The Influence And Development Of The Chung Yu Tradition In The Song Dynasty

Chung Yu, the founder of regular script of Chinese calligraphy, creates a new style which is quaint, natural and plain. Under the judgement and discussion over centuries, Chung Yu and his works experienced a process of decline and revival and wholly restore in Song dynasty, which is quiet worth concerning and studying. People in Song dynasty pursue the beauty of Chung Yu’s calligraphy that is quaint, natural and plain not only in skills perspective, but also in aesthetic evaluation. The thesis focuses on the acceptable situation of the Chung Yu tradition with historical documents and materials. The first aspect presents basic situation of the Chung Yu tradition, from his life, calligraphy and works appreciation. And then, the meaning of the Chung Yu traditon, the decline and revival of Chung Yu and Wang Xizhi’s status and comparisons between them are studied from a longitudinal historical perspective. The third aspect is the key part of this article. With examples of Huang Tingjian, Mi Fu and Huang Bosi, this aspect explains the background of the Chung Yu tradition’s revival as well as the inheritance of scholars in both skills and theories in northern Song dynasty. How calligrapher such as Zhao Gou, Zhu Xi and Jiang Kui who are influenced by the Chung Yu tradition under the trend about returning back to ancients in southern Song dynasty are discussed at the same time. There are different understanding and evaluation of the Chung Yu tradition due to different social background as well as political and humanistic environment in northern and southern Song dynasty. The thesis studies the acceptable situation of the Chung Yu tradition to compare different explanation in these two dynasties by a way of classification.