Renowned for his poetry and calligraphy, Huang Tingjian was part of a circle of scholar-amateurs, or literati, who founded an artistic tradition. According to their ideas, art was a form of self-expression—a reflection of an individual’s character. In calligraphy, they developed personal styles, especially in running script, the script type displayed in Huang's Scroll for Zhang Datong.

While living in political exile, Huang received a visit from his nephew Zhang Datong, who asked for a sample of calligraphy. He responded by transcribing an essay by the Tang dynasty prose master Han Yu (768–824). Although the transcription was lost, Huang’s colophon is preserved in this scroll. Unlike characters written in more formal contexts, such as stele inscriptions or sacred texts, those in Huang’s scroll are loosely spaced and surprisingly asymmetrical. Elongated diagonal strokes, written with a quivering inflection of the brush, recur frequently, creating a strong impression of visual unity and inner strength. Although Huang’s bold running-script style is one of the most original in the history of Chinese art, it was partly based on the strangely shaped characters of Eulogy on Burying a Crane, a long-forgotten inscription carved on a cliff, which he believed to be from the hand of the revered calligrapher Wang Xizhi (303–361). Huang wrote this scroll while ill, yet despite his weakened condition, an impression of his inner vitality and physical power is transmitted through each character.

Further Readings

Shen C.Y. Fu, "Huang T'ing-chien's Calligraphy and His Scroll for Chang Ta-t'ung: A Masterpiece Written in Exile," Ph.d. dissertation (Princeton University, 1976).

Jay Xu, "Opposite Paths to Originality: Huang T'ing-chien and Mi Fu," in Robert E. Harrist, Jr., Wen C. Fong, et al., The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliott Collection (Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1999), pp. 261–79.