The Study Of Dunhuang Manuscripts Calligraphy

The total of over 50 thousands of various calligraphy and paintings, rubbings from ancient tablets have been made public since the Dunhuang depository caves of Buddhist scriptures were discovered in 1900. Together with inscriptions on tortoise shells or animal bones of the Shang Dynasty, bamboo slips of the Qin and Han Dynasties, cabinet archives of the Qing Dynasty, the remaining books of Dunhuang is named one of the "four great academic findings" in the modern history of China.The evolution of the calligraphy styles and devolopment of the technique of writing have been integratedly decided by the historical and cultural backgrounds, calligraphy evolution and aesthetic tendancy during this long history of seven hundreds years from the angle of calligraphy history.The excavation of Dunhuang documents plays a great role in the study of the evolution of writing styles and style inheritance from the end of the Jin Dynasty and the beginning of the Song Danasty. Among these documents, Buddhist scriptures and official documents constitute an absolute majority, which present a complete course of the evolution of scripture writings. Moreover, several copies of the the Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy, rubbing books of the Tang Dynasty and incomplete volumes of calligraphy theories are also regarded as the very important calligraphy literatures.Varying in styles and forms, the Dunhuang hand-written copies manifests a particularly spontaneous and plain aesthetic temperament. It not only exists as an independent system with typical regional characters and unique evolution courses, but also relates closely to the calligraphy styles of the central and southern areas of China, which constitutes an indispensable part in the history of the ancient calligraphy.