Shen Quanqi's Panegyrics by Imperial Order in Cursive Script

Zhan Jingfeng, a native of Xiuning, Anhui, was a respectable connoisseur of the mid-Ming. He was noted by Wang Shizhen, a literary authority at the time, for his literary achievement but has been more celebrated for his calligraphy by later generations.

When he began learning calligraphy, Zhan sought initiation from the Jin-Tang tradition. Upon gaining enlightenment from discourses by Li Yingzhen, a Ming calligrapher from almost a century earlier, he broadened his scope of models both stylistically and temporally. The fruitful results can be seen from his larger pieces in the cursive script such as the present work, which stands out from contemporary calligraphies in its steely strokes, masterly rendering and dynamic character, which serves to justify why he has been considered an equal of Zhu Yunming.

The text is two poems composed by Shen Quanqi of the Tang dynasty by imperial order. Somewhat similar to panegyrics in the west, these imperial commissions are mostly eulogistic in nature and pompous in rhetoric. Because of the constraints that range from time, form to discreetness to meet with imperial expectations, such compositions are usually mediocre in the eyes of many but not the mid-Ming archaistic school of poetry. Individual acolytes of the school such as Gui Tianxiang were impressed by their challenging rules and majestic ethos. Although Zhan was not a member of the school, he was definitely a sympathizer and was himself a core member of another poetic association called the White Elm.