• National Palace Museum Painting Collection 故宮授權複製畫

Wang Xizhi was a native of Linyi in Shandong but later moved to Guiji in Zhejiang. The descendant of a noted family, he once served as General of the Right Army, which is why he was called “Right-General Wang.” In calligraphy, he first studied the style of Madame Wei and Zhong You, but later adopted the virtues of various manners, which he gathered and perfected to become honored as the “Sage Calligrapher.” This work is a fine Tang dynasty copy composed of four lines with 28 characters. The contents describe the feeling of clearing right after a large snowfall and offer greetings to a friend. The wording is composed of three stages going from the beginning to the main text and then to the ending. The writing includes such characters as “dunshou 頓首” and “guowei 果為” that reveal the connected brushwork of cursive script, but most of the work is done in running script with some of the careful brush manner of regular script methods, suggesting a dignified spirit neither quick nor slow as well as an exceptional sense of elegantly flowing beauty.