The famous calligrapher who lived in the troubled times of the Five Dynasties, in order to avoid disasters and protect himself, often pretended to be crazy and sold silly, and was honored as "Yang Madman" by the world, but his calligraphy works were highly praised by people. Su Shi, a famous poet, once commented that Yang Ningshi's calligraphy is vigorous and powerful, comparable to Yan Zhenqing's attainments, and both of them have integrity symbols. The reason for this is that Yang Ningshi's environment is somewhat similar to that of Yan Zhenqing, because the calligraphy style is closely related to the calligrapher's environment, which makes people, and people's personality is reflected in calligraphy.
Even Huang Tingjian believes that in the five hundred years since the Jin Dynasty, after the calligraphy of the "two kings", only Yan Zhenqing and Yang Ningshi's calligraphy is the most perfect calligrapher who absorbed the essence of the calligraphy of the "two kings", and no one in the world can compare with Yan Zhenqing and Yang Ningshi.
Yang Ningshi's regular script has the style of Xiao San in Jin Dynasty, and his cursive script is also wonderful. His cursive script "Immortal Living Method" was posted at will, changed without reason, and a cursive script was added, which was later called "Rain and Snow".
Among them, Yang Ningshi's masterpiece is Jiuhua Tie, the font is between running script and regular script, which breaks the situation of emphasizing law and body in Tang Dynasty and has a loose and clear feeling. Yang Ningshi's calligraphy works played an important role in Song Dynasty's calligraphy, so Song Sijia's calligraphy was deeply influenced by Yang Ningshi. As mentioned above, this is Yang Ningshi's influence in calligraphy.