Peter C. Sturman

The workshop will do close readings of a number of texts on Chinese calligraphy authored by Zhang Huaiguan, who was active in the first half of the 8th century: Discourse on Calligraphy, Discussion on Writing, and the first fascicle of the author's Judgments on Calligraphy. All are included in the Tang dynasty compilation Fashu yaolu (Essentials on Calligraphy, 9th century), and provide an important window on how the art of calligraphy was viewed and described during a transitional period between the consolidation and establishment of orthodoxy of the earlier part of the Tang and the emergence of radical aesthetic transformations that began around the middle of the 8th century.