Yan Style Tang Poetry Calligraphy Manuscript

Author: Wang Yiming
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-03-01
Features: Yan Zhenqing, styled Qingchen, had a name that matched his style, reflecting the hopes of his parents in him; and Yan Zhenqing's life seemed to follow this predetermined path of seeking truth and purity. He served as a minister in the courts of emperors Xuanzong, Shuzong, Daizong, and Dezong of the Tang Dynasty, ultimately sacrificing himself for the Tang Dynasty. Yan Zhenqing often signed his steles with "Yan Zhenqing of Langya" because his ancestral home was in Linyi, Langya, Shandong. His father, Yan Weizhen, passed the imperial examination in the first year of the Tianshou era (690) of Wu Zetian and was appointed as a military officer in Qizhou. He served as the Chief of Chang'an, the Imperial Tutor of the Crown Prince, and was renowned for his skills in cursive and clerical scripts. Like his father, Yan Zhenqing also experienced the bitterness of being an orphan at a young age and was personally mentored by his mother, Yin Shi. This twist of fate may have been the very stone that polished his talent. As he grew older, Yan Zhenqing, honed by diligence and perseverance, had already become "a young man who loved Confucian studies, was respectful and filial, and stood on his own. Lacking paper and ink, he practiced calligraphy by sweeping yellow soil on the walls, excelling in regular script and surpassing others in literary talent" (from the "Biography of Yan Lugu Gong" in the "Yan Lugu Gong Collection"). In the twenty-second year of the Kaiyuan era (734), when Yan Zhenqing was only twenty-six, he passed the imperial examination and was further selected in the special examination for talented individuals, smoothly embarking on his official career. He served as a Chaisan, a copyist in the Bureau of Composition of the Secretariat, and the county magistrate of Liquan County. In the second year of the Tianbao era (743), he traveled to Luoyang to visit Zhang Xu. In the ninth year of the Tianbao era, Yan Zhenqing was promoted from a censor to a Vice Censor-in-Chief, serving in the Caiyuan, one of the three divisions under the Censorate. During this time, when the censor Ji Wen, out of personal resentment, fabricated charges to frame Song Hun, the Vice Censor-in-Chief (son of the prime minister Song Jing), Yan Zhenqing bravely confronted him and said, "How can you, out of a moment's anger, endanger the descendants of Song Jing?" The prime minister Yang Guozhong and his allies thus regarded Yan Zhenqing as an enemy and finally transferred him out of the capital in the twelfth year of the Tianbao era, demoting him to the position of governor of Pingyuan. This is where the posthumous title "Yan Pingyuan" originated. This book collects 40 Tang poems in the style of Yan Zhenqing, primarily based on the "Yan Qinli Stele," hoping to provide some reference for calligraphy enthusiasts learning the Yan style, from copying to creation.