In The Late Tang Dynasty Monk Cursive Study

During China Middle and late Tang Dynasty a peculiar colony has appeared in calligraphy circles -Cursive script monk. Numerous Buddhist monks were inditing the cursive script and they made friends extensively with nobles, literati and scholar-bureaucrats by right of having skills of the cursive script. The literati and scholar-bureaucrats praised them and they obtained very high reputation and status, mostly have much-vaunted influence at that time. A lot of cursive script monks came into the imperial court, served monarchs with their cursive script and got special favor from the emperor. That became a very special calligraphy phenomenon in the history of calligraphies. But because there were very few records of cursive script monks in national history of the cursive script, and their works that stored generations are very few, so the descendants quite censure to their works and the students has always ignored this special phenomenon. This paper researches in cursive script monk phenomenon during Middle and late Tang Dynasty of China, and put this phenomenon into social culture background for investigating, attempts to reveal the reason why this phenomenon exists. The research of cursive script monk phenomenon during the Mid-late Tang Dynasty can help with an overall understanding calligraphy of the Tang Dynasty and profoundly explore the Tang Dynasty calligraphy and it's relationship with culture. The study also has the function of edification to calligraphy research and inditing.This paper carries on the research mainly from several following parts:I. After pectination of cursive script monk colony during the Middle and late Tang Dynasty, analyses of their calligraphy styles, origin, calligraphy environment and mode of displaying, the paragraph drew a conclusion of the calligraphy style mainly influenced by Zhang Xu and Huai Su. Calligraphy performance and wall calligraphy are the displays adopted most frequently. Through the ways of cursive script performances and wall calligraphy, cursive script monks can improve their reputation conveniently, spread it far and widely and expand Buddhist monk influence of cursive script.II. Analyzing the relationship between cursive script monks with the mundane world from three aspects, which are the relationships with the emperor, the vassal and the scholar-bureaucrats. The relationships show the strong utilitarianism of the cursive script monk and the high praise from different social estate to the cursive script monks excited the prosperity of monk cursive script.III. Discuss the reason of why the phenomenon of cursive script monk produced. The prosperity of Buddhism made monks using cursive script as a way of apperception of zen. The utilitarianism of the cursive script monk made them using cursive script as a tool of obtaining reputation. And the canonizing from the imperial court excited the prosperity of monk cursive script. Monk cursive script met the social aesthetic needs of seeking strangeness.IV. The limitation of monk cursive script makes its influence brevity. The people of Song Dynasty didn't evaluate highly to monk cursive script and mostly were criticism. While the evaluation from Song Dynasty had tremendous influence to the later generations. The later generations basically continued to use the same attitude as Song Dynasty.