 1972, they were filmed for release across the country. More than 300 forms of local opera adapted them. Filming, recording and adaptation were all strictly required not to depart from the model. A saying went: “Eight hundred million people, eight shows.”

Learn From Dazhai

On February 10, 1964, People’s Daily published an article called “The Road of Dazhai” (大寨之路) about the advanced deeds of the people of Dazhai, a village in Shanxi. An editorial titled “A Good Model for Building Mountain Areas With Revolutionary Spirit” called on the whole country to learn the revolutionary spirit of the Dazhai people. The slogan became “In industry, learn from Daqing. In agriculture, learn from Dazhai.”

Sayings on Masters

名师出高徒 A famous master turns out outstanding disciples.

青出于蓝 Blue comes from the indigo plant. The dye is deeper than the plant it comes from. Said of a student who surpasses the teacher. (Xunzi, Encouraging Learning)

Lei Feng

During basic training, the young soldier Lei Feng did many good deeds in his camp and in the city of Yingkou without leaving his name (做好事不留名). He died on duty in 1962, at the age of 21. On March 5, 1963, Mao Zedong wrote the inscription “Learn from Comrade Lei Feng,” and March 5 became Learn from Lei Feng Day.

His diary, found and published after his death, contains the line “I want to be a screw forever” (我愿永远做一个螺丝钉).