There are also many bamboo slips, paper and ink unearthed in the northwest region during the Wei, Jin and Sixteen Kingdoms period, among which the famous "Loulan document scraps" have been unearthed in the ancient Loulan site in Xinjiang since the beginning of the 20th century. This is the residence and place of the highest military and political chief who governed the Western Regions during the Wei, Jin, Western Jin and Liang Qian Dynasties. These pieces of paper were written by officials in the border areas. Due to the dry local climate, paper and ink are still intact after thousands of years and are very important calligraphy materials. Loulan documents are rich in broken paper fonts, reflecting the colorful characteristics of font evolution in Wei and Jin Dynasties.
China calligraphy art has also been widely spread and developed in Loulan area. Loulan calligraphy in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties has distinct regional characteristics and extremely high original aesthetic value. Loulan's calligraphy occupies an important position in the whole history of China calligraphy art in terms of quantity, quality and time sequence. Among the traditional calligraphy treasures, there are few ink marks in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the discovery of hundreds of loulan paper documents in Wei and Jin Dynasties has filled many gaps in the history of Chinese calligraphy art.
Most of the wooden slips in Wei and Jin Dynasties were excavated from the site of Guloulan. At the beginning of the 20th century, Stein and other scientists in northwest China successively excavated many wooden slips in the former site of Loulan and its surrounding areas.
Compared with the previous generation of bamboo slips, the book traces at this time are twists and turns of official scripts, almost completely extinct, but there are many lines of erasers, cursive scripts and cursive scripts. From its remains, it can be fully proved that a few modern Wei and Jin law posts or ink marks handed down from generation to generation, such as Zhong You's Manifesto of Strong and Weak Destiny, Lu Ji's Ningding and Wang Xizhi's posts, can confirm each other. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, wars were frequent, people were displaced and disasters were severe, so Buddhism, which was inseparable from soul, karma and reincarnation, became popular. The rise of carving statues and carving Buddhist monuments coincided with the right time, and the activities of writing scriptures and praying for blessings were very popular, which objectively promoted the popularization and development of calligraphy.
Today, most of the ink marks left by the Three Kingdoms and the Jin Dynasty are scriptures, bamboo slips and pieces of paper. Orderly calligrapher's ink is written by Lu Ji, a calligrapher in the Western Jin Dynasty. The font of the reply post belongs to Cao Zhang, which is very similar to the unearthed Han, Jin and Cao Zhang, and the pen is quite simple. Famous calligraphers in Wei and Jin Dynasties included Zhong You, Dan Wei, Huang Xiang, Wei Heng, Suo Jing and Lu Ji, and some of their works were carved and handed down.
There are two systems of calligraphy in Han dynasty, one is inscriptions, the other is bamboo slips and ink marks, which are books and documents before paper was invented or widely used. Because of different materials, different writing tools, different contents, different shapes and different writers' identities, they show different artistic styles. The written content of Han bamboo slips is either correspondence notes or official document reports, so most of them are informal and hasty. Han bamboo slips are limited by narrow faces and small characters. However, the layout of the composition can still be ingenious, patchwork and spontaneous. The characters in Han bamboo slips include seal script, official script, truth, line and grass (Cao Zhang). Han bamboo slips are not bound by the concept of writing, so they show rich creativity and eventually become a transitional writing-Han bamboo slips. There are a lot of ink marks in Juyan Han bamboo slips and Wuwei Han medical bamboo slips, which can be compared with Dunhuang Han paper ink. Close to regular script, running script and other books. The calligraphy art seen in bamboo slips is the first-hand material to study calligraphy in Qin and Han Dynasties. Judging from the development of China's calligraphy, Wei and Jin Dynasties are an important historical stage to complete the evolution of calligraphy. It is a perfect generation of seal, official, truth, line and grass. So far, Han Li has finalized the basic form of square Chinese characters. The emergence, development and maturity of official script gave birth to the original script (regular script), while cursive script sprouted almost at the same time as official script. Real calligraphy, running script and cursive script were shaped in Wei and Jin Dynasties. Their stereotypes and beautification are undoubtedly another great change in the history of China's calligraphy.
