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This title was given to the renowned calligrapher Wang Xizhi, who lived from 303 to 361 (or possibly 307-365 or 321-379) of the Eastern Jin Period. The word "sage" here refers to a person of supreme attainment. People in ancient China tended to honor a person with an exceptional talent or skill as a "sage" in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments, prominent achievements, and profound influence. The term "Sage of Calligraphy" not only highlights Wang Xizhi’s superb mastery of calligraphic art but also commended his moral integrity. By carefully studying the features of calligraphy, and by imitating and practicing, Wang learned widely from the strong points of others. He was extraordinarily good at all four major forms of calligraphy – clerical script, cursive script, regular script, and running script. His calligraphy abandoned the special traits popular in the Han and Wei dynasties and formed a style of his own. His most noted and famous work, "Preface to the Collection of Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion" has been honored through the ages as the best running script ever written. Promoted by Xiao Yan (464-549), Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty, Li Shimin (599-649), Emperor Taizong of the Tang, and Zhao Guangyi (939-997), Emperor Taizong of the Song, there appeared three upsurges of emulating Wang’s calligraphy on a massive scale. Hence his prestige as the greatest calligrapher of all times.
This term refers to an artistic state wherein a calligraphic artist pursues a unity between body and soul through calligraphic creation, so that he may embrace the truths about the universe and life. It was influenced by Confucius (551-479 BC) who said: “[Cultivated people] should follow dao, adhere to virtues, embrace benevolence, and are well versed in various arts and skills.” It was influenced even more by Zhuangzi’s (369? -286 BC) aesthetic view, “If we can achieve perfection in a particular area of skill, we come close to the great Way itself.” The calligrapher aims higher than the mere art of calligraphy, aspiring to attain the great Way by transcending calligraphy as a mere skill or form of art. By the Tang Dynasty, because calligraphers put more emphasis on the different forms and skills of calligraphy, they started to use a new term “calligraphic technique.” Calligraphic technique represented an initial stage of calligraphy – a tangible, superficial and somewhat “lower” level. The calligraphic Way, on the other hand, was an advanced stage of calligraphic technique, paying attention to universal, abstract and therefore much “higher” aspects of calligraphy. This latter concept spread to Japan and took on the broader implications of self-cultivation and enlightenment later on. It, in turn, influenced the development of modern Chinese calligraphic art.
Regular script is one of the scripts of Chinese characters, also known as “proper script,” “true script,” or “model script.” To reduce the curviness and waviness of Han Dynasty clerical script, rectify the undisciplined and unregulated cursive script, facilitate writing and enhance intelligibility, calligraphers shifted toward a simpler style of writing, making both horizontal and vertical lines straighter. Thus, it evolved into the regular script. Characters written in this style looked neat and well laid out, upright and square, showing due reverence for rules governing the writing of calligraphy. This is precisely how it came to be called “model script.” It first emerged toward the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, became better known in the Wei and Jin dynasties, and fully matured and became widely accepted in the Tang Dynasty. It has been flourishing to this day. If divided by historical periods, regular script falls into two styles: Wei stone tablet regular script and Tang regular script. The former represented a transition from clerical script to regular script over the Wei, Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties period. The latter was Tang style regular script. Gaining its maturity in the Tang Dynasty, it witnessed many great calligraphers rising to fame, including Yu Shinan (558-638), Ouyang Xun (557-641), and Chu Suiliang (596-658 or 659) in the first years of the Tang Dynasty, Yan Zhenqing (708-784) in the mid-Tang Dynasty and Liu Gongquan (778-865) in the last years of the same dynasty. These calligraphers have since been honored as paragons of Chinese calligraphy. Numerous practitioners have been using their calligraphic works as models of calligraphy through the ages.
Running script is a calligraphic form between cursive script and regular script. A Chinese character written in the style of running script retains the basic structure of characters written in official script. Running script features smoothly-linked strokes, and the characters written in this style are easy to recognize. Generally, people believe that running script was created by Liu Desheng of the Eastern Han Dynasty and became popular in the Wei and Jin eras. This writing style reminds one of drifting clouds and flowing water. It has no fixed arrangement for the radicals of a character and can be executed with any writing tools. The same characters written in this style by different people are different in appearance. The best-known masterpieces in this style are Wang Xizhi’s (303-361, or 307-365, 321-379) “Preface to the Collection of Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion,” Yan Zhenqing’s (708-784) “Draft Elegy to Nephew Ming,” and Su Shi’s (1037-1101) “The Cold Food Observance.” They are distinctive in style and have great aesthetic value.
The Northern and Southern schools represent two distinctive styles of ancient Chinese calligraphy. Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072) and Zhao Mengjian (1199-1267) of the Song Dynasty, and Chen Yixi (1648-1709) and He Zhuo (1661-1722) of the Qing explored the differences of these two styles. Later, Ruan Yuan (1764-1849), also of the Qing Period, addressed this issue with clarity and at depth in his “On the Southern and Northern Styles of Calligraphy.” In his view, both styles originated with Zhong Yao (151-230, from late Han to the early Three Kingdoms Period) and Wei Guan (220-291, the Three Kingdoms Period), while Suo Jing (239-303, the Western Jin Dynasty) was the founder of the northern style. The Northern School features calligraphic inscriptions on stones, which displays a primitive simplicity of the official script of the Han Dynasty. The southern style, on the other hand, is mostly found on paper and, rather than following the seal script of the Qin or the clerical script of the Han, adopts the regular script of the late Han, the semi-cursive script of the Western Jin or the cursive script increasingly popular over a much longer period of time. It is charming and beautiful.
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