For 1,300 years, Chinese calligraphy was based on the elegant art of Wang Xizhi (A.D. 303–361). But the seventeenth-century emergence of a style modeled on the rough, broken epigraphs of ancient bronzes and stone artifacts brought a revolution in calligraphic taste. By the eighteenth century, this led to the formation of the stele school of calligraphy, which continues to shape Chinese calligraphy today.

A dominant force in this school was the eminent calligrapher and art theorist Fu Shan (1607–1685). Because his work spans the late Ming–early Qing divide, it is an ideal prism through which to view the transformation in calligraphy.

Rather than seek a single explanation for the change in calligraphic taste, the author demonstrates and analyzes the heterogeneity of the cultural, social, and political processes behind it. Among other subjects, the book covers the late Ming interaction between high and low culture; the role of publishing; the Ming loyalist response to the Qing; and early Qing changes in intellectual discourse. In addition to the usual approach of art historians, it adopts the theoretical perspectives of such fields as material culture, print culture, and social and intellectual history.

  Illustrations

  Calligraphy Terms and Chinese Names


  Introduction

1  Late Ming Culture and Fu Shan's Early Life
   A Period of Heterogeneity 5/ Qi and Aesthetics o/
   Dong Qichang and Individualist Calligraphers 2o/
   Ancient Canons in Question 34/  Seal Carving and
   Calligraphy o5/  A Sense of Crisis 7/  Fu Shan's
   Life in the Ming 73

2  Fu Shan's Life and Calligraphy in the Early Years of the
   Manchu Conquest
   Years of Wandering 83/ Shared Sorrow 87/
   Historiography and Dynastic Memory 97/ The Appeal of
   Yan Zhenqing ioi/   Fragmentation and Awkwardness I18/
   The Lingering Influence of Late Ming Cultural Life 29





3    New Intellectual Tendencies and Fu Shan's Advocacy of
     Epigraphical Calligraphy
     The Intellectual Community in Shanxi, 1660s-1670s 53/
     New Trends in Intellectual Life 58/  Scholarship and
     Calligraphy 67/  Steles 172/  Epigraphical
     Calligraphy i85/ Breaking the Tang Schema 92/
     Responsefrom the South zoi

4    Calligraphy and the Changing Intellectual Landscape
     Later Years 209/  The Boxue hongci Examination 212/
     Fu Shan's Running-Cursive and Cursive-Script Calligraphy 220/
     Fu Shan's Last Works in Cursive Script 245

     Epilogue


     REFERENCE MATTER

     Notes

     Works Cited

     Character List

     Index