Archaeological findings show that the calligraphy of bamboo slips in Loulan Han Shanshan era mainly includes bamboo slips unearthed from Tuyin site and Niya site. These Han bamboo slips are also the earliest China calligraphy objects unearthed in Shanshan area of Loulan so far, and their artistic style is in the same strain as that of Han calligraphy in the Central Plains. Among the main art types in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Gandhara's Buddhist art and China's calligraphy art from the west are the most typical, which constitute a brilliant chapter in the art history of Loulan Shanshan.
Loulan Shanshan's Han bamboo slips calligraphy works in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were mainly unearthed in Loulan and Niya sites. According to relevant statistics, more than 800 kinds of paper documents of Han bamboo slips have been found in Shanshan area of Loulan. The dates of its documents are mainly concentrated in the middle of the 3rd century and the 4th century. Take the Han bamboo slips unearthed in Loulan ancient city as an example, from Jiaping four years in Cao Wei period to Liangjianxing eighteen years in the early period. The discovery of these bamboo slips not only provides rich materials for studying the political, economic and social life of Loulan Shanshan, but also provides reliable practical significance for studying the history of Loulan's calligraphy art.
From China's calligraphy to Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, all kinds of calligraphy have matured. The calligraphy styles of Zhen, Cao, Li, Zhuan and Xing are all complete, but the styles and schools are different, which has formed an artistic climax in the history of calligraphy in China. Judging from the book types of bamboo slips unearthed in Shanshan, Loulan, it basically reflects the changing forms of calligraphy types in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. These different kinds of books are permeated with the unique regional style characteristics of Loulan Shanshan, thus forming a unique "Loulan calligraphy school".
China's traditional calligraphy is mostly created and disseminated by Wei, such as inscriptions, bamboo slips, bronzes, paper and silk. However, due to natural limitations, Loulan's calligraphy only takes bamboo slips, paper and silk as material carriers, forming the characteristics of local calligraphy forms. There are two kinds of wood unearthed in Shanshan, Loulan: Hu Yangmu produced locally and pine imported from other places, which has become one of the main writing materials of Chinese literature in Shanshan, Loulan. The extensive use of paper has promoted the development of calligraphy art. The paper size in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties was generally about one square foot. Therefore, books, classics and letters are all on the bucket or hand scroll, hence the name document letter. The particularity of material conditions such as paper and its size also promoted the formation of calligraphy forms and styles in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. The ink paintings handed down from ancient times, such as Ping Fu Tie, Yuan Bo Tie and Li Bo Wen Shu unearthed in Loulan, are all typical paper calligraphy.
The quality of scraps of paper unearthed in Loulan varies, but according to the infiltration of ink, most of them are suitable for writing with a brush. From 65438 to 0953, "Baqiao Paper" was produced in Xi 'an. However, whether it is a real paper is still controversial in academic circles. 1973, the hemp paper of the Western Han Dynasty was unearthed at the Phnom Penh site of the Han Dynasty in Juyan, Gansu. 1990, more than 30 pieces of hemp paper were unearthed at the site of the Western Han Post Office in Tianshui, Dunhuang, of which 3 pieces were written with words. These objects proved that hemp paper had been circulated in the northwest of China in the Western Han Dynasty and became one of people's writing materials. Secondly, the Han Dynasty writing brush named Bizhuang unearthed from Wuwei site shows that there is a special writing brush workshop. These phenomena are not only material problems, but also reflect the prosperity of calligraphy art in northwest China from Han Dynasty to Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. The progress of writing materials and the spread of technical culture are a kind of artistic development, so is the development of calligraphy art in Loulan, Shanshan and China.
Documentary calligraphers or good calligraphers include Ban Gu, Zhang Zhi and Suo Jing. People who lived in Dunhuang and Loulan during the Han and Jin Dynasties. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Dunhuang and Loulan were very close in administrative subordination and transportation. A large number of calligraphers have gathered in Dunhuang, which has become a unique calligraphy school, which once affected the development of calligraphy in the mainland and will inevitably have a direct impact on the calligraphy art in this area.
Loulan Shanshan's calligraphy remains are all ink, written by soldiers and officials who have settled in other places, and a group of highly accomplished calligraphers such as Li Bo and Zhang Ji have emerged. Their calligraphy styles are varied, but overall they have distinct and unified regional characteristics. Loulan's calligraphy, Juyan Han Bamboo Slips, Dunhuang Han Bamboo Slips, Wuwei Han Bamboo Slips and Beiliang Calligraphy have formed an art school with both connections and differences, which embodies Loulan's unique regional and national characteristics.