People have long since turned to using ballpoint pens for convenience's sake. So-called "hard-pen calligraphy" is done with a fountain pen. Although its strokes are the same, a fountain pen is incapable of a hair brush's maneuverability. As calligrapher Tu Chung-kao puts it, "If calligraphy were architecture, then writing with a fountain pen would merely be the steel framework."
以今天人們為了書寫方便，早已全面改用原子筆為例，所謂的「硬筆書法」，是用鋼筆來寫書法，雖然筆法相同，但鋼筆就是無法如毛筆揮灑自如，書法家杜忠誥形容「如果書法是建築物，硬筆書法寫出來的只是建築物的鋼架而已。」