Verses Composed to Harmonize with Poems by Li Yu-shu

A certain style of regular script was in vogue among officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties: square, upright, neat, and uncluttered, the form was known as taigeti(臺閣體) or guangeti(館閣體). Although its execution required practice and skill, and forms were aesthetically appealing, the characters were all of the same size. Unvarying from calligrapher to calligrapher, the forms were stiff, wooden and uninteresting. From the middle of the Qing Qianlong period (1735-1796) onward, following compilation of the?Complete Library of Four Branches of Literature, a collection of over 10,000 literary works, the style became even more popular. Written in running script, the brushwork here echoes Song-dynasty calligrapher Su Dongpo's style, gentle yet vigorous; the long, horizontal and ending strokes of 叔 (shu) and 早 (zao) in the second line, and 華 (hua) in the fourth line are reminiscent of Yan Zhenqing's Tower of Many Treasures Stele, while the upper part ,cover-shaped, of the characters 完 (wan), 空 (kong), 客 (ke) and 思 (sz) are closer in style to Tang calligrapher Liu Gongquans's "Tower of Mysteries Stele." However, the overemphasis on uniformity and uprightness inevitably calls to mind the guangeti of the "Complete Library of Four Branches of Literature."