A brief history of calligraphy education

Calligraphy education in the sense of official learning began in the Han Dynasty. Emperor Han Ling of the Eastern Han Dynasty established Hongdumen School in addition to the existing "Imperial Examination", separating calligraphy education from "writing education" and becoming an independent art education system. The government selected students with good calligraphy through Wei method, which greatly promoted the prosperity of calligraphy, and the appearance of paper in the Eastern Han Dynasty further promoted the development of calligraphy art. From the perspective of calligraphy history, in the heyday of calligraphy art in the Eastern Han Dynasty, official script and seal script were transformed into regular script, which contributed to the transition between ancient Chinese characters and modern Chinese characters. This strong trend of the times is more due to the popularity of "calligraphy education". It can be said that the prosperity of "calligraphy education" in Wei and Jin Dynasties brought China's calligraphy art into the modern era.

The Tang Dynasty is the most glorious era in the history of calligraphy in China, but as far as calligraphy education is concerned, it is a time of qualitative change. After many battles in Wei and Jin Dynasties, the art of calligraphy is beautiful and romantic. In the Tang Dynasty, regular script became an "official style", so calligraphy art, especially the "evolution of calligraphy style" stopped, and calligraphy art entered the era of the evolution of calligraphy style, which continues to this day.

Calligraphy education in Tang dynasty began to enter the era of popularization and standardization. The appearance of Ou Yangxun, Chu Suiliang and Yu Shinan, the masters of regular script in the third grade, as the former ministers of Li Shimin in Tang Taizong, even "taught calligraphy", greatly influenced Tang Taizong's view and admiration of calligraphy. According to historical records, Tang Taizong's calligraphy is not brilliant in art, but he is quite insightful in calligraphy. His calligraphy works, such as On Calligraphy, On Books, On Meaning and Biography of Wang Xizhi, have a lot of reference significance for later calligraphy. In history, "Emperor Taizong" was the first person to comment on calligraphy with the respect of emperors, and his participation naturally made calligraphy art and calligraphy education highly respected.

In the first year of Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong established Hong Wen Pavilion as a calligraphy teaching institution, and its level was equivalent to that of the National Calligraphy Research Institute. At the same time, calligraphy was once included in the examination items of the starters, and calligraphy education naturally became a normal and important subject in the education system. Tang Kai, a regular script from Europe to Yan Liu, has since become a model and a rule, and has become a compulsory basic course for passing the imperial examinations, such as county examinations and township examinations. It lasted for more than two thousand years until the end of the imperial examination era and the change of "writing tools" at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was a miracle in the history of world education.