Chinese calligraphy : an introduction to its aesthetic and technique : with 6 plates and 155 text illustratons

FIG. 139.—AN EPITAPH, CHIH (it), OF CHANG HEI-NO

(張 黑 2%) MADE IN THE WEI PERIOD (Collection of Ch'in Ch‘ing-Tséng, Soochow)

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The object of these three figures is to exhibit the Chinese practice of ‘copying’. The epitaph of Chang Hei-Ni (Fig. 139) was found by the Ching dynasty calligrapher, Ho Shao-Chi, who made the style known by the appreciations he wrote of it in his book, and by the copies he made ofit. Figs. 140 and I4I are copies by two other good calligraphers of the Ching dynasty. Notice that neither even attempts to be a- facsimile of the original; superficially, they differ as much from it as from one another : it is the aesthetic qualities only of the original that the copyists have tried to reproduce. And the copies being good, each has value in itself. The same applies to good copies of paintings.