Study On He Shaoji Calligraphy Poems

He Shaoji is an outsanding calligrapher, poet and scholar in late Qing dynasty. His poetry described a lot about the contents of the calligraphy, inscriptions on a tablet, preface and postscript, Bei Tie textual research, and so on. It is very important materials to research his calligraphy aesthetic, calligraphy thoughts and calligraphy creation.The thesis selected 32 calligrahy poems as the research object from the He Shaoji and Poetry. The poems were divided into calligraphy creation and Bei Tie, according to the difference in content. The classification of calligraphy creation was further subdivided into oneself and wise men practical experience. The category of Bei Tie was subdivided into three small classes: seal script and official script, regular script, and running script and cursive. Firstly, this thesis will make a detailed note of these poems that provides convenience for reading and understanding. Then it will comb out the main Calligraphy views and calligraphy thoughts of He Shaoji.This thesis consists of four chapters: chapter one introduces the He Shaoji's main achievement and current research. Chapter two makes comments on calligraphy poems. Chapter three analyzes the thoughts of the calligraphy poems. Chapter four explores its contribution to the later generations of calligraphy research.He Shaoji learned calligraphy from Yan Zhenqing at the begining, and later he merged together the Han and Wei Dynasties Tangbei in pursuit of all kinds of styles. He Shaoji was the first calligrapher who claimed the Bei Xue and acquired the great achievement in late Qing dynasty. He initiated a Chinese writing way of using the brush which “hanging back to the wrist”, and also he made use of the brush pen which is made of goat's hair). All of these has been made him gain an unprecedented success. His incredible achievements were based not only on his skill, but even more importantly his talent and knowledge in art and literature. From He Shaoji's works, we can see that he inherited some theories from his teachers, but instead of blindly following in their path, he compared and analyzed until he created his own new ideas. He emphasized that calligraphy should follow the principle of “horizontal and vertical lines,” and regarded this as the key to learning calligraphy. He considered the two calligraphy traditions “the South and the North” had some similarities, with “the Southern Bei having potential of Northern Bei.” He thought highly of the Bei tradition and saw it as the root of seal script and official script. As such, he advocated sweeping away impure calligraphy and returning to the original methods. Hi experience, ideas, and practice continued to inspire generations of later calligraphy.