On Luo Zhenyu's Art Of Oracle Bone Calligraphy

In the history of oracle calligraphy, Luo Zhenyu played an extreme significant role. He is the founder of oracle calligraphy.Luo Zhenyu possessed a unique thought on professional calligraphy; he had strictly abided by the ancient predecessors' code of carefully being strict and precise on the art of calligraphy, in the meantime he applied the exact norm in the practice. It is apparent from his works that his calligraphy style is genial, elegant, deliberate and firm, also shows the distinguishing features of dignified and solemn. Various factors had affected the formation of Luo's calligraphy style. A large number of calligraphers began to copy the Chinese bronze inscriptions due to the upsurge of studying Epigraphy in Luo's time. In addition, the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions set off a wave of writing oracle calligraphy across the whole society. Great change of Luo's oracle calligraphy style had taken place, as he worked hard gathering, recording, indexing, explaining, and making textual criticisms on oracle bone inscriptions in the long term. When Luo's early works of oracle calligraphy are contrasted with his mid-late ones, the changing of style is very apparent. From his mid-late works, we can clearly see that he had profoundly learned the essence of oracle calligraphy. If we compare Luo's works of oracle calligraphy with two other calligraphers who lived in the same time of period, we can find that his style is very distinctive. Luo succeeded in differentiating the oracle calligraphy among numerous calligraphers of his day; moreover, his works went down to posterity and brought profound and far-reaching influences to the later generations.Studying Luo Zhenyu's oracle calligraphy is of great significance in the history of Chinese calligraphy. Luo's oracle calligraphy enriched and expanded the history of Chinese calligraphy, for the first time the concept of'oracle calligraphy'appeared in the history, which is inseparably related to his years of research on oracle calligraphy. The course of Luo's research of also brought us transcendental ruminations, contributed to help us clearly see through the oracle calligraphy's reality of the situation in the progress of calligraphy producing in the contemporary era. In addition, we also recognize the deficiency during the production of oracle calligraphy in the modern times. Luo's hard work sets the oracle bone inscription into the art of calligraphy as an entirely new form of creation; it also improves the oracle calligraphy and takes it to a fresher high lever with more energies and dynamics.