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The Calligraphy of Gao Xian, a Monk Calligrapher of the Tang Dynasty, and its Past Evaluation
Journal of Chinese Language and Literature
2019, (82),
pp.185-206
DOI :10.15792/clsyn..82.201912.185
Publisher : Chinese Literary Society Of Yeong Nam
Research Area : Chinese Language and Literature
DOI :10.15792/clsyn..82.201912.185
Publisher : Chinese Literary Society Of Yeong Nam
Research Area : Chinese Language and Literature
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In the Tang Dynasty, there were many monks who had knowledge and cultural literacy: monk poets(Shi seng) who wrote poems well; monk painters(Hua seng) who painted pictures well; and monk calligraphers(Shu seng) who were excellent in calligraphy. There are countless monks of the Tang Dynasty who were well known as monk calligraphers. Among them, Huai Su and Gao Xian are the representative monk calligraphers of the Tang Dynasty. As a second review on the monk calligraphers of the Tang Dynasty, this study, first, briefly introduces Gao Xian’s life and calligraphy. Next, this study analyzes the literary works of the Tang Dynasty that sang and evaluated Gao Xian’s calligraphy and the poems of the Tang Dynasty, as well as the evaluations of Gao Xian’s calligraphy by the literary men since the Tang Dynasty. Some discriminating features in the evaluations of Gao Xian’s calligraphy are as follows: Extreme praises and criticisms exist at the same time; the praises and criticisms of Gao Xian’s calligraphy are compared with those of Zhang Xu’s and Huai Su’s; the evaluations since the Tang Dynasty were very much mediated by Han Yu’s Farewell speech for monk Gao Xian. Although, unlike Zhang Xu and Huai Su, extreme praises and criticisms exist for Gao Xian’s cursive script, the fact that Gao Xian is compared with Zhang Xu or Huai Su, who were representative cursive script calligraphers in the Tang Dynasty, demonstrates the excellence of Gao Xian’s cursive script, who was the representative cursive script calligrapher in the Late Tang period.
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