On Rong Geng's Calligraphy Art

Geng Rong is a well known philologist,but few people know that he is also an accomplished calligrapher.Furthermore,he played a leading role in the process of simplifying Chinese characters.The primary focus of this research paper is the artistic style of Geng Rong's calligraphy and his contribution to the reform of Chinese characters.Geng Rong wrote a text,"Jin Wen Bian," which has become a reference book that is often used when learning calligraphy and ancient Chinese characters.Rong brought together his comparative work on Shang and Zhou characters in one volume.It is because of this work that he met Zhenyu Luo.This encounter changed the trajectory of Rong's life.Zhenyu Luo's ancient calligraphy style had a profound influence on Geng Rong's own calligraphy.This study has found that Geng Rong's early works have a feeling of piecing and stacking characters together,but from works of his middle and later years his natural integrated style becomes evident.Regarding the simplification of Chinese characters,Geng Rong drew on his understanding of rules that governed the development of Chinese characters and that characters evolve over time.Thus,the new simplification of Chinese characters was a natural progression of the development of characters across history.Within his own works he used many simplified characters.Such innovations show the logic of the development of simplified characters and the contributions made by Rong.