Ouyang Xun And Yu Shinan Calligraphy Comparative Study

It was not until the early Tang Dynasty that Ouyang Xun and Yu Shinan had won the greatest honor in the field of calligraphy. However, ever since Zhang Huaiguan, a famous calligrapher in Tang Dynasty, gave such a comment as, even though they each had his own merits, Yu enjoyed a higher historical status than Ou.Yu' s calligraphy was regarded as a fashion and model by the followers for such a long time. But historically speaking, according to their achievements and influences on the development of calligraphy, it was not quite reasonable to depreciate Ou' s calligraphy, because his Kaishu was strongly characterized with those good qualities of both the north and the south. And it occupied a very important place in Chinese calligraphy, since it was regarded as an overall improvement of the historical development of Kaishu.As the research goes further, it becomes more and more clear that the differences between Yu and Ou' s historical status were deeply rooted in the social system, idealism, aesthetic, the emperors' favors, and their personal relationships with the emperors at that time.The ultimate aim of the thesis is not to compare their historical status, but to find out the social, cultural, and idealist factors which affect their historical status, and to trace the overall development of Chinese calligraphy in early Tang Dynasty, by comparing the characteristics of their calligraphy.