A Study Of Wen Zhengming’s Inscriptions In Small Regular Script

As the leader of the Wu school of calligraphy in the Ming dynasty,Wen Zhengming held an important position in the history of calligraphy,leaving behind many small regular works,of which a considerable number are presented in the inscriptions.This article organizes and summarizes the results of Wen Zhengming’s lower case inscriptions on the basis of a brief review of the development of the inscriptions.The focus of the article is on Chapter 3,which shows that Wen Zhengming’s lower case inscriptions are an expression of the interplay between artistic thought,writing content and calligraphic style.Based on this,the author first summarizes the artistic ideas conveyed by Wen Zhengming’s lower case inscriptions,in order to pave the way for a later analysis of Wen’s skilful and refined artistic style.Once again,I place Wen Zhengming’s works of lowercase inscriptions from various periods vertically on historical coordinates,comparing them with their predecessors and sorting out the origins of calligraphy and the evolution of style;and horizontally on the cultural background of the Ming dynasty as a whole,comparing them with contemporaneous calligraphers and highlighting Wen’s unique calligraphic style.The influence of Wen’s style of lower case calligraphy has been felt by countless later scholars,in addition to the Wu clan.With the changing conception of the creation of lower case inscriptions today,the author’s graduation processional work,based on an in-depth analysis of the diverse techniques of Wen’s lower case inscriptions and his calligraphic ideology,explicates the lessons and reflections his artistic style of lower case inscriptions has brought to the author’s creation in various ways.