The story about Ouyang Xun:
1. Ouyang Xun lingered to view the monument
Ouyang Xun, the great calligrapher of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in Xinben, Linxiang, Tanzhou (today's A native of Changsha, Hunan, he practiced calligraphy very hard, learned from others' strengths, and was proficient in eight kinds of calligraphy. He developed his own style, known as "European style". Once, when he was returning from a mission, he rode through a deserted wilderness and found a stone tablet written by Suo Jing, a calligrapher of the Western Jin Dynasty, among the tangled grass. He stopped to watch it for a long time and was reluctant to leave. After walking a few miles, he came back, dismounted and sat in front of the monument to watch carefully and appreciate the beauty of Suo Jing's cursive script.
That night, he returned to his residence and stayed awake all night, thinking about the stone monument he saw during the day. The next day, at dawn, he rode horseback to the stone tablet, pondered over it, spread out the paper, and copied it stroke by stroke. In this way, he stayed next to the monument for three days and three nights. It was not until Suo Jing's cursive calligraphy was fully understood that he left happily.
2. Ouyang Xun devoted himself to learning the calligraphy of the "Two Kings"
Ouyang Xun, a famous calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty, especially loved the calligraphy of the "Two Kings" (Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi). As long as he saw Wang Xizhi and his son I bought the ink marks and studied them. One day, he saw a copy of "Zhigui Tu" written by Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi. He spent a lot of money to buy it and kept it at home to watch and study it every day. He was often so happy that he couldn't sleep all night. He studied for a whole month until he understood the essence of "Zhigui Tu".
3. Ouyang Tong studied hard to learn from his father's calligraphy
Ouyang Tong, also known as Shitong. He is Ouyang Xun's fourth son. His father died when he was very young. His mother, Xu, taught him that he must learn to inherit his father's calligraphy. She was afraid that her son would be lazy and unwilling to learn calligraphy, so she often gave Ouyang Tong some money to remove the ink marks left by his father. After Ouyang Tong bought these ink marks, he was like a treasure, studying and copying hard, and determined to make his own Words can also be collected by someone like my father.
After many years of hard study, he inherited his father's calligraphy. People call the calligraphy of father and son "big and small Ouyang style".
Main achievements
Responsed to the call to compile books
In the fifth year of Emperor Wude (622 AD), Ouyang Xun responded to the imperial edict and co-presided over the compilation of "Art and Literature Collection" 》. It took seven years for the book to be completed, and I wrote the preface. The whole book consists of 100 volumes and is divided into 48 parts. This book cites more than 1,400 ancient books, most of which were later lost. Many important contents of these books have been preserved in Yiwen Leiju.
Achievements in calligraphy
Ouyang Xun is not only a master of calligraphy, but also a calligraphy theorist. In his long-term calligraphy practice, he summed up eight methods for practicing calligraphy. Ouyang Xun The "Teaching Techniques", "On the Use of Brushwork", "Eight Techniques" and "Thirty-six Methods" are all summaries of his own experience in learning calligraphy. They summarized in a more specific way the skills and skills of calligraphy such as the use of brushes, structure, composition and other forms of calligraphy. Aesthetic requirements are a precious legacy of Chinese calligraphy theory.