Top 10 calligraphy masterpieces of ancient China

By Xu Lin
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, November 11, 2011
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Chinese calligraphy is an art dating back to the earliest days of the country's history and is still practiced by people today. This invaluable part of Chinese culture both conveys the wisdom of the Chinese people and records China's long history.

The following are ten remarkable works of master calligraphers in ancient China.

 Poems in Cursive Script (《草书诗帖》)

Poems in Cursive Script, one of the 'top 10 calligraphy masterpieces of ancient China' by China.org.cn.

Poems in Cursive Script



The "Poems in Cursive Script" is the outstanding calligraphy works of Zhu Yunming (1460-1527), a scholar and calligrapher of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). He is regarded as one of the Four Young Scholars of Jiangnan (the region to the south of the Yangtze River, mainly around Suzhou City). The other three are Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming and Xu Zhenqing.

Zhu Yunming's wild cursive script draws particular attention. His works have much artistic charm. The ever restless brushstrokes, rebellious typefaces and layout arranged in complementary use of sparse and dense spacing, come together to form a piece reminding one of a passionate musical score.

The work, 1147.5 x 36.1 cm, consists of four poems which were composed by Cao Zhi (192–232), a famous poet who lived during the late Han Dynasty (25-220) and Three Kingdoms (220-280) period of Chinese history. On exhibition in the National Palace Museum in Taipei now, this is one of Zhu's representative works.

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