As an innovator of calligraphy, Wang Xizhi's main achievements are in running script and cursive script. He inherited Cao Zhang, improved Zhong Kai and created a brand-new running script. Wang Xizhi's most outstanding contribution in the field of calligraphy is known as "the sage of calligraphy", and his representative works are "the best calligraphy in the world"-preface to Lanting Collection and sunny post in the snow.
Wang Xianzhi's contribution to the art of calligraphy is, first of all, to inherit his father's style, and with great courage and wisdom, he broke out of his father's fence and created a "big order style" for starting a business. He used the method of "outreach", that is, showing the front first, then hiding the front, and opening the business with brushwork, giving people a sense of beauty in one go. In terms of fonts, Wang Xianzhi broke the boundary between regular script and cursive script, and created two new styles, regular script and cursive script, which were later called "broken style". His masterpiece Mid-Autumn Festival Post is a typical cursive script, with strokes connected and blood connected in one go.
Judging from the history of China's calligraphy criticism, Xiaoping's previous book reviews and admiration for Zhong You and Erwang were not very prominent. For example, in the Southern Song Dynasty, Wang Xi's "Figures of Ancient and Modern Times", Zhongyou was after the middle volume, and the two kings were after the second volume; In Yang Xin's book review, Zhong You and Er Wang are also mixed in a series of calligraphers, and their faces are rather vague; Only Yu Lan's "On Book Table" begins: "Han Wei Zhong and Zhang Shan are beautiful; At the end of Jin Dynasty, the two kings called Britain. " However, no specific opinions were put forward.
Later, Wang Sengqian in the Southern Dynasties evaluated a series of calligraphers, but there was no special evaluation on Zhong You and Erwang. Yuan Ang's Book Review of Ancient and Modern Times lists Wang Xizhi as the first article and Wang Xianzhi as the second. In Xiao Yan's On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Ancient and Modern Scholars, Zhong You was listed as the first article. He secretly commented: "Zhong You's books are like clouds, swimming in the sky and playing in the sea." Wang Xizhi is listed in the second article at the beginning of the article, and the "Yue Long Tiger Lying" in Yuan Zhu is transferred to Wang Xizhi. In this way, Zhong and Wang became the first calligraphers in a series. Therefore, it can be said that the establishment of the historical status of Zhong You and Erwang is mainly due to the group of book critics with Xiao Yan as the core.
The comparative evaluation of images advocated by Xiao Yan, Yuan Ang and others can be regarded as a way of poetic acceptance, which has a far-reaching impact on calligraphy criticism in later generations. From Lu Zongxu's book review in the Tang Dynasty to Kang Youwei's comments on tablets in the Qing Dynasty, they are all branded with Xiao's comments or Yuan's comments ~