Wang Xizhi was a Chinese calligrapher.He is considered by some as the first "artist" in the Western sense,insofar as it has moved away from the official canon in force,the cursive handwriting,practicing a form of free personal and pictorial practice. The Lantingji Xu, literally "Preface to the Poems Collected from the Orchid Pavilion") or Lanting Xu is a famous work of calligraphy by Wang Xizhi, composed in year 353. Written in semi-cursive script, it is among the most well-known and well-copied pieces of calligraphy in Chinese history. This work began as the preface to a collection of poetry seminal to the Chinese nature poetry movement, but developed somewhat of a life of its own: it describes the event during that year's Spring Purification Festival; in which, 42 literati including Xie An and Sun Chuo were present at a gathering at the Orchid Pavilion near Shaoxing, Zhejiang, at which they to composed poems, played music, and enjoyed the wine. The gentlemen engaged in a drinking contest: wine cups were floated down a small winding creek as the men sat along its banks; whenever a cup stopped, the man closest to the cup was required to empty it and write a poem. In the end, twenty-six of the participants composed thirty-seven poems. The preface consists of 324 Chinese characters in 28 lines. The character zh¨© (Ö®) appears 20 times, but no two look the same, which is considered one of the features of this work that constitute its calligraphic excellence. This celebrated work of literature also both flows rhythmically and gives rise to several Chinese idioms. That it is a piece of improvisation can be seen from the revisions in the text.
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