Zhao Mengfu's Brushwork Explanation of Dan Ba Stele

Author: Wang Pengjiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: The Stele of Danba, also known as the Longxing Temple Stele, is written in ink on paper. It consists of 120 lines, with eight characters per line. It was composed by Zhao Mengfu at the age of 63 in the sixth month of the Yuanyou era, by imperial decree. It is a representative work of the "Zhao style" of regular script. In this stele, he blended the regular script techniques of Li Yi with the calligraphic style he had acquired in his early years from the Thousand Characters by Zhiyong. He completely abandoned the styles of Yan and Liu, which had dominated stele calligraphy since the mid-Tang dynasty, and introduced a regular script style that combined the fluidity of running script with the stillness of regular script, transforming the style of stele inscriptions before the early Yuan dynasty. This elevated the regular script in stele calligraphy to its peak.