Ancient calligraphy is indeed a cultural monopoly. There are two types of calligraphy learning in ancient times: one is passed down from family and the other is passed down from master. In fact, calligraphy is monopolized in the hands of aristocrats and belongs to aristocratic culture.
In ancient times, only high-ranking officials could see copybooks. Ordinary people cannot see him, so he belongs to aristocratic culture. Ordinary people do not have such conditions and time, nor can they afford the Four Treasures of the Study.
During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Wang Xizhi’s family was a nobleman, and he had access to many outstanding calligraphers. His uncle Wang Dao, his teacher Mrs. Wei, etc. Wang Xizhi's calligraphy is passed down from family to master. Only with knowledge can you write these good words. These people are not accessible to ordinary people.
In ancient times, to learn calligraphy and find copybooks, you had to make rubbings and copies. In ancient times, unlike today, copybooks had to be carved out or copied from the original. Moreover, among nobles, good copybooks had to be borrowed, and not everyone had one. But now, they are all photocopies. You can buy any copybook and you can find it as long as you search it online. So ancient times were aristocratic culture.
To sum up, calligraphy was a monopolized aristocratic culture in ancient times. We can see that most of the calligraphers of the past dynasties were high-ranking officials.