"Xiling Four Schools" Calligraphy Research

The four Seal Engravers in Xiling refer to Ding Jing(1695-1765),Jiang Ren(1743-1795),Huang Yi(1744-1802)and Xi Gang(1746-1803).Their seal cutting art is also known as "Zhejiang School seal cutting",which has great influence on later generations.Although Hangzhou is the center of this seal cutting school,called "Zhejiang School",its influence is not limited to a corner of Zhejiang.Although the four Xiling schools are famous for seal cutting,their achievements are various.They all have excellent and comprehensive qualities,and they have extraordinary attainments in poetry,literature,calligraphy and painting.The art of calligraphy and seal cutting cannot be separated completely.Needless to say,"Xiling four schools" are all outstanding in seal cutting,and they all have a high level in calligraphy.In addition,they have close contacts with the famous calligraphers of their time.Academic research on them mostly starts from seal cutting.In my opinion,their excellent calligraphy should not be covered by their excellent achievements in the field of printing.It is meaningful to study their calligraphy in depth.The activities of artists in every era are all marked with the brand of the era they live in,and so are the eight schools of Xiling.Their calligraphy has been influenced by the atmosphere of the times.Their seal script and official script emphasize "gold and stone spirit" and have an obvious tendency of worshiping steles.However,most of their regular script,Xingshu and cursive script art prefer "Erwang",sun Chaoting,Chu suiliang,Mi Fu and so on,which are typical after the study of calligraphy.This paper is divided into four parts.The first part is the study of the epigraphy of the four schools of Xiling,which mainly introduces their epigraphy activities and theoretical achievements;the second part is mainly based on the dual aesthetic orientation of Zhuan,Lishu and Kaishi,Xingshu and caoshu,which analyze their calligraphy style and origin;the third part is based on the poems and inscriptions of the four schools of Xiling According to this,it expounds their thoughts on calligraphy,such as advocating ancient times,valuing talent and learning ability.The fourth part discusses the influence of Xiling four calligraphies on the later generations and the enlightenment to the contemporary calligraphy creation.