Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Sun Guoting
Early Tang calligrapher and minor official whose Treatise on Calligraphy of 687 survives in his own cursive hand
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 Qianli
Sun Guoting, courtesy name Qianli (or, by another account, personal name Qianli and courtesy name Guoting), called himself a man of Wu commandery, though other accounts place him in Fuyang or Chenliu. Neither Tang history gives him a biography; Chen Zi'ang wrote his epitaph and a funeral address, describing a studious man whose career went nowhere, a recorder in the heir apparent's guard who fell ill and died at a lodging in Luoyang. He wrote cursive script after Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi, and in 687 he set down his Treatise on Calligraphy in that script, a discussion of the history and technique of the art. The original manuscript is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and engraved versions have circulated since the Song.
Life and times
- UnknownBorn
Tangwrote the Treatise on Calligraphy in 687 - UnknownDied
Works
Treasures · Brushwork1- Sun Guoting, Treatise on CalligraphyTang dynasty, dated 687A theory of calligraphy written in cursive