Early Tang Poems in Small Regular Script Image 1

Zhu Yunming, a native of Changzhou (present-day Suzhou, Jiangsu), served as Magistrate of the Xingning county and then Assistant Prefect of Yingtianfu (near present-day Shangqiu, Henan). His literary genius won him the honorific of the “Four Literary Talents of Wu” together with Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming and Xu Zhenqing while his calligraphic accomplishment the “Three Masters of Wu” with Wen Zhengming and Wang Chong.

Thanks to initiation by his grandfather Xu Youzhen and his father-in-law Li Yingzhen, Zhu built up a solid foundation in the Jin-Tang regular script and went on to perfect it through diligently copying the Huangting Jing (Scripture of the Yellow Court) evidently from the age of 27 to 67. Obviously, such efforts paid off and Zhu was much acclaimed for his regular script as well as his robust and unrestrained large cursive script.

Written in 1512 when the calligrapher was 52, the text features a selection of early Tang poems composed by Li Rubi, Wang Bo, Li Qiao, Liu Xiyi and Song Zhiwen. The small regular script is marked by its rounded strokes and squarish characters that are traceable to Zhong You and Wang Xizhi whom Zhu was preoccupied with in his middle and old age.