The heyday of calligraphy 1: a brief introduction to calligraphy in Tang Dynasty
The culture of the Tang Dynasty was profound and brilliant, reaching the peak of China's feudal culture, which can be described as "books flourished in the early Tang Dynasty". There were more ink marks in the Tang Dynasty than in the previous generation, and a large number of inscriptions left precious calligraphy works. The calligraphy of the whole Tang Dynasty is the inheritance and innovation of the previous generation. Regular script, running script and cursive script all entered a new situation in the Tang Dynasty, with outstanding characteristics of the times, and their influence on later generations far exceeded that of any previous era.
At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the national strength was strong, and calligraphy took off from the legacy of the Six Dynasties. Everyone took Ou Yangxun as a regular script. Yu Shinan Chu Suiliang, Xue Ji and Ouyang Tong are the mainstream of calligraphy. The general feature is that the structure is rigorous and neat, so the essays of later generations are called "the crown of calligraphy in Tang Dynasty" and were once honored as "the crown of calligraphy in Han Dynasty" and continued to the prosperous Tang Dynasty. With the combination of Confucianism and Taoism, Li Yong changed the style of the Right Army and became unique. Zhang Xu and Huai Su pushed the cursive performance to the extreme with their drunkenness. Zhang Xu is known as the "sage of cursive" in history, and Sun Caoshu is famous for his elegance and agility. Yan Zhenqing, on the other hand, absorbed the ancient law from the new ideas and bred new methods from the old ones. Dong Qichang said that Duke Lu made great preparations for learning from books in the Tang Dynasty. Late Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties, the national situation declined, Shen Chuanshi. Liu Gongquan changed the model law again. Expose your thinness and strength. It further enriched the method, and in the Five Dynasties, it used Yan and Liu at the same time. When the two kings acceded to the throne, the flanks took a stance and made great efforts. Therefore, when they left the troubled times, they all fought alone in the image of Rao Chengping, which is also the light of Tang books. On the occasion of the Five Dynasties, crazy Zen became popular, which also affected the calligraphy circle. "Crazy Zen Calligraphy" did not show a large scale in the Five Dynasties, but it had a great influence on calligraphy in the Song Dynasty.
The art of calligraphy in Tang Dynasty can be divided into three periods: early Tang, middle Tang and late Tang. In the early Tang Dynasty, inheritance was the mainstay, statutes were respected, and the beauty of gold calligraphy was deliberately pursued. In the middle Tang Dynasty, innovation continued and it was extremely prosperous. Calligraphy also improved in the late Tang Dynasty.
There were six kinds of institutions of higher learning in the Tang Dynasty, namely imperial academy, Imperial College, Four Schools, Law, Calligraphy and Mathematics. Among them, it is a pioneering work in the Tang Dynasty to train calligraphers and calligraphers. Famous artists come forth in large numbers, Starlight Glimmer. Such as Ou Yangxun, Yu Shinan and Chu Suiliang in the early Tang Dynasty; Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan were both great calligraphers in the middle Tang Dynasty. In the late Tang Dynasty, there were Wang Wenbing's seal script, Li E's regular script and Yang Ningshi's "Two Kings Yan Liu" aftertaste.