Selections from the calligraphy of Emperor Gaozong of Song

Author: (Song) Zhao Gaozong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Emperor Gaozong of Song Zhao Gaozong (1107—1187) was the ruler of the Southern Song Dynasty. After the Jin forces captured Emperors Huizong and Qinzong in the second year of Jingkang (1127) and took them north, he ascended the throne in Nanjing Yingtianfu (now Shangqiu, Henan), changing the era to Jianyan. He rejected the resistance proposals of the war faction and fled south to Lin'an (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang) to establish the capital, founding the Southern Song Dynasty. During his reign, though compelled by circumstances to rely on generals like Yue Fei and Han Shizhong to resist the Jin, he heavily trusted the surrenderist Qin Hui. Later, he surrendered and sought peace with the Jin under humiliating terms, including ceding territory, paying tribute, and acknowledging subjugation, seizing the military power of the three major generals, Han Shizhong, and executing Yue Fei. In 1161, Emperor Wanyan Liang of the Jin tore up the peace treaty and launched another southern invasion. Gaozong's policy of seeking through humiliation faced strong opposition. In the thirty-second year of Shaoxing (1162), he abdicated the throne to Emperor Xiaozong, declaring himself the Taishang Huang (Retired Emperor). In 1187, he died in the Deshou Hall of the Lin'an Palace at the age of eighty-one and was buried in the Yongsi Ling. He wrote "Record of Calligraphy and Painting." Gaozong Zhao Gaozong's cursive script of "The Legend of the River Goddess Luo" is a scroll in paper form, written in his later years. The original text was composed by Cao Zhi of the Wei Dynasty in the Three Kingdoms period, based on the legend of the goddess Fudi of the Luo River, and is included in the "Selected Works" in the nineteenth volume. The script differs slightly from the original text. Gaozong Zhao Gaozong's calligraphy of Bai Juyi's poems is a scroll in paper form, with a height of 27.2 cm at the core of the scroll and a length of 4296 cm. Each line contains two characters, with characters as large as palms, without a signature. The back of the scroll is stamped with one imperial calligraphy gourd seal and one red square seal in a single square, and multiple imperial seals are stamped at the junction of the connected paper.