Ouyang Xun's calligraphy of the Jiucheng Palace

Author: Ji Lin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Ouyang Xun (557–641 AD), styled Xinyen, was a native of Linxiang, Tanzhou (now Changsha, Hunan), a renowned calligrapher of the Tang Dynasty. He served as the Director of the Imperial Academy and was known as "Ouyang Shuigeng." In his early years, Ouyang Xun studied the calligraphy style of Wang Xizhi. Legend has it that he purchased Wang Xizhi's practice manual, the "Zhigui Tu," for a high price and diligently practiced it day and night. Later, he extensively studied Northern Dynasties stone inscriptions and absorbed the strengths of local calligraphers, incorporating elements of clerical script to form the "Ouyang style" (also known as the "Shuigeng style"), characterized by "robust, perilous, and strict adherence to rules."
The "Liquan Ming Stele of the Jiucheng Palace" was written by Wei Zheng and inscribed by Ouyang Xun. It records the story of Emperor Taizong of Tang discovering a spring while staying at the Jiucheng Palace for summer retreat. The stele was erected in April 632 AD during the Zhenguan era of the Tang Dynasty. It is written in regular script with twenty-four lines, each containing forty-nine characters. The stele was inscribed when Ouyang Xun was seventy-five years old. The characters are narrow and elongated, with meticulously arranged and evenly spaced strokes. The calligraphy is square and regular, yet it achieves a sense of perilous elegance within the stability. The composition is spacious yet steady, giving the stele a dignified yet lively appearance—neither rigid nor cramped. The balance between stability and peril is one of Ouyang Xun's representative works in regular script.
Ming Dynasty scholar Chen Jirui once remarked: "This stele resembles a hermit in a deep mountain—thin, hard, and frigid, yet its spirit is rich and full. It can make even kings bow their knees; no other inscriptions can match it." Due to years of weathering and excessive rubbing, the stele has suffered severe damage. Later repairs have altered its original sharpness, making it far different from the original rubbings of the Song Dynasty. Among the surviving rubbings, the Ming Dynasty copy once owned by Li Qi of the Song Dynasty is considered the best (the rubbing used in this book) and is now housed in the Palace Museum in Beijing.