Why does Wang Xizhi, a god-level figure in the history of Chinese calligraphy, have no authentic works handed down to the world?

According to historical research, the main reason why Wang Xizhi’s authentic calligraphy has not been preserved is that Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy is loved by many people, especially some royal nobles. As history develops, the current situation will also change. During the changes, Wang Xizhi's authentic works were not well protected and disappeared with the decline of the country.

Wang Xizhi was a very famous calligrapher during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and his "Preface to the Lanting Collection" is known as the "best running script in the world". At that time, Wang Xizhi was very famous. His calligraphy was very valuable and many people collected it. There are two reasons for the destruction of the original work. The first reason is that there were many imitations of Wang Xizhi's calligraphy at that time, and the paper on which the writing was written was even made to look old in order to pass it off as Wang Xizhi's original work.

At that time, Wang Xizhi's calligraphy was also highly praised by the palace nobles, and the calligraphy of Wang Xizhi in the world was also collected in the palace. However, Wang Xizhi's calligraphy is a mixed bag, and there is still a certain degree of distinction between fakes and authentic works. Especially for the "The Best Running Script in the World" preface to the Lanting Collection, these royal nobles highly praised it, but there were also some intrigues in it. Call the genuine work a fake and call the fake a genuine work. From this point of view, there are some authentic works included in the destruction process. So this is also one of the reasons for the destruction of authentic works.

On the other hand, monarchs and emperors of all dynasties since the Eastern Jin Dynasty have collected some of Wang Xizhi's calligraphy works. However, the phenomenon of changing dynasties also occurs very frequently. Whenever this happens, it will cause very serious damage to some precious calligraphy works. There will be two situations. The first situation is that the monarch of the country is unwilling to leave these precious calligraphy works to other countries, so he destroys these calligraphy works. The other situation is that the enemy destroys these calligraphy works when he invades the country. The work was taken away, and there was no more content. Therefore, the calligraphy works of Wang Xizhi we see now are all copied, and the original works cannot be found.