Six Calligraphy From The Yan Family Instructions

The calligraphy of the Six Dynasties is known as the most brilliant achievement in Chinese Calligraphic history and it reaches the highest historic peak of Chinese calligraphic arts and culture. Yan Zhitui is one of the witnesses of calligraphic and cultural history of this period. His works, The Yan's Instruction, then is a multi-angular, multi-layered and comparatively comprehensive reflection of the calligraphy and culture of the Six Dynasties, which presents readers a concrete and all-around social historical and cultural background of the calligraphy of that time; at the same time, his works come to be a precious document for us to know and study the calligraphy of the Six Dynasties systematically and accurately.In the light of The Yan s Instructions, and, backgrounded with historic official personnel principles, writers in the Six Dynasties can be divided into 3 groups: nobles, local despotic gentries and craftsmen. The nobles consist of higher-ranking nobles and lower-ranking nobles. Different groups have diverse political, economic, cultural etc. backgrounds, which lead to the distinction of their knowledge, calligraphic practice, education of calligraphy and even the historic status and influence. And all these can be seen from The Yan's Instruction directly or indirectly.Under the social estate system, the nobles have different political status, economic standards and cultural backgrounds. As regards the knowledge and practice of calligraphy, as a result, the higher-ranking nobles seek for ever greater perfection; the lower-ranking nobles accomplish the task with ease. And aesthetically, the former group pursues the beauty of image; the latter, the very perfection of beauty. Then comes their difference between the historic status and influences. The higher-ranking nobles are keen on calligraphy mainly because of the calligraphic education in their families and the habits of extensive reading of that age; however, the forbidding of setting up tombstones in funerals for the poor has little affection on them.In the late period of the Six Dynasties, landlords and merchants of the lower-ranking nobles, as the ruled class, abruptly rose in politics along with their rising in economy, with calligraphy as one means of their advance. Then the nobles became government officials and at the same time, the local despotic gentries came to be officeholders too. Under such a system, those local despotic gentries practice theirhandwriting by writing official documents, copying book reservation and individual works in official residences, royal families or for literati. They attached great emphasis to practical applicability and their handwriting appeared to be rigorous and restrained. The local despotic gentries got no family instruction, so they learned to write in schools of prefectures, counties and townships. Then the local authorities would select top students from those schools to work for them. Later, the local despotic gentries passed themselves as the nobles, which come into vogue during Song Dynasty and Qi Dynasty in the period of the Six Dynasties. Little by little, creating fake calligraphy and pictures became a common practice. Since there is a world of difference between the nobles and common people, the despotic gentries held lower status in history and had little influence to others, so their calligraphic works are looked down upon.In the Six Dynasties, craftsmen, as hand labors under the serf system, depended on the officials and their families were all belonged to official handwork shops, working there for the nobles generation after generation. Writers among craftsmen were also made up of three groups of people: hereditary craftsmen who were engaged in writing and engraving, prisoners at the bar and special hand writers from captives. As for craftsmen engaging in writing and engraving who are from prisoners or captives, they learned to write earlier: among them, the nobles learned from family instruction while the local despotic gentries learned at school. When it comes to the hered...