Wang Xizhi (303-36 1), a native of Linyi, is a man of few words. Later, he moved to Yinshan Huiji (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang). He used to be a doctor, a soldier, a secretariat, a civil servant in Huiji and a general in the right army, and was called "Wang Youjun". Later, he said that he was ill and left his job, and he was very comfortable with celebrities in the East. Wang Xizhi was born in a famous family. His uncles Wang Dao, Wang Dun and his father Wang Kuang were all important ministers who once influenced the situation in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
The Wangs were on an equal footing with Sima, the royal family at that time, and had a prominent position. Although Wang Xizhi's father died young and was fostered in his uncle Wang Dao's home, it did not affect his superior living conditions and good learning environment. It is said that he was not good at words when he was a child, but he was good at thinking when he grew up, and he was famous for his backbone.
Wang Xizhi studied Mrs. Wei's calligraphy when he was young, and later got the guidance of his uncle Wang Yu. Many people in his family are good at calligraphy, and uncles Wang Dao and Wang Dun are good at calligraphy. Wang Dao also handed the declaration form to Wang Xizhi, who is known as the "father of Jiangdong Fa Tie", which shows his admiration for Wang Xizhi's calligraphy ability. In such an environment, he was able to learn from others and turn to many teachers for help, and finally "prepared his whole body" and created a new realm of calligraphy art.
Wang Xizhi had a profound influence on later calligraphy. Then, some people want to ask, why did Wang Xizhi's calligraphy more than 1000 years ago have such great influence? Later, many calligraphers made great achievements. Why not take Wang Xizhi instead? This problem should be viewed in the history of calligraphy. First of all, it depends on the development and evolution of Chinese characters. China characters have undergone many great changes in history, and the change from seal script system to official script system is a key change.
Our current Chinese characters should all belong to the official script system, that is, people often say ideographic characters. In later years, there were many varieties of characters in the official script system, such as running script and cursive script, which all happened in the Han Dynasty, and the official script itself eventually evolved into a common regular script today. Before Wang Xizhi, these books had a certain scale, but they were not mature enough.