Su Shi 's Calligraphy And His Times

Northern Song Dynasty occupies an important position in Chinese Calligraphy history. In this period, Tie Xue(which means learning and modeling calligraphy from published or handwritten copies) tradition started, and changed the whole story of Chinese Calligraphy. From then on, the glory of calligraphy seems to fading and people’s taste gradually turned to simplicity. It be a surprising phenomenon. Su Shi played a key role in this era of changing. This paper discussed his calligraphic ideas and practices, through the observation on the calligraphic attitude of scholar officials and handwriting environment in middle and later periods of Northern Song Dynasty. Then tried to read between the lines in several famous essays of Su Shi, and find out similarities and differences in calligraphic ideals between him and contemporary masters.This paper began with leaning experience at an early age of Su Shi, to discuss his special style origin. The second part, also the keystone of the paper, queried stereotyped point which regards some typical essays of Su Shi as the evidence of Shang Yi(nature adoring) calligraphic fashion, through analyzing specific texts and calligraphic circumstance of contemporary scholars. Because of his versatile character and calligraphic leaning wide in range, there was a contradiction between his words and action occasionally, which would be mentioned in the third part of paper.Furthermore, the paper probed some Su Shi’s poems mentioned of calligraphy,putting them back into specific context, and presenting own opinion.