| Huai Su is one of the greatest cursive script calligrapher in Chinese calligraphy history. In Tang Dynasty, He and Zhang Xu enjoyed equal popularity on the art of cursive script calligraphy, and were known as "Mad Zhang and Drunk Su". His writing style influenced the calligraphy development of later generations and even today. After tang Dynasty, calligraphy masters like Huang Tingjian, Zhu Yunming Wang Duo and so on were all greatly influenced by Huai Su. Huai Su’s most representative calligraphy work is Zi Xu Tie, this copybook is also the supreme treasure in calligraphy history. Calligraphers in the past dynasties all looked up to it as the pattern and showed extreme admiration for it.It is said that Huai Su’s Zi Xu Tie had different editions, and at the present time, the Palace Museum Edition which is held by Taipei National Palace Museum is regarded as the best edition among all, it is also the most widespread and most influential edition. Among calligraphy circles, people regard this edition as the classical model to study the cursive script, they chase after it and imitate it. However, the controversy over this edition has been existed for a long time among the contemporary calligraphy and art circles. After lots of verifying, analysis and research, the majority point of view is that this edition is not written by Huai Su, and doubt it was written by someone else in the later generation..Now, there are another edition of Zi Xu Tie passing down, and that is Shu Edition Zi Xu Tie which is discussed in this article.although the whereabouts of this edition copybook became a mystery after it was auctioned at a low price in 2003, fortunately, there exists a carving copy of this edition. This carving copy is not widespread and has little influence. Most of the research on Huai Su’s Zi Xu Tie of Contemporary scholars is concentrated in the Palace Museum Edition, and barely research on the Shu Edition. Except for the famous contemporary connoisseur Fu Shen has ever simply described the the Shu Edition with a paragraph of words, no one has discussed on it. So this is the significance of this thesis. Shu Edition Zi Xu Tie has its unique writing style, perfect writing technique and high artistic value, it offers significant reference meaning for learning on contemporary cursive script.This thesis is divided into three parts to research:The first part introduces the form, the content and the artistic style of Shu Edition Zi Xu Tie. It elaborates the study object of this thesis and makes comparisons with the Palace Museum Edition.The second part introduces two key men of Shu Edition Zi Xu Tie.One is Na Yancheng, who held it in the late Qing Dynasty and carved it on stone in Lanzhou and Baoding. Another is Wang Liaowang, who was a great litterateur and calligrapher during late Ming and early Qing Dynasty. He had also held Zi Xu Tie and played important role in the spread of this edition.The third parts sublimates the acknowledge of the Shu Edition and clear its value of research, its influence and meaning of the contemporary calligraphy study through Fu Shen’s research on Zi Xu Tie. |
