The representative figure of regular script in the late Tang Dynasty is Liu Gongquan.
Liu Gongquan's calligraphy is famous for his regular script. He first studied Wang Xizhi, and later studied the calligraphy of famous calligraphers in the Tang Dynasty. He absorbed the strengths of Yan Zhenqing and Ouyang Xun, incorporated new ideas, and created his own unique "Liu style", which is based on the strength of bones. He was good at being strong and healthy, and was known as "a man with strong muscles and willow bones" in later generations.
He is as famous as Yan Zhenqing and is known as "Yan Liu". He is also known as the "Four Masters of Regular Script" together with Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing and Zhao Mengfu.
The handed down steles include "Diamond Sutra Engraved Stone", "Mysterious Pagoda Stele", "Feng Su Stele", etc., and the cursive and cursive scripts include "Fu Shen Tie", "Sixteen Days Tie", "Shame Xiang Tie", etc. . There are also ink inscriptions "Mengzhao Tie" and "Wang Xianzhi's Pear Sending Postscript" handed down to the world. Liu Gongquan is also a poet, and his poems are included in "Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty" and "Complete Collection of Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty".
Liu Gongquan is the summarizer and innovator of regular script style. On the basis of studying and inheriting the regular script style of Zhong Yao, Wang Xizhi and others, he read modern calligraphy, studied Yan Zhenqing, incorporated his own new ideas, and created his own style. He created the unique "Liu style" regular script, which served as a model for generations to come and became one of the outstanding representatives of "Tang calligraphy".
His calligraphy is balanced, thin and hard, resolutely pursuing the Wei stele, his stippling is crisp and straight, his bones are strong and his body is tight. "The more expensive the calligraphy is, the thinner and the harder it is, the more it can communicate with the spirit." His regular script is slightly more uniform, thinner and harder than his Yan style, so it is known as "the muscles of the face and the bones of the willow".
When people start learning calligraphy today, they still prefer calligraphers such as Yan, Liu, Ou, Chu, and Yu of the Tang Dynasty, especially the set of regular script norms established by Liu Gongquan, which is still a model for people to learn from today.