Regular script is a kind of writing developed from official script, which was originally formed in the Eastern Han Dynasty. According to historical records, the earliest regular script was created by Wang Cizhong.
Zhang Huaiguan, a famous calligraphy theorist, said in his book Book End: At the beginning of the second period, ancient books were widely used, but there were few waves. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Cao Li was the first method, and the word was eight points, which set an example. "As can be seen from this sentence, Wang Ci came from the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Judging from the traces of books seen now, the earliest regular script is Zhong You's regular script, which is called the ancestor of regular script. Zhong You, a wei ren in the Three Kingdoms period, was good at calligraphy, especially regular script.
His most famous representative works are small works called "five tables", such as life table, joint table, declaration form, adjustment table, recommendation table and so on. Although the original has long been lost, we can still see the elegance of "the ancestor of regular script" from the existing Song rubbings.
Although the regular script in China sprouted in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the truly literate regular script appeared in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the regular script changed from folk germination to calligraphy orthodoxy, which was widely studied by scholars at that time as a fashion.
One of the most famous is Zhong You, who is a very diligent calligrapher. He said that he is diligent because he has been obsessed with learning calligraphy. He sleeps on the quilt, draws words on the ground when chatting with people, and can't go out every time he goes to the toilet, because he practices writing in the toilet.
Said he was eager to learn, because he once sent someone to Dan Wei's tomb to steal a calligraphy secret book, Zhong You's "brushwork". He was good at thinking, worked hard on calligraphy, and finally summed up and created the regular script we use now, which will go down in history.
After Zhong You created regular script, Wang Xizhi reformed it, and removed all the official script strokes in Zhong You's regular script, making it fully mature. The Tang Dynasty was the heyday of regular script, and many regular script masters appeared, such as Yan Zhenqing, Liu Gongquan, Ou Yangxun, Yu Shinan and Chu Suiliang.
In a word, regular script evolved from official script, matured through the transformation of Zhong You and Wang Xizhi, and reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty.