On The Qing Dynasty Calligraphy Perspective

Calligraphy has been a compulsory course for Chinese scholars since ancient times. However, its direct link with the imperial examinations has tortured a good many scholars in the Qing Dynasty, and Gong Zizhen is one who suffered from it. On the one hand, he was greatly frustrated in the imperial examination due to the shackles of "Guange style"; on the other hand, influenced by the contemporary atmosphere and his own character, he had difficulty learning regular script and wanted to quit as he found it hard to make great accomplishments. Although Gong Zizhen did not have the title of the calligraphy, he was very fond of making comments about it, and his ambivalence about calligraphy shows the complex emotions scholars of that time felt towards calligraphy. Through the study of Gong Zizhen’ s prefaces and postscripts and his comments of poetry and books, this essay aims to make a restricted research about the status quo of calligraphy from the perspective of the scholars in the Qing Dynasty and make a humble addition to the calligraphy history.