张旭与草书艺术(英文原创).doc

Wild Cursive Script Art and Zhang Xu 1. Introduction Cursive script is a kind of traditional Chinese script produced for convenience of writing. Cursive script originated since the beginning of the Han Dynasty. (Barnhart, 1972) The characteristics are: having the basic appearance of characters, breaking the regularity of Clerical script, bold and unrestrained. Cursive script could be divided into three main types which are Zhang Cursive, Jin Cursive and Wild Cursive. (Li, 2002) Strokes of Zhang Cursive have some certain rules, the Songjiang version of Literature in a Hurry written by Wu Huangxiang of the Three Kingdoms Period is one of the representative works of Zhang Cursive. While Jin Cursive does not have certain regularities, strokes are very fluent and smooth, significant Jin Cursive works include Wang Xizhi’s New Moon and Deshi. Wild Cursive existed in Tang Dynasty and is represented by Zhang Xu and Huai Su. Strokes of Wild Cursive is quite profligate and unrestrained, therefore Wild Cursive works become total artistic creations with out practicability. (Chen, 2011) Masterpieces of Wild Cursive such as Zhang Xu’s The Stomach Pains Therapy, The Heart Sutra, and Huai Su’s The Autobiographic Book have been preserved till today. In modern times, Lin Sanzhi was praised as Saint of Cursive Script, his masterpiece Sino-Japanese Friendship Poembe is honoured as Lin Sanzhi’s best cursive work (See Fig.1). (Chen, 2011) Fig.1 Excerpts of Cursive script art, created by Lin Sanzhi /picview/9078620/9074627/0/a2cc7cd98d1001e9224241edb80e7bec55e797d1.html#albumindex=0picindex=4） The author aims at making an in-depth study of the Cursive script art based on the contents in class. The author will combine the theories of traditional Chinese calligraphy with the author’s own experience of writing, comb the historical development and characteristics of this kind of unique script, make a critical analysis of the cultural connotation and value of the Cursive script especially the