Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Chu Suiliang
Early Tang calligrapher and chief minister who opposed making Wu Zhao empress in 655 and died in exile in Aizhou; his Preface to the Sacred Teachings stands at the Wild Goose Pagoda
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Zi Dengshan · Duke of Henan · Shi Wenzhong
Chu Suiliang, courtesy name Dengshan, came from Qiantang in Hangzhou; his father Chu Liang was one of the eighteen scholars of the Prince of Qin's household. Under Emperor Taizong he rose from court diarist to remonstrance official, and after Wei Zheng praised his brushwork he was set to authenticating the palace's Wang Xizhi manuscripts. On his deathbed in 649 Taizong charged him and Zhangsun Wuji with guiding the young Gaozong, and he went on to head the Secretariat as Duke of Henan. In 655, when Gaozong moved to make Wu Zhao empress, he laid his tablet on the palace steps and knocked his head until it bled; he was sent out to Tanzhou, then Guizhou, and finally Aizhou, where he died in 658. Emperor Zhongzong restored his titles only in 705. His *Preface to the Sacred Teachings* (*Yanta Shengjiao xu*), written in 653, is still set into the south gate of the Great Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an.
Life and times
Dates 596 CE–658 CE