A Study Of Running Script In Loulan’s Chinese Documents

Loulan,located in the northwest border area,is one of the thirty-six countries in the ancient western region,located in Ruoqiang County,Xinjiang.The existence of Loulan in history is short-lived.Influenced by many factors,Loulan city has gradually disappeared.The disappearance of Loulan city has also covered a layer of mysterious veil for this area.Until1901,Swedish Explorer Sven heding discovered the remains of Loulan,dug out the Loulan documents,and introduced Loulan into people’s eyes again.After that,Stein,an Englishman,juruichao,a Japanese explorer,and the Xinjiang archaeological team of China excavated Loulan site,and unearthed a large number of wooden slips and ink books.The appearance of Loulan documents has greatly helped us to study the history,politics,economy and culture of Loulan area,and has also provided a large number of authentic and reliable ink materials for calligraphy researchers.Through the archaeological excavation of Loulan,a large number of Chinese simple paper documents and inks have been unearthed.From the unearthed documents,we can see that the unearthed documents were from the period of Caowei to the Western Jin Dynasty and Qianliang,during which there were many gaps in the history of Chinese calligraphy.The excavation of Loulan documents just provides strong evidence for the study of the evolution of calligraphy fonts in this period.The appearance of Loulan Xingshu also allows us to have a glimpse of the real face of Weijin Xingshu.After Loulan documents were unearthed,people have studied Loulan documents in many fields,including the evolution of Loulan fonts in the field of philology,the study of politics,economy and culture in Loulan area by archaeologists,and the study of Loulan calligraphy style in the field of calligraphy.Scholars who study Loulan calligraphy mostly take the whole Loulan document as the object,all fonts in Loulan document as the object of study,and few do systematic research on Loulan Xingshu alone.This paper will make asystematic study of the running script in Loulan’s documents from the perspective of calligraphy.This paper is divided into five parts.The first part mainly introduces the development of Loulan in Chinese history and the basic situation of Loulan documents,including the excavation of Loulan documents,the body of Loulan documents and the significance of Loulan documents.The second part mainly expounds the contents of Loulan Xingshu,including political affairs,account books,public and private letters,as well as the age reflected in Loulan Xingshu,and sorts out the Xingshu documents of each era,and finally classifies Loulan Xingshu according to Xingli,Xingkai,xingcao and Xingshu.The third part mainly studies the artistic characteristics of Loulan Xingshu from three aspects of pen,structure and constitution.The fourth part will make a comparative study between Loulan Xingshu and Xingshu in Wei and Jin Dynasties,Xingshu in Wang Xizhi,manuscript of sacrificing nephew by Yan Zhenqing and jiuhuatie in Yang Ning’s style from the perspective of calligraphy art.The fifth part expounds the comprehensive value of Loulan running script to the contemporary scholars in studying Loulan politics,economy,culture and calligraphy.At last,the conclusion is drawn that the characteristics of Loulan’s handwritten script provide us with valuable and authentic materials for the future research.Loulan running script embodies the gradual transformation of running script from official script to mature running script.These running script writing is straightforward,relatively naive and unsophisticated,the aesthetic level of calligraphy art is not high,and the whole is not standardized.Loulan running script can find similarities from the two styles of later mature running script in terms of pen,knot and composition,which proves that the style of later running script is not created by one person,but a summary of the relatively immature early running script that has been formed.The study of Loulan’s running script can deepen our understanding of running script and summarize the writing rules of running script,so as to promote the innovation of contemporary people’s running script.