The weight of the pen and the size of the font are almost a major feature of many famous calligraphers. However, in the same work, Su Shi's calligraphy can be said to be unique in that there is a huge difference in font size. For example, in "Han Shi Tie", there are three words: "cry Tu Qiong". These three characters occupy a larger proportion than the five characters in the previous line. This disparity in the size of the fonts gives people a strong visual impact, and actually expresses a strong emotion during the writing process at that time. This situation is also reflected in "Wuchang Xishan Poems".
"Huangzhou Cold Food Post" is the representative work of Su Shi's running script. This is a poem of joy and excitement, which is the sigh of life written by Su Shi on the Cold Food Festival in the third year after he was demoted to Huangzhou.
The poem is desolate and sentimental, expressing Su Shi's melancholy and loneliness at this time. The calligraphy of this poem was inspired by this mood and situation. The calligraphy throughout the text has ups and downs, the strokes are stretched, radiant, and unrestrained, without any rash strokes. "Huangzhou Cold Food Poems" has a great influence on the history of calligraphy. It is called "the third running script in the world" and is also the best among Su Shi's calligraphy works.
In modern times, the fate of "Huangzhou Cold Food Poems" has become bumpy and bizarre. In the 10th year of Xianfeng reign of the Qing Dynasty (1860), the British and French forces burned down the Old Summer Palace, and "Han Shi Tie" was almost burned. It was immediately exiled to the people and was acquired by Feng Zhanyun. Later, it traveled to Japan and was acquired by Japanese collector Kikuchi Hōtō. In September 1923, the great earthquake in Tokyo, Japan, devastated the Kikuchi family, and almost all the calligraphy and paintings of ancient famous people were destroyed. At that time, Kikuchi Xingtang risked his life to rescue "Han Shi Tie" from the fire, which became a good story for a while. During World War II, Tokyo was repeatedly bombed by the U.S. Air Force, but "Han Shi Tie" was fortunately unharmed.