Song Grams Of Calligraphy

At the end of Yuan Dynasty, when Hangzhou cultural circle gradually shifted to Susong area, Suzhou witnessed a boom of calligraphy. In the early years of Ming Dynasty, Suzhou scholarship was on the wane and as a result, calligraphy experienced a depression. Song Ke's calligraphy played a transitional role in this period. Adopting the methodology of historical, literature and artistic research, the paper outlines his life story with a detailed review of his interacting with Yang Weizhen, Ni Zan and Zhang Xian, revealing a coincidence of his pursuit of style with that of the recluse literators. The research of Song Ke's achievement in calligraphy is approached from three aspects: his XiaoKai style, ZhangCao and CaoShu respectively. The author concludes that Song Ke's small regular script took on a new appearance which resulted from a delicate change from Yuan people's pursuing beauty to their preferring primitive simplicity. The author further concludes that his ZhangCao follows the trend of Yuan people's reviving the style, which reached its peak in the early years of Ming Dynasty. Taking advantage of his specialty in ZhangCao, he combined the way of writing ZhangCao, JinCao and KuangCao with character structures and created a new artistic conception. Furthermore, based on a critical analysis of his work DingWu LanTing BaBa, the paper discusses his thoughts of calligraphy and style Song Ke's calligraphy had a significant influence on calligraphers of the early Ming Dynasty and founded a Wu school, which was of original significance to the formation of Ming's romantic style. The foundation of Song Ke's calligraphy style may be viewed as a typical example of the transition from the recluse style to romantic style in the history of calligraphy.