lingnan calligraphy and calligrapher

for all the calligraphy enthusiast knew, calligraphy art is our country unique arts, since hundreds and thousands years, it bring forward so many calligrapher who have various styles. but as the one of the excellent classes of lingnan culture, the lingnan calligraphy and calligraphers are little known to the public. actually, same with the traditional calligraphy in central plains of china, the lingnan calligraphy is also have a long history. it emerges "the baisha book faction", "bamboo faction", "kang (youwei) faction" and so on who are the renowned calligraphers with deep skill in lingnan calligraphy.

the calligraphy is one of chinese unique art which has the glorious history. it has various styles, and so many calligraphers. from character of chinese, it can be divided into the inscription on bones and tortoise shells, the bronze inscription, the seal script, the official script, the kaishu, the running script, and the grass script and so on. from the type of writing way, the grass script of  "two wang" (wang xizhi, wang xianzhi) in jin dynasty; the kaishu of ou (yangxun), zhu(shuiliang), yan (zhenqing), liu(gongquan) in tang dynasty; the highly cursive script of zhangxu and huaisu. the kaishu of zhaoneng who is in yuan dynasty, and so on. all are the styles of calligraphy for long history. and the works have so many designs, for common has the scroll, the central scroll, a horizontal scroll bearing an inscription, small painting, and the covering decoration of folding fan, the couplet and so on.

guangzhou is always to be the politics, economical, and cultural center of lingnan. here have the beautiful mountains and rivers; birth so many heroes; have the developed economy and the flourishing culture. for each dynasty, the calligraphy art is so famous, and calligraphers come forth in great number. however, there is no paper work leaving about the calligraphers in guangzhou for the wet climate from han dynasty to tang dynasty which is the flourished time for calligraphy. the works can be left are just the some brick articles and the stele carving. the extant autograph carved stone stems were from the li anying, the famous guangzhou calligrapher in song dynasty at nan mountain; in addition just cui yuzhi had been recorded. until ming dynasty, some well-known calligrapher and their works were emerged in guangzhou area.

chen xianzhang (baisha) was a respectable doctor, calligrapher in chenhua and hongzhi year of ming dynasty who has numerous students, from becomes a standard, he formatted "baisha  faction" well-know in his filed. create the lingnan calligraphy. he began studies su dongpo and later to imitates "two wang" (wang xizhi, wang xianzhi), and add his own style.. chen xianzhang pursues wonderfully calligraphy is merging into the nature. during his late years, he made the pen by couch grass root to be called as mao longbi, obtained the special artistic effect. the characteristic of chen xianzhang are straight and living and have the unique appearance. the holy works are treated as the treasures. it is said at that time if there are any visitors from guangdong to capital are required the works of chen.

zhan ruoshui is the student of chen xianzhang, advocated the works can reflect one’s heart. his calligraphy works are bold and unconstrained. with the same style of zhao shanming, deng qiao, xiao wenming who also are the personages of "baisha faction", he pursue the general effect in the works, to make the person feel pure and harmonious.

"three phoenixes "are the three brothers li minbiao, li minzhong, li minhuai who are the outstanding calligraphers in the middle of ming dynasty. and li minbiao is one of the five bel-esprits in south. he has the high attainments in poem, calligraphy and drawing, and be accomplished in all kind of styles like seal script, official script, running hand script and glass script. the script he left on the jingshi mountain about “hua biaoshi” with the size nearly ten feet is bold and vigorous to be treated as the famous vestige in guangdong.

from the end of the ming dynasty to the beginning of qing dynasty is a time which the lingnan calligraphy reached its greatest power. wang yinghua from dongguan in congzhen years had the unique style with powerful and unconstrained as the great master of lingnan calligraphy. the style of kuang lu from nanhai in ming dynasty is elegant, free and easy and good at zhen script, running hand script, seal script and official script, and leave many works. qudajun, chen gongyin, peng rui are the three most intelligent calligraphers, the styles of qu and chen are elegant, and peng is good at grass script and to be called ”king of grass script”, and his works are named “pure bamboo faction”. the most precious works of lingnan calligraphy are two, one is “farewell poem for yuan chonghuan” which is created in the first year of congzhe (1628) for the yuan conghuan to be the niaoning province governor-general, the 19 friends including chen zhizhuang created it, and it collected in hong kong; and the other one is “see off poem for li meizhou to the north by south friends” and it collected in guangzhou art gallery now. the poem tome is 32cm wide, and the length is 676cm, ten people including chen zhizhuang give the poems on it to make it into the famous work of lingnan calligraphy.

the famous calligraphers in guangzhou in qing dynasty have shu er, li jian, song xiang, wu rongguang, and so on. the style of shu is simplicity and good at ban script. li jian is good at all the poem, calligraphy, painting and carving, the style he used is running hand script and grass script which are elegant. the style of song xiang is flamboyant, and he also famous for he chooses the sugarcane and bamboo leaf to be the pen. at the early year, wu rongguang studied the su dongpo calligraphy, and at his old age, has his own style.

