| "Kaitongbaoxiedao Carved Stone" is the earliest stone carved in the Shimen Carved Stones Group of Hanzhong,Shaanxi,and it is also the earliest existing carved stone of the Eastern Han Dynasty in China.Due to the steep terrain and dense moss where the carved stone is located,no one had recorded it until Yan Mao in the Southern Song Dynasty.During a period of over 600 years to the Qing Dynasty,no one had visited it.Epigraphy was popular during the Qianlong and Jiaqing Period of the Qing Dynasty,and the trend of visiting the steles sprand up.Bi Yuan,the governor of Shaanxi in the Qianlong Period,discovered the carved stone,which once again brougtht it to people’s vision.The change in the method of taking official scripts in the Mid-Qing Dynasty made stone inscriptions generally valued.Two epigraphers from the late Qing Dynasty,Yang Shoujing and Fang Shuo,both spoke highly of it.Yang Shoujing,especially,called it "a divine product." However,Yang Shoujing spread epigraphy to Japan,which caused a drastic change in the style of Japanese calligraphy during the Meiji Period."Kaitongbaoxiedao Carved Stone" is regarded as a classic in Japan.The Japanese calligraphy field has a clear relationship between teachers and students,so "Kaitongbaoxiedao Carved Stone" has influenced generations of Japanese calligraphers.Moreover,in modern China,there have also been followers of this stone who had different learning methods from those in modern Japan.This article attempts to demonstrate the skeleton in the acceptance level of "Kaitongbaoxiedao Carved Stone" and explore the aesthetic similarities and differences in modern calligraphy between China and Japan which are based on carved stones. |
