Wild
Zhang and Crazy Su; Yan’s Muscles and Liu’s Bones |
| Chinese calligraphy art reached unprecedentedly fluish aspect in Tang Dynasty. Cursive script came into being in Han Dynasty, but is waas current and founded its statuss in Chinese calligraphy in Tang Dynasty. The thriving of cursive script in Tang Dynasty was related greatly to Wile Zhang - Zhang Xv and Creazy Su - Huai Su these two great masters of cursive script. Zhang Xv styled himself Bogao, and he was born in Suzhou in Jiangsu province. He devoted his whole life to cursive script. He was called Wild Su for he was addicted to wine and always in high spirit to write after being drunken. The characters in cursive script and running script wereb seperated and had fixed rules after Zhang Zhi and Wang Xizhi. Zhang Xv inherited Wang Xizhi’s and Wang Xianzhi’s spirit, and was inspired by the sword performance of Madam Gongsun, then he created a kind of free and wild cursive script. The lines of strokes ran flexiblely, the different sizes of characters were distributed perfectly, some strokes of separated characters were connected naturally; these features of his heart-contented handwriting formed a remarkable aesthetic charm and romantic style. What is funny is that Zhang Xv’s regular script was dignified and neat which was completely different from his wile cursive script. Huai Su’s surname was Qian, and first name was Cangzhen. He was born in Changsha in Hunan province, and became a monk ass he was young. He loved calligraphy so much that it is said he even used up 10 thousand Chinese banana trees leaves as substitution of paper, and his steel inkslab was rubbed through. No pains, No gains. Huai Su formed his characteristic wild cursive script style finally. His respective character seems as playing dragons, and as lights breaking the sky. It really shakes people’s heart deeply. While his Xiaocao (a script near to cursive script) followed the rules and seems plain and natural. Oyang
Xiu, Yu Shinan, Chu Suiliang and Xie Ji these four great calligraphers
in early Tang Dynasty were famous for their dignified regular script.
They inherited the stern style of Sui Dynasty (581 - 618), casted away
the gorgeous style of Southern Dynasty (420 - 589), and formed their
unique style. Although these four people served as a link between past
and future, the main figures in calligraphy circle should be Yan Zhenqin
and Liu Gongquan in mid -Tang Dynasty. Yan Zhenqin, who styled himself
Qingchen, was born in Xi'an in Shannxi province. He was also called
Yan Pingyuan or Duke Yan of Lu for he ha been the official of Pingyuan
and was granted as the duke of Lu. He absorbed the techniques of Chu
Suiliang and Zhang Xv, and he discussed how to control the brush with
Huai Su. So after his middle age, he broke through the stiff and thin
style of the four figures in early Tang Dynasty, and created rich -
stroked and strong - structured new writing style that was called Yan
style. He was good at seal script, official script, running script and
cursive script, but most of his works were of regular script, and this
was his strong point. Liu Gongquan this mid - Tang Dynasty calligraphy
styled himself Chengxuan, and he was born in Jingzhao Huayuan. He became
a successful candidate in the highest imperial examination, and had
ever been the highest official beside the crown prince. His handwriting
was learned from many calligraphers, and mainly from Yan Zhenqin. But
he had his own fresh ©1997-2007 中国丝绸之旅国际互联网,版权所有 © 1997-2007 www.travel-silkroad.com, All Rights Reserved |