明朝

Ming Dynasty

In the Ming dynasty, urban culture and literati circles were highly active, and calligraphy spread through model-book study, engraving, and collecting. Wu School calligraphers and late-Ming individualist styles together showed a broad range from elegance to bold eccentricity.

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Ming Dynasty

Zhang Ruitu: Dreaming of Mount Tianmu, Written on Parting

Zhang Ruitu was a representative late Ming calligrapher and was known as one of the Four Great Masters of the late Ming. His regular script followed Zhong Yao and carried a clerical-script flavor, without a sense of over-carving. His running script developed more freely and naturally from regular script, while his greatest achievement was in cursive script, marked by forceful strokes, striking structures, and a vigorous, unrestrained spirit that strongly influenced later generations. He was also skilled in poetry, prose, landscapes, and Buddhist figures. This running-cursive scroll has sharp, forceful brushwork, firm and energetic strokes, and richly expressive ink. The text, Dreaming of Mount Tianmu, Written on Parting, is one of Li Bai's representative poems; Zhang's writing matches Li Bai's bold, unrestrained temperament with an equally powerful calligraphic presence.

Ming Dynasty

Dong Qichang: Song of the Pipa

Song of the Pipa is a seven-character ancient-style poem written by Bai Juyi in 816 CE, during the Yuanhe reign of Emperor Xianzong of Tang. After being accused of exceeding his office in memorializing the throne, Bai was demoted to Jiangzhou, and later to the post of Sima there. The following year, while seeing off a guest at Penpu, he encountered a pipa player and, moved by her story and his own fate, composed this famous poem. Dong Qichang was also a master connoisseur of painting and calligraphy, and his theory of the Northern and Southern schools deeply influenced painting after the late Ming. His calligraphy sought the ancients without becoming rigidly antiquarian. This running-script Song of the Pipa, in sixty lines, is one of his representative works and is now in the collection of the Beijing Museum.

Ming Dynasty

Xu Wei: Cursive Poetry Scroll

Xu Wei excelled in running and cursive script. His dots and strokes scatter with force, and his compositions unfold like an unfurled mat, filling the page with an arresting atmosphere. His work is broad in spirit, using intention as the brush and emotion as the writing, rarely constrained by tradition or fashion. Xu's turbulent feelings and frustrated state of mind are carved into his calligraphy. This work is a representative example of late Ming wild cursive and is now held by the Shanghai Museum.

Ming Dynasty

Wen Zhengming: Xiyuan Poems

Xiyuan Poems was composed when Wen Zhengming was fifty-six and serving in the capital as an Academician Awaiting Edict at the Hanlin Academy. The poems describe the imperial garden west of the palace city, centered on Taiye Pond. Wen is thought to have written this scroll at the age of eighty-five, making it one of his fine late works. The calligraphy is warm, elegant, steady, mature, rigorous in method, and lively in expression. Rooted in Wang Xizhi, it draws on many masters, with refined turning strokes, balanced spacing, calm structure, graceful movement, and a polished, flowing elegance.

Ming Dynasty

Zhu Yunming: Rhapsody on the Luo River Goddess

Zhu Yunming was known as one of the Four Talents of Wuzhong, together with Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, and Xu Zhenqing. Exceptionally gifted, he could write large characters at the age of five and compose essays at nine. His small regular script followed Zhong Yao and Wang Xizhi, with disciplined structure and steady brush strength; his cursive script studied Huaisu and Huang Tingjian, and in his later years became especially vigorous, free, and elegant. This cursive Rhapsody on the Luo River Goddess is regarded as a work from around the age of forty. Its cursive writing is brilliant and spirited, with rich contrasts of size, density, continuity, pause, solidity, and emptiness.

Ming Dynasty

Tang Yin: Falling Flowers Poems

Tang Yin wrote Falling Flowers Poems several times in his life, and each version differs in the number of poems copied, the content, and the calligraphic style. Known examples are now held by the Princeton University Art Museum, the Liaoning Provincial Museum, and the National Art Museum of China. This piece is one of Tang Yin's representative surviving calligraphic works, probably written in his early years. The brushwork is rounded, graceful, elegant, free, refined, and gentle.

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