In 1878, nearly 1,300 years after Ouyang Xun (557 AD – 641 AD) died, his calligraphy was revived…
Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun used it to create their header (see below).
They still use it today.
Ouyang is remembered as both:
- One of the four masters of regular script
- One the four early Tang calligraphy masters
Let’s look closer at his life and work.
Contents
Biography
Family background and early life
Ouyang Xun (欧阳询), courtesy name Xinben, was born in what is today’s Changsha, Hunan Province, during the Northern and Southern dynasties period (420 AD – 589 AD).
This was a period of disunity and competition amongst Chinese states. Ouyang worked for one of them, the Chen dynasty (557 AD – 589 AD).
He came from an aristocratic family of officials and military leaders.
His grandfather, Ouyang Wei, served as an official, diplomatic envoy, and army general.
And his father, Ouyang Ge, served as a general and provincial governor of Guangzhou.
Going into hiding
When Ouyang’s father was killed after plotting a rebellion, the 13-year-old Ouyang Xun had to immediately go into hiding.
Otherwise, he too would have been punished under the – ‘implicate nine generations’ (株连九族) policy.
Soon after, the royal court issued an amnesty. The young Ouyang was safe again.
He was raised by a good friend of his father. This was the writer, calligrapher and former de-facto Chen dynasty prime minister, Jiang Zong (519 – 594 AD).
“Looks like a monkey!”
Ouyang is said to have been a bad-looking fellow. One particularly cruel remark was that he looked like a monkey.
A Tang dynasty story taunted Ouyang.
In it, Ouyang’s mother accompanies her husband on a military campaign to southern China.
She gets kidnapped and then impregnated by a white monkey. Her husband spends a month tracking her down before finding her and killing the monkey.
But almost a year after, Ouyang is born.
It’s likely that behind this mockery was contempt for Ouyang’s biological and adoptive fathers by his political enemies.
Later career
Despite the early setback of the loss of his father, Ouyang had a successful official career.
He served as a minister of ceremonies and academician during the short-lived Sui dynasty (581 AD – 618 AD) that preceded the Tang dynasty.
During the Tang, he continued on as an official. And was known to be a favourite of the dynasty’s most famous emperor: Taizong (598 AD – 694 AD).
Taizong was known to be a keen fan of calligraphy, especially of the work of calligrapher Wang Xizhi (303 – 361 AD).
In fact, it is thanks to Taizong that Ouyang produced perhaps his most famous work: Jiucheng Palace Sweet Water Spring Inscription (九成宫醴泉铭) (sometimes translated as The Sweet Spring Essay).
This piece was written after a spring was discovered at Taizong’s summer retreat.
The text was by the official and writer Wei Cheng (580 AD – 634 AD). But Taizong requested that it was written in Ouyang’s hand before it was inscribed onto stone.
Similarly, Ouyang wrote out the epitaph for the prime minister Du Ruhui – even though text itself was by his fellow Tang dynasty calligrapher Yu Shinan (558 – 638 AD).
Death and legacy
Ouyang died aged 83 or 84 in 641 AD.
His fame as a calligrapher continued to grow after his death.
The Tang dynasty was also very cosmopolitan and had visitors from abroad. Thanks to this, Ouyang’s work managed to spread to Japan and Korea, too.
His script and calligraphic theory helped influence the direction of the script during the Tang dynasty.
Many that the changes in regular script during the Tang dynasty were the final significant leap its development.
Later on, variations continued to appear, but nothing on the scale of its Tang transformation.
Ouyang’s son: Ouyang Tong
Ouyang Tong (? – 691 AD) (欧阳通) was Ouyang Xun’s fourth son. Like Ouyang Xun himself, he was still young when his father died.
A story has it that Ouyang Tong’s mother wanted him to learn his father’s craft of calligraphy.
However, the family’s remaining calligraphy collection was destroyed in a fire.
This meant that Ouyang’s widow spent time and money buying back some of her late husband’s works.
Ouyang Tong was therefore able to study and copy them, which contributed to his success as a calligrapher when he grew up.
Ouyang Xun’s calligraphy
Inspiration: Suo Jing and the Two Wangs
Ouyang was naturally influenced by styles popular in the Chen and Sui dynasties.
He also admired work from dynasties even earlier than those.
This included calligraphy of Jin dynasty calligrapher Suo Jing (239 AD – 306 AD).
A Song dynasty (960 AD – 1279 AD) story about Ouyang by Li Fang has Ouyang finding a stone grass script inscription by Suo Jing.
Ouyang then stays with the piece for three days and nights, studying it by tracing the characters with his fingers.
In some Tang dynasty writings, he is only listed as having admired Wang Xizhi.
