Chinese calligraphy : an introduction to its aesthetic and technique : with 6 plates and 155 text illustratons

THE STYLES

I have been able to give only a few of the most famous examples of Li-Shu. The innumerable variations which were evolved must be left to the reader’s imagination.

K‘AI-SHU OR REGULAR STYLE

Chronologically, K‘ai-Shu does not, strictly speaking, follow Li-Shu. A style known as Chang-Ts‘ao—a rapid, abbreviated style—came between. But this I shall deal with later, under the heading of Ts‘ao-Shu.

The Regular Style is a combination of the modified Li Style, of which it preserved the essential characteristics of squareness and precision, and the Chang-Ts‘ao mentioned above, the features of which are simplicity and speed. At one time the Lz Style was sometimes called K‘ai-Shu, a name descriptive of its contrasting elements—K ‘ai meaning ‘model’ and 7s‘ao meaning ‘ grass’, the whole signifying ‘ rough’ or ‘ care-free’. In practice, both Li-Shu and Chiian-Shu always tended towards Ts‘ao-Shu, but in K‘ai-Shu there was an inflexible regularity of design that earned for it the additional name of Chéng-Shu (iE #) or Regular.

It is impossible to say exactly who originated this style. We have seen that by the end of the Han period many individual variations of Li-Shu had been developed: the elements of the future Regular Style are to be found among these variations. But in the four hundred years from Han to T‘ang so many scores of scholars of the utmost importance in the history of Chinese calligraphy lived and worked that it is very difficult to particularize at all. Some of their stone inscriptions, particularly those of the Northern Wei period (a.D. 220-64), have roused the enthusiasm of Ch‘ing-dynasty and present-day scholars to lyricism.

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