Influenced by the discoveries of ancient artifacts, Qing Dynasty artists created new Chinese art styles based on ancient forms of inscription. A group of calligraphers who formed the Stele School borrowed designs from ancient stone carvings on columns, or steles, and from bronze bowls and other artifacts and blended these old forms and methods with modern methods in calligraphy.
During the last third of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), Chinese scholars took a renewed interest in their country’s ancient stone and bronze carvings and engravings as archaeologists uncovered countless artifacts that had been hidden from view for centuries. Calligraphers also took note, particularly of the newly uncovered ancient stone monuments that are called stelae in English, after the Latin word for stone pillars. Drawing on the stelae for inspiration, the calligraphers created a new style of artistic writing, or calligraphy, that fused ancient and more modern scripts. The movement to create these new forms was later called the Stele School in English, after the singular Greek word for stela, stele (pronounced STEE-lee).
Qianlong, the fourth emperor of China’s Qing Dynasty, was a passionate art collector. Using his imperial powers, he amassed a great collection of important works, including porcelains, bronzes, rare books, calligraphy, and many early paintings. For many years artists were not able to study China’s early works and thus learn from them because Qianlong gathered so much of the country’s important work. Landscape painters, especially, were disadvantaged by the collection, because, traditionally, they had found their inspiration for new works by studying older works. As Qianlong’s reign continued, Chinese painting began to stagnate as an art form, and other forms, including calligraphy, took on greater importance. At the same time, Chinese intellectuals were increasingly denied active roles in government, so many of them, too, changed their focus to scholarly research on China’s antiquities. Qianlong was himself a moderately skilled calligrapher, and he had gathered an extensive collection of early examples. This collection was guided by his own taste, and as he encouraged scholars to study and write about this collection, his views came to shape what was valued and what was not.
Under Qianlong’s influence, scholars reexamined Confucian texts. Classical education at the end of the eighteenth century had been based heavily on eleventh and twelfth century commentaries on the writings of Confucius
Deng Shiru was one of the first calligraphers to study the stelae and to move toward a truly new style combining formal qualities of the ancient inscriptions with new artistic techniques. Working at the end of the eighteenth century, Deng focused his attention on the stelae produced during the Northern Wei
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, most Chinese calligraphers received formal training that involved reproducing master works of calligraphy from copybooks or model books. These copybooks included tracings and copies of older works. Students copied and recopied the models until they mastered every stroke of every character, leaving little room for innovation. As calligraphers became more familiar with and attracted to stele inscriptions, a new style of calligraphy developed, which was modeled after the stele inscriptions.
The mathematician
Bao Shichen
A generation after Bao Shichen saw the arrival of Zhao Zhiqian, a civil servant and an artist who was fascinated with ancient artifacts. He had become interested in stelae through his epigraphic studies of ancient inscriptions. In 1863, on a trip from Shanghai to Beijing, where he took part of the national civil service examination, he began to make copies in calligraphy of carved stelae from the Northern Wei
Although calligraphers had studied the stelae for more than half a century and had produced work influenced by them, Zhao’s work was the first to capture the attention of other artists in great numbers. After Zhao’s example, the Stele School became something of a fad, although Zhao himself abandoned the new style near the end of his life.
Breaking with tradition, Zhao Zhiqian created important work in more than one medium. He carried some of the aesthetic ideals of the Stele School into painting, creating flower paintings that blended old and new effects, and he demonstrated new directions for modern artists working in traditional genres. The commonplace format of paired hanging scrolls can also be traced to the Stele School.
The new approaches to calligraphy coming out of the Stele School influenced Chinese art into the twenty-first century. Calligraphers influenced by the Stele School include Qian Juntao
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Fu, Shen C. Y. Traces of the Brush: Studies in Chinese Calligraphy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1977. An analysis of the calligrapher’s dependence on a firm grasp of tradition in cultivating a personal style. Many black-and-white illustrations. -
Harrist, Robert E., Jr., and Wen C. Fong. The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliott Collection. Princeton, N.J.: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1999. An exhibition catalog, lavishly illustrated, which includes analysis of the scholarship of Ruan Yuan and examples of Stele School work. -
Hearn, Maxwell K. “Art in Late Nineteenth-Century Shanghai.” Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 58, no. 3 (Winter, 2001): 10-13. A brief exploration of Zhao Zhiqian as a transitional figure who borrowed from traditional styles to create new forms. -
Hummel, Arthur W. Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, 1644-1912. 2 vols. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1943-1944. The first biographical dictionary in any language to cover this period, with brief but thorough entries. -
Nishibayashi, Shoichi. “Copybook and Stele Studies of the Qing Dynasty.” In Chinese Calligraphy, edited by Yujiro Nakata and translated by Jeffrey Hunter. New York: Weatherhill/Tankosha, 1983. A 238-page history of calligraphy in China, part of the History of the Art of China series.
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