Lixun Stele. Meng Buddhist Priest Stele

Author: Sun Baowen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-06-01
Features: "The Stele of Li Sixin," also known as "The Stele of the General of the Right Military Guard," is a full title of "The Stele for the Spirit Road of Li Fuji, Posthumously Honored as Duke of Zhenzhou, Former General of the Right Military Guard and Duke of Peng, with Preface and Biography," written and inscribed by Li Yong in the eighth year of the Kaiyuan era (720) of the Tang Emperor Xuanzong. The characters are in running script, with thirty lines, each containing seventy characters, and there are surviving Song-era rubbings. "The Stele of Master Meng" is one of the representative works of Chu Shu's calligraphy. Su Dongpo praised it in "Su Dongpo's Annotations" as "[clear, distant, and scattered, with a slight influence of clerical script]," referring to the influence of Wang Xizhi on the characters. This is likely because Chu had not yet fully transformed his style when learning Wang's script. Subsequent works such as "The Stele of Fang Xuanying" and "The Holy Teaching of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda" do not exhibit this characteristic. Thus, "The Stele of Master Meng" is a work in Chu's calligraphy that shows clear signs of transformation, making it of great significance for the study and research of Chu Suiliang's calligraphy. This book uses a photolithographic reproduction of a Tang-era rubbing preserved by the Qing-era collector Li Zonghan, and the pages have been reprinted and reassembled.