Elsewhere, scholars claim that he studied the work of Wang Xizhi’s son, Wang Xianzhi (344 – 386), more.
One plausible theory has it that the Taizong Emperor of Tang loved the work of Wang Xizhi but disliked the work of Wang Xianzhi.
Taizong said the younger Wang’s calligraphy was like a tired servant being overworked by a master.
To please the emperor, admiration for the elder Wang and dislike of the son were emphasised by Tang writers.
Ouyang’s style
Ouyang is still known as being the master of Chinese character structure.
His characters are some of the most symmetrical and harmoniously balanced shapes in calligraphy.
He is said to have excelled at several styles, including:
- Regular (Ouyang is considered one of the Four Masters of Regular Script)
- Running
- Clerical
- Seal
- Cursive
- Zhangcao
- Flying white
Unfortunately, none of Ouyang’s samples of these last two survive, only references to them.
Ou-Style
Ou has the distinction, shared by few, of his regular script style being well-known by a specific name: Ou-Style (欧体).
Tang dynasty calligraphy historian Zhang Huaiguan wrote that Ouyang’s regular style was awe-inspiring. He also stated that it resembled spears and battle axes.
Ouyang frequently used hooked or upturned stroke endings.
He also created very choppy, rugged strokes that seem to hint at a powerful hand that sometimes pauses, contracts or extends certain strokes.
The art historian Peter Charles Sturman describes Ouyang’s style as follows:
Ouyang Xun’s calligraphy empazises internal structure rather than external flow, or “bone” over “blood”, but this is not to deny its vitality. The flow of Ouyang Xun’s writing relies on delicate balances between the energies generated from each character – a sense of movement within stasis. Such subtlety would have been difficult to learn without adopting the Tang calligrapher’s meticulous attention to detail.
– Peter Charles Sturman, Mi Fu: Style and the Art of Calligraphy in Northern Song China (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 61
The Southern Song calligraphy theorist Jiang Kui (c. 1155 – c. 1221) wrote:
Writers like Ouyang Xun and Yan Zhenqing treat regular script like cursive script.
– Jiang Kui, Sequel to Treatise on Calligraphy (1208)
Ouyang Xun’s Legacy
Positive remarks about Ouyang
Ouyang has long been praised as one of history’s most influential calligraphers.
The leading calligrapher of the Yuan dynasty, Zhao Mengfu (1254 – 1322 AD), remarked:
欧阳信本书，清动秀健。古今一人。
Ouyang Xinben [Xun]’s calligraphy has pure movements and elegant vigour. From the past until the present, he is one of a kind.
Negative remarks on Ouyang
Zhang Huaiguan did remark that the speed of Ouyang’s style partially impaired its beauty.
In the late Northern Song period (960 – 1126 AD), the famous eccentric but brilliant calligrapher Mi Fu (1051 – 1107 AD) deeply influenced by Ouyang.
I first studied Yan Zhenqing […] Then I saw Liu [Gongquan] and yearned after his tight structures […] After a while I realised Liu came out of Ou[yang Xun], so I studied Ou. With the passage of time, my calligraphy resembled counting slats, and I looked forward toward Chu [Suiliang].
– Mi Fu, Studying Calligraphy Narrative
Of course, Mi Fu’s moving on from Ouyang’s style isn’t proof of any kind of weakness in it.
Zhao Mengfu remarked that Mi Fu ‘it seems [Mi Fu] didn’t understand [Zhao’s] divine spirit’ (犹似末知其神奇也).
And Peter Charles Sturman remarks that Mi Fu’s view was likely down to his impatience.
Eight Knacks (八绝 [Bā jué])
Ouyang wrote a treatise on calligraphy named Eight Knacks.
In it, he developed ideas first discussed in Wei Shuo’s (also known as Lady Wei) treatise on calligraphy.
He discussed specific technical points, such as how to execute certain strokes.
And how to maintain a harmony in characters, especially when different – or conflicting – strokes threatened to override it.
The Asahi Shimbun header
The Asahi Shimbun was founded in 1879. Japanese is a distinct, unrelated language from Chinese, but it does use many Chinese characters.
Chinese calligraphy has long been popular in Japan, too. And Ouyang’s calligraphy was still popular enough to be chosen to create The Asahi Shumnum’s header.
The clerical script (an early type of official script) from Ouyang’s 626 AD piece Zongsheng Temple Inscription (宗圣观记) was chosen.
This piece doesn’t contain all of the exact characters needed: 朝日新聞.
In Japanese, the third character (新) has different strokes in the bottom left part to the Chinese version of the same character.
(木 in Japanese instead replaced what is closer to 小 in Chinese).
So, a sample of 木 in Zongsheng Temple Inscription was used to edit this.