The Study On Ouyang Tong’s Calligraphy

Ouyang Tong was the son of Ouyang Xun,a famous calligrapher in Tang Dynasty.Because he was good at learning his father’s calligraphy,later generations called him and Ouyang Xun together as "The older and younger Ouyang".As one of the few father and son calligraphers in history,Ouyang Xun and his son left a valuable cultural heritage for the history of Chinese calligraphy-OuTi.Nowadays,although many people like OuTi,they are not familiar with Ouyang Tong.They even think that learning OuTi Calligraphy is just copying Ouyang Xun’s handed-down calligraphy works.However,many calligraphers have long advocated that learning OuTi should begin with copying Ouyang Tong’s "The tombstone of Master Dao Yin ".In view of the public’s unfamiliarity with Ouyang Tong,this article intends to make a comprehensive and systematic study on Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy from the perspectives of Ouyang Tong’s personality traits,artistic achievements and historical influence,aiming to clarify that "If Ouyang Tong can live as long as his father,his calligraphy level will not be less excellent than that of his father Ouyang Xun",and then affirm Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy ability and remind those who want to learn OuTi calligraphy enthusiasts to pay attention to learning Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy.This article is divided into seven chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,which mainly introduces the content and significance of this study,the methods and steps of the study,and the relevant literature and their utilization.The second chapter analyses and studies Ouyang Tong’s personality traits from three aspects: his life,his loyalty,filial piety and his pursuit of elegance in stationery.The author believes that Ouyang Tong’s loyalty,filial piety and the ultimate pursuit of elegance in stationery are logically interlinked in character,which is the extension of his pursuit of perfect personality traits in different dimensions of life.The third chapter studies Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy origins and calligraphy achievements.Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy,in addition to inheritance of family studies,also directly adopted Wei Bei,Han Li,Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy,etc,and eventually integrated and penetrated,forming his own unique style of calligraphy.The author believes that Ouyang Tong can learn his father’s calligraphy and learn the calligraphy his father learned.It is not only his performance of pursuing filial piety,but also his embodiment of his pursuit of perfect personality traits in artistic pursuit.The fourth and fifth chapters introduce and analyze Ouyang Tong’s handed-down calligraphy works " The tombstone of Master Dao Yin " and " The epitaph of Quan Nansheng ".The analysis revolves around the style of writing,calligraphy and constitution respectively,so that readers can intuitively feel the difference in skills and styles between Ouyang Tong’s two regular script works,which have been written 16 years apart: " The tombstone of Master Dao Yin " was mainly influenced by Wei Bei and Han Li,thus " spiritual exposure " and lacks implicit beauty.Ouyang Tong’s late work " The epitaph of Quan Nansheng " pays more attention to the integration of North and South calligraphic styles,uses implicit writing,more tends to mature regular script of Tang Dynasty,but also more representative of Ouyang Tong’s calligraphic art level.There are only these two pieces of handed down calligraphy works of Ouyang Tong,and the comparative analysis of the two can directly reflect the fact that the level of Ouyang Tong’ calligraphy is better with the increase of age.The sixth chapter studies the influence of Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy.Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy has exerted a great influence on the later generations.Many calligraphers believe that in order to learn Ouyang Xun’s calligraphy well,we should start with Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy and regard learning Ouyang Tong as a bridge to learn Ouyang Xun.Many later calligraphers have also studied Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy directly.They believe that Ouyang Tong’s calligraphy is conducive to close formation and tracing the ancient methods of Wei Bei,Seal Script and Official Script calligraphy,such as the famous calligraphers He Shaoji,Kang Youwei,Liang Qichao and so on.The seventh chapter is the conclusion of this article and a summary of the innovation and shortcomings of this article.