Lu Weizhao

Author: Xing Xiuhua Bao Shijie
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-02-01
Features: Lu Weizhao (1899-1980), originally named Ziping, styled Weizhao, and later signed Shao. His study was named Zhuanghuishi, also known as Yuanshanglou, and he was from Xincang. He was a modern educator in China, a renowned calligrapher, painter, and seal carver, as well as a famous scholar and poet. His unique "Lu Weizhao style" stood out in the calligraphy world, gaining fame both domestically and internationally. In 1920, Lu Weizhao enrolled in the Department of Humanities and Literature at Nanjing Higher Normal School. In 1924, he was hired as a teaching assistant at the Institute of Chinese Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing, assisting Wang Guowei. Later, due to the illness of his grandfather and mother, he resigned in 1926 and returned south, teaching successively at Songjiang Women's High School, Hangzhou Women's High School, and Shanghai St. John's University. After the liberation, he taught at Zhejiang University, Zhejiang Normal College, and the Chinese Department of Hangzhou University. In 1960, he was transferred to the China Painting Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts as a professor. In 1963, at the request of the then president Pan Tianshou, he was entrusted to establish the Department of Calligraphy and Seal Carving, serving as its director and filling a gap in China's art education.
Lu Weizhao was versatile, skilled in poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seal carving. His calligraphy was particularly profound; from an early age, he copied famous works from past dynasties, demonstrating deep expertise in oracle bone script, bronze inscriptions, seal script, clerical script, running script, and cursive script. In his later years, he forged his own path, creating a script style that was neither seal script nor clerical script but combined elements of both, establishing a unique position in the calligraphy world and becoming a master, renowned both domestically and internationally. His painting adopted the "Southern School" style, integrating calligraphy into his art. He excelled in ink-wash landscape painting, with high artistic conception and profound meaning, often accompanied by poetic inscriptions and seals, earning him the reputation of "three excellences" in the painting world.