Yuan Zhao Mengfu's calligraphy of Dan Ba Stele

Author: Editorial Board of Selected Calligraphies from Ancient Inscriptions
Publisher:
Publishing Date: June 1, 1982
Features: Zhao Mengfu, styled Ziyang, known as the "Snow Cypress Immortal," was a native of Huzhou (now Wuxing, Zhejiang). He was born in the second year of the Baoyou era of the Southern Song Dynasty (1254 AD) and died in the second year of the Zhizhi era of the Yuan Dynasty (1322 AD), at the age of sixty-three. Zhao Mengfu was a renowned calligrapher of the Yuan Dynasty in China. He excelled in various scripts, including regular, running, cursive, clerical, and seal scripts, with particularly profound mastery of running-script and regular-script calligraphy, possessing a unique style. The full title of The is The Stele of the Great Emperor of the Dragon-Phoenix Temple, the Venerable and Universal Illuminating Buddha. "The Venerable and Universal Illuminating Buddha" was a Western Tibetan named Tusi Tamala, originally named Danba, also known as Jiaque Sisi. In the seventh year of the Yuan era (1270 AD), Emperor Kublai Khan bestowed upon him the title of "Imperial Preceptor." He passed away in the seventh year of the Deyou era (1303 AD) and was posthumously honored as "The Venerable and Universal Illuminating Buddha" in the first year of the Huangqing era (1322 AD). This stele was written by Zhao Mengfu at the age of sixty-three in the third year of the Yanyou era (1366 AD). It is a representative work of Zhao's running-script and regular-script calligraphy. The script is elegant and vibrant, embodying the principle of "intention before stroke, method following the brush." It achieves a realm of "subtle profundity and divine transformation" while maintaining a dignified and regulated appearance, yet exuding a free and unrestrained elegance. It offers an aesthetic pleasure that delights the eye. For this edition, we have reproduced the ink rubbing preserved in the Palace Museum. The original ink rubbing is a scroll mounted on paper, with an eighteen-character, six-line title in seal script at the beginning, followed by one hundred twenty-five lines of stele text, each containing eight characters. To preserve the original appearance of the characters, each line has been cropped and mounted to display six characters per line, serving as a reference for beginners to study and practice.