after opium war, the economical and culture has had the huge change in guangzhou area. the style of lingnan calligraphy also gets the new appearance, the lingnan calligraphers also want to create the new style. the famous calligraphers at that time are “three masters of shu”, that are shu yinshou, shu renkou and shu liupeng also with zhu ciqi, chen li, li wentian, kang youwei and so on. shu yinshuo is good at grass script; shu renshan has his own style for he good at all kinds of script; shu liupeng is good at official script. zhu ciqi and chen li are the learned and famous scholar in lingnan, the style of zhu is form yan zhenqing, and also absorb the advantages of ouyang xun and yu shinan; the style of chen li is from the mi ding. the work of zhu and chen are quiet and tastefully, and full of bookish.

the important personage who changes the style of lingnan calligraphy should be the li wentian. he had studied deeply on the epigraph. he is familiar with the epigraph for tang dynasty, after the middle age, he absorbs the style from the epigraph of han and wei dynasty, and referent the skill of deng shiru and zhao zhiqian, merge the seal script and official script together. he creates the epigraph calligraphy with the lingnan style which brings a great contribution to lingnan calligraphy.

talk about the stele faction, it should pursuers kang youwei. when kang was young had been trained by zhu ciqi. after the defeat of submits a written statement to the emperor, he pt all his energy to research the. he visited thousands inscription on stone from beijing collectors. guangxu 15 years (1889), he wrote the famous work for calligraphy history "guangdong epigraph calligraphy collection". in this book, he proposed "reveres the ", especially the epigraph in han and wei the six dynasties. and this book brings the enormous influence to chinese and japanese calligraphy world. the calligraphy creation by kang youwei is to transport the style on the epigraph in to the paper work. with the special skill "the round brush" to create the “kang style” of his own which absorbed the advantages from many other calligraphers. his style is powerful, flies leisurely and full of manhood. he had many student for most famous has liang qichao, cui sizhe, jiang kongyin, zhang baizhen and liang qichao had the largest achievement. the style of liang is tenuously, implicative and elegant which reach up to a higher level.

there emerged so many lingnan calligraphers in the republic of china (1912-1949). except kang and his students, wang also to be the famous calligrapher with the distinctive style clear and powerful. the master who can compete to the middle of china’s belongs to ye gongchuo(1881~1968), at that time, ye held the many important posts as vice minister and general minister of communications, manager of communications bank and also on senior official of nanjing national studies school. after people’s republic of china had been established he once to be the manager of institute of culture and history, and the first elected chief of chinese traditional painting institute. ye young to receive the family study had the very high attainments in the poetic prose, painting and calligraphy. ye gongchuo began studies of the wang style calligraphy, later were affected by kang youwei, and indulged himself in the six dynasties carves, blent the charming south book into powerful tablet calligraphy. refer to zhang’s cursive hand his calligraphy became extremely powerful, and with much connotation. his calligraphy inherited the innovation from famous experts of qing dynasty lingnan calligraphy, wu rongguang, li wentian, kangyouwei etc, formed the unique style. its works had "discuss skill record in hut", "ye gongchuo calligraphy and painting anthology" and so on. in addition, in the republic of china time lingnan calligraphy world also had famous experts, hu hanmin, lin zhimian and so on in li script. hu hanmin’s calligraphy is careful, coruscating, fresh and elegant, his xin script is free but forceful, lin zhimian studied tablets in han dynasties, took its distillate, digested and became his own style, achieved very high level.lin’s li script, affected the guangdong calligraphy world from the 20th century 30's, imitated by the posterity, many famous experts still were continued to explore in the book script. those who obtained the great achievement were: pan feisheng, his xin script is unsophisticated and elegant; cheng jingxuan, his regular script is sincere and simple; shang yan, his xin and regular script is elegant and free; gui zhan, his calligraphy is fresh.

after founding of the nation, the lingnan calligraphy is in full flourish. older lingnan calligraphers, such as shang yanliu, ye tianzhuo, rong geng, shang chengzuo and zhu jiang keep in search for calligraphy and get fruitful efforts. some calligraphers absorb some students to create the own faction. the person who have the influence to the guangzhou calligraphy are wu zhifu, qian yuesheng, mai huasan and li quzhai. the official script of wu zhifu, the kaishu of the mai huasan, and the grass script of li quzhai are imitated and encomiumed by so many funs.  the calligraphers in 1960s are hou guo, wu gentian, yuan tuizhi, tong shaojia and so on. at the middle of 1970s to 1980s, there are many new calligraphers appear, such as, mo zhongyu, zeng jingchong, chen jingsu, huang zhihou, guang xiaofeng, li wei, lu youguang and so on for each of them have their own style.