Hua Yan Shu Juan
Huang Tingjian 黄庭坚(1045-1105)
Running script
Huang Tingjian was born in Xiushui, Jiangxi province. His designated name was Luzhi and his literary
name was Shan'gu Daoren. Like Su Shi, his teacher, he is considered one of the four masters of calligraphy
of the Song Dynasty. He is also the founder of the Jiangxi school of poetry. Huang Tingjian wrote this scroll to
raise money for a temple. Both the size and spacing of the characters are important to the expression of the
meaning, his style is fluidand relaxed. In addition to the running script shown here, he also mastered a type of
script called cursive. Both running script (xingshu) and cursive script allow strokes to meld with one another
and toextend past the imaginary box that bounds regular script. Cursive is more extreme and there are
examples from other calligraphers within this site. Running script was developed from clerical or official script
in the first centuries AD and became the usual form of handwriting as it was much faster.
Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126)

http://hua.umf.maine.edu/China/SMcalligraphy/index.html
(c) Marilyn Shea, 2006, 2007