clerical script

“Beautiful and shapely”style is a pretty and vivid calligraphy style. Such a style is often formed when lines are slender and smooth and structure is upright and well-proportioned.

Size: stele height of 253 cm, stele width of 123 cm rubbing height of 178 cm, rubbing width of72cm In the Han Dynasty, clerical script was the most widely used font. In the Western Han Dynasty, clerical script was mostly written on bamboo slips and silk. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, clerical script was carved on stone steles in large quantity. Later, people often summarize the calligraphy of the Han Dynasty with the phrase”clerical script of the Han Dynasty” Full name ofStele for Cao Quan is Stele for Cao Quan, Magistrate of Heyang County in the Han Dynasty. It was carved in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which is now collected in the Forest of Steles in Xi’ an, Shaanxi Province. Cao Quan served as Magistrate of Heyang County(today’s Heyang, Shaanxi Province) in the Eastern Han Dynasty. This stele records his lifetime achievements, with 19 rows on obverse side and 45 Chinese characters in every row(except three Chinese characters are missing in two rows of this work).

Clerical script of the Han Dynasty shows various styles. Stele forCao Quan is a representative of”beautiful and shapely”style. The writing movement is dominated by round stroke, with running central edge and mellow lines with plenty of changes. The characters are mostly in oval square shape. Vertical strokes are compact, while horizontal strokes extends towards both sides by means of long horizontal line, top-down vertical line, left-downward slope line and right-falling line so as to smartly combine”convergence”and”laxity”. In this way, the characters look beautiful with many postures like the flying white cranes with ethereal lightness.

qingquang

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