What is hard pen calligraphy?

Hard pen calligraphy is a kind of calligraphy art with pen, gel pen, artistic pen, pencil and chalk as the main writing tools. In addition, ink or powdery medium is considered as the main carrier. Hard pen calligraphy can be divided into hard pen calligraphy art and practical hard pen calligraphy. The former emphasizes the artistry of writing and pursues the beauty and individuality of writing fonts. The latter emphasizes practicality, and the practical hard pen calligraphy is mainly running script.

According to years of research, Dunhuang hard pen has more than 20,000 pages, mostly paper and silk, including Chinese and more than ten kinds of ancient flags. The main content of this book involves literary works, letters and Buddhist scriptures.

1972, Chinese archaeologists discovered a bamboo pen container at Xixia site in Wuwei City, Gansu Province, which is very similar to Lu pen in shape and material, especially with a notch in the center of the pen tongue, which is in the shape of a double petal and a sharp tip, such as the current pen. In addition, a bamboo cone pen was found in a site in Dunhuang in 199 1 year. On this basis, some scholars assert that there should be a pre-Qin hard pen era in the history of calligraphy in China before the arrival of brush calligraphy in the Western Han Dynasty.