Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Xu Hao
Tang calligrapher and official from Shaoxing who drafted edicts for Emperor Suzong and was praised for powerful regular script
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 Jihai · Posthumous name Ding
Xu Hao, courtesy name Jihai, came from Yuezhou, today's Shaoxing, and was a nephew of the chancellor Zhang Jiuling. Under Emperor Suzong he served as a drafting secretary and wrote many of the court's edicts, and under Daizong he held posts as vice minister of works, governor of Lingnan, vice minister of personnel and academician of the Jixian Hall. His regular and clerical script was dense and weighty; the New Book of Tang likened it to a raging lion gouging rock and a thirsty steed racing to a spring. The appointment patent for Zhu Juchuan, dated 768 and now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, is traditionally attributed to him, and his stele for the monk Amoghavajra stands in the Xi'an Forest of Steles. He died in 782 at eighty.
Life and times
Dates 703 CE-782 CE