What Is the Influence of Wang Xizhi’s Calligraphy upon His Followers?

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a must learn for almost every beiginners. It appeared during the Wei and Jin Dynasty, and the founder of Kai style was Zhong Yao - the teacher of Prince of Wei - who had a lofty state in the Wei court. Kai means solemnity and preciseness, this basicaly descriped the characteristic of Kai style. Compare to Zhong Yao’s calligraphic style, Wang Xizhi’s style is finer and smoother at blushwork and he developed more varied structure. Acroding to Ma Zonghuo, Chinese calligraphy has developed the perfect self-awareness since this period of time. Wang Xizhi’s works are totally different from before. Wang Xizhi and his son Wang Xianzhi unprecedently, estabilished the base and trend of the developement of Chinese calligraphy. As showen in Figur 3 and 4, comparing the Zhong Yao’s Wang Xizhi’s Kai style scripts, characters from Zhong’s script is shorter and wider than Wang’s characters in which Wang’s brushwork is finer and more elegant than Zhong’s. Wang Xizhi changed the unvarnished acient style into a more delicated new style which had spread to nowadays and people are still imitating his calligraphy style. Wang Xizhi’s new style was adopted by the students of Yu Yi (305-345) - a famous calligrapher who teach his student to use acient Kai style. Yu Yi was so angry at first that he rebuked his students that they were blind to learn a heretical script. But soon, Yu Yi realized the beauty of Wang Xizhi’s style and called him ‘God’s hand’.

Wang Xizhi’s new style was a milestone in the history of Chinese calligraphy, Praised as a pleasing departure from the old styles of Zhong You and Zhang Zhi of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Wang Xizhi is particularly remembered for one of his hobbies – rearing geese. Legend has it that he learned the key of how to turn his wrist while writing by observing how the geese move their necks. There is a very pretty small porcelain cup depicting Wang Xizhi "walking geese" in the China Gallery of the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. The other side of the cup depicts a scholar "taking a zither to a friend".

Inheritance through centuries

Wang Xizhi’s reputation as the China’s greatest calligrapher dates from Tang dynasty although it has been three centuries form his death. Most of Wang Xizhi’s scripts had been destoried in Liang Dynasty, Li Shiming - Taizong of Tang Dynasty used his power to gather Wang Xizhi’s work for imperial collection. He especially coveted the famous ‘Orchid Pavilion Preface’. He placed Wang Xizhi’s work in the place of honor in the palace collection. He instructed court calligraphers to make copies for distribution throughout the realm and ordered carvers to reproduce Wang Xizhi’s brush work on giant stones so that his art could survive for centuries.

Chiang (1973) believed that it is a fortune that Wang Xizhi were being highly favored by Taizong because Taizong was devoted to Wang Xizhi’s writing and too the utmost pains to collect them. Chiang (1973) also maintains that Taizong’s attitude to Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy influenced the court officials and made them commanded to imitate them. Start from this, it becomes a fashion to study Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy when learning writing and the fashion prevailed to the present day.

Moreover, Kraus (1991) argues that the Tang emperor’s passion for Wang Xizhi’s calligraphic also had political motives. Tang was the first house to rule all of China since the end of Han in 220. In the four intervening centuries, the cultural rift between north and south China had widened. In declaring Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy the national standard, Tang Taizong ‘s northern court found a useful symbol of southern culture to help unify the nation.

Unfortunately, none of Wang Xizhi’s original work remains today. All of his masterpieces which you see were copied or traced by others. However, these works are still considered extremely valuable, due to his achievement in Chinese calligraphy.

His most famous work is the Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion, the preface of a collection of poems written by a number of poets when gathering at Orchid Pavilion near the town of Shaoxing for the Spring Purification Festival. It is widely believed that the ‘Orchid Pavilion Preface’ is the best work ever done in ‘Xing Shu’ - also known as Running style. The original is buried in Taizong of Tang dynasty in his Tomb of Zhao as funerary, but there are a number of fine tracing copies and rubbings that survived and some of them become collections of palace museum.

Figure 3 Facsimile of Wang Xizhi’s ’Orchid Pavilion Preface’ by Feng Chensu

Figure 4 Facsimile of Wang Xizhi’s ’Orchid Pavilion Preface’ by Zhu Suiliang

The practice of character ‘Yong’

Figure 5 Enlarged character ’yong’ in facsinile of ’Orchid Pavilion Preface’ by Feng Chensu

It is pointed out by Long (1987) that teachers have used the character ‘yong’ – ‘eternal’ – as a kind if digest of calligraphic techniques since ancient times. The first Character of ‘Orchid Pavilion Preface’ is also ‘yong’. Through years there is an argument about that the tradition of start practicing Chinese calligraphy with the character ‘yong’ is because every Chinese calligraphy learner need to learn and practice from the copybooks Wang Xizhi’s ‘Orchid Pavilion Preface’. Although the truth is hard to trace, there is reasons that calligraphy teachers use ‘yong’ as a digest of calligraphic techniques. The character ‘yong’ include the essential operation of brush play – the dot, the attack followed by a horizontal development, the angle combined with the attack of a vertical development, the straight development, the hooked ending, an angled element bending leftward, a rightward slanting element and a double-joined element that called a thigh.

Concludsion

There shares the same passion to Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy between modern Chinese people and the Taizong and the schoolars of Tang dynasty. Wang Xizhi’s Kai style had been developed into the computer text font Kai Ti. Wang Xizhi changed the brushwork style and structure of Kai style. It begans a new generation of Chinese calligraphy which the art form is perfectly self-awared. Most importantly, he shows his followers how calligraphy can bring out the spriit expression as the other Chinese art form.

Reference:

Duck-head pill script by Wang Xianzhi. Available at: http://hanmofengya.com/works/LiangJin/wangxianzhi/yatouwantie.html