Stele Calligraphy

Timeline

1. c. -200–600Central Plains and Qi-Lu region · ChinaIn the Han dynasty, the practice of carving steles in clerical script flourished; stele form conventions and calligraphic paradigms were established. Steles of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties continued and developed regular, running, and cursive scripts; cliff inscriptions and epitaph stones developed alongside erected steles, forming a rich calligraphic legacy.
2. c. 700–900Chang'an and Luoyang · ChinaTang dynasty regular-script steles reached an artistic peak; famous steles such as the Duobao Pagoda Stele and the Xuanmi Pagoda Stele became models for later generations of calligraphy study. Stele content, beyond calligraphy, also bore commemorations, epitaphs, and Buddhist scriptures, reflecting the maturity of Tang calligraphy and stone-carving craftsmanship.
3. 1081–1090Kaifeng and Luoyang · Northern SongDuring the Yuanfeng and Yuanyou eras, Ouyang Xiu's Record of Collected Antiquities and epigraphic works by Zhao Mingcheng and others promoted the practice among scholar-officials of seeking out steles, making rubbings, and textual research; collection, recarving, and colophons on Han, Wei, Six Dynasties, and Tang steles were active in this period, as stele calligraphy expanded from a purely artistic carrier into an object of antiquarian research.
4. c. 1100–1800Xi'an Stele Forest · Xi'anFrom the Southern Song onward, stele forests, Confucian temples, and academies gradually collected famous steles of successive dynasties; by the Ming and Qing, the Xi'an Stele Forest and others became venues for the systematic preservation and display of stele calligraphy, with cliff inscriptions, carved stones, and model-letter printings together forming a multi-layered carrier network for the transmission of Chinese calligraphy.