As a kind of calligraphy art, North stele was not paid attention to until the middle of Qing Dynasty, when Ruan Yuan, a famous master of park studies in Qing Dynasty, continued to advocate it, and the so-called stele study became popular in the late Qing Dynasty and later. However, Ruan Yuan's On the School of North-South Calligraphy holds that truth, line and cursive script can be divided into two schools from Zhong You and Wei. One is the southern school, that is, the calligraphy creation of Erwang, Zhiyong and Yu Shinan; The first is the calligraphy creation of the Northern School, namely Suo Jing, Cui Yue, Ou Yangxun and Chu Suiliang. He thinks that the southern school is longer than Dai Qi and the northern school is longer than the plaque. On the surface, most of the posts of later generations collected books from the Southern Dynasties, and most of them were inscriptions in the Northern Dynasties. However, the inscriptions in the Southern Dynasties, such as Lv Chao's epitaph (Nanqi) and Lian Xiao's monument (Liang), are no different from those in the North. The inscriptions on lacquer paintings in Sima Jinlong's tomb in the Northern Wei Dynasty are also very similar to those in the Southern Dynasties. There are also several famous stone carvings, such as the Dragon Face Monument in Yunnan, the Daidai Kazuki Watanabe musician Temple Monument in Shaanxi and the Song Gaoling Temple Monument in Henan. The geographical differences between north and south are thousands of miles, and the calligraphy styles are quite similar. So it doesn't make much sense to simply divide the South School and the North School. When talking about Zhang Menglong Monument and Yi Monument, Mr. Wang said: "Liang carved Yi in Jiao Shan, Zhenjiang, and Wei carved Zhang Menglong Monument in Qufu, Shandong. When carving a book, the two political groups confronted each other, with "island" and "Lu" endless, but the style of writing was not. Understanding China culture, although there may be regional differences, will not affect China Datong. Judging from the original work, Yi Heming beat sand with water and was completely bald, as strict as Zhang Menglong's stippling. Judging from the structure of calligraphy, if the words with the same focus are crane, bird, float, sky and so on. That is, the radicals are slightly different, but there is no difference in posture. I know there are differences between the northern and southern calligraphy schools, but I am not the one to judge the differences. Today, there are ink marks written by the Six Dynasties in Dunhuang, and there are also many traces of Confucian classics in the north and south. There is no distinction between Jing and Wei, except that Ruan Yuan wrote the' North-South Book School', and there are many useless words. " (See "On Poetry")
There is no difference between the southern school and the northern school in calligraphy in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. As far as the situation was concerned, the north and the south were in a state of division. Since Wei and Jin Dynasties, aristocratic families have moved southward. Relatively speaking, the culture in the south is much more developed than that in the north, and the artistic level of calligraphy is also higher than that in the north. This is an indisputable fact. On the surface, there are great differences between the North Monument and the South Monument, but this difference is mainly because the North Monument generally has two processes: lettering and knife engraving. So this kind of work is actually a kind of handicraft which is very different from ink painting. On this point, Mr. Sha Menghai also explained, saying, "Generally, the words on stone tablets are written first and then engraved. Book critics have never separated words from prints. In my opinion, writers have advantages and disadvantages, and sculptors have advantages and disadvantages. As far as the North Monument is concerned, Zhang Menglong, Master Gen, Zhang Xuan and Gao Guiyan are all good writers and engravers. Song Gaoling Temple, Yan, and Li Mohe are all good writers, but they are poor engravers. Zheng Changyou, General Guangwu and He Tunzhi are all poorly written and engraved. ..... When learning calligraphy, we must pay attention to the advantages and disadvantages of hand engraving. Gao Changguo's Painting Couples Bricks (546 AD, 12th year of Western Wei Dynasty) was unearthed in Xinjiang. The first five lines were painted by himself, and Dan Shu was engraved. The last three lines were written by his wife Zhang, but only Dan Shu was not engraved. Three years later, it is not known whether anyone wrote, but the last three lines of calligraphy were written in the same way as we do today. After the first five lines were carved, they became pens and lost the traces of writing. " This is very instructive for us to understand the characteristics of the calligraphy art of inscriptions.
From the perspective of the history of calligraphy art, the North Monument is actually a transitional calligraphy style from Lishu to Tang Kai. Compared with Nanba, the appearance of regular script in the outer circle and the inner circle of the North Monument has its inherent development reasons. This is mainly for practical purposes. The inscription on the tablet should be solemn and easy to identify, and the knife carving should have the characteristics of Fang Bi, so that it is convenient to handle the knife and form the overall characteristics of the North Monument. On the other hand, although there are many calligraphers in the North Monument, generally speaking, the artistry of the North Monument cannot be compared with that of Nantie, nor can it be compared with the mature regular script in the Tang Dynasty. Otherwise, it would not be so neglected in Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and even the early Qing Dynasty. Of course, the North Monument has its own style and characteristics, which is a phased achievement in the history of calligraphy development. Kang Youwei's "respecting the monument" in Guang Yi and Zhou Shuang Talk cannot be said to be unreasonable, but it is also unnecessary to "humble the Tang Dynasty". For those who study the art of calligraphy, they have to know that when writing an inscription, they should "look at the pen through the blade", and if they don't peel off the skin carved by the knife, they will be fooled. Of course, if someone just wants to use a soft brush to pursue the so-called "golden stone flavor" or even write the "wind stripping and rain erosion" flavor on the ancient monument, that is another matter.