On The Works Of Calligraphy By Shi Tao

This thesis provides a monographic study on the works of calligraphy by Shi Tao, one of the "Four Monks" in the early Qing Dynasty. The focus of this study is his calligraphic inscription on paintings, prefaces and postscripts.Shi Tao is a very complicated character with his complex social identity. As a member of the Ming imperial family and an adherent of the former Ming Dynasty, his life experience was extremely bumpy; As a monk, he escaped from persecution, converted to Buddhism and lived in seclusion in his childhood. Shi Tao chose to become a follower of the Renzai School and he found moksha from the law of Zen "dwelling on nothing"; As a Taoist Priest, he converted from Buddhism to Taoism in Yangzhou in his later years; As an artist, he was a poet, painter, calligrapher and painting theorist. His personality is unruly, unrestrained and peculiar. His acquaintance are mainly painters and seal-cutting talents who were also adherents of the former Ming dynasty. With Buddhism as the root but combined with the philosophy of Confucianism, Taoism and Yi-ology, his thought is of complicated origin but ingenious conception.There are very few independent pieces of calligraphy works by Shi Tao handed down, but the large number of paintings, prefaces and postscripts can serve as a great resource for the study of Shi Tao’s calligraphy. He perfected his calligraphy by learning from a wide range of masters including both ancient calligraphers and calligraphic talents among his peers. He studied all five scripts of Chinese calligraphy but was especially good at the regular script and the clerical script with a style of primitive simplicity, freedom and elegance. His works on paintings, prefaces and postscripts were specially "unique". Shi Tao tended to use seals frequently with boldness. He held that "poetry, calligraphy, paintings and seals are an integral whole, and the importance of whatever style, be it delicate, forceful, sophisticated or ugly, should be expressiveness", so he intelligently generalized the art of poetry, calligraphy, painting and the use of seals in theory from the perspective of creation and aesthetics, integrated these forms of art to perceive the spirit, and finally proposed the "One Painting" theory. Shi Tao exerts great and far-reaching influence on the development of art, but his achievements in calligraphy are somewhat overlooked for his fame in theory and painting.