Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Zhang Xu
Tang cursive calligrapher called Mad Zhang, who wrote after drinking, sometimes with his hair dipped in ink, and passed his brush methods to Yan Zhenqing
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 Zhang Dian
Zhang Xu, courtesy name Bogao, came from Wu county in Suzhou and served as sheriff of Changshu and later as an aide in the capital guard. The New History of the Tang says he drank heavily and, when very drunk, would shout and run about before taking up the brush, sometimes writing with his hair dipped in ink; sober again, he found the results uncanny and beyond repeating, and people called him Mad Zhang. He said he had grasped the brush from watching a princess's attendants jostle porters on the road and from hearing drums and pipes, and its spirit from watching Lady Gongsun's sword dance. Emperor Wenzong named Li Bai's poems, Pei Min's swordplay and Zhang Xu's cursive the three wonders of the age, and Du Fu's Song of the Eight Drinking Immortals shows him bareheaded before princes, his brush scattering clouds of ink. He taught Cui Miao and Yan Zhenqing, and the Four Ancient Poems scroll in the Liaoning Provincial Museum is attributed to him.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; High Tang calligrapher