Wen Zhengming's Cursive Calligraphy of the Thousand Characters

Author: Zhen Shi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-08-01
Features: couplets, as a unique literary form in China, are said to have first appeared in the late Five Dynasties when Emperor Meng Chang of Later Shu wrote the line "New year brings remaining blessings, festivals celebrate eternal spring" on peach (wooden boards) at his bedroom door on New Year's Eve. They were later used on pillars during the Song Dynasty, hence the name. Couplets flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, not only appearing on pillars in halls and courtyards but also widely used on doors, study rooms, flower pavilions, residential spaces, kitchens, and more, reflecting the owners' sentiments and elegance. Also known as duilian, couplets consist of two symmetrical upper and lower lines, requiring corresponding word counts, meanings, tones, and parts of speech to be considered well-crafted. Common word counts include five-character, seven-character, and eight-character lines, while some are as short as three or four characters and others as long as hundreds. The content often includes poetic verses or sayings, either compiled from predecessors or self-composed, with calligraphy styles ranging from regular script, cursive script, clerical script, to seal script, all equally suitable. Over a thousand years of development have produced countless exquisite couplets, many of which are still in use today. Since the reform and opening-up, people's living and development environments have undergone tremendous changes. New concepts like the knowledge economy and revitalizing the nation through science and education, along with traditional virtues such as propriety, integrity, frugality, and honesty, loyalty, and trustworthiness, have together formed the new social behavioral norms. A large number of new couplets addressing contemporary issues and content have emerged in line with the times, meeting the practical needs of modern cultural life. Therefore, compiling these practical couplets into a book and utilizing computer technology to collect characters from famous calligraphic works across generations to create couplets is a highly beneficial endeavor. It not only helps learners practice writing but also facilitates actual creative work. This is also the original purpose behind compiling the "New Concept Calligraphy Series" and the fundamental reason for its repeated reprints and widespread market popularity. This volume selects characters from the representative cursive script work "Thousand Characters" by the Ming Dynasty calligrapher Wen Zhengming. Wen Zhengming, a native of Wu County, Jiangsu, served as a court painter in the Hanlin Academy and was one of the "Four Wits of Wu" alongside Zhu Yunming, Zhao Yin, and Xu Zhenqing. His running and cursive scripts are both forceful and elegant, embodying the style of Zhi Yong. During the compilation of this volume, all characters from the original work were carefully selected, and for those not available, elements of related strokes were used to construct new characters based on the structural principles of the existing works, striving to achieve a complete and harmonious result.