Characters coming alive

Qian Zi Wen, or Thousand Character Classic, is a text compiled by Zhou Xingsi, a scholar living in the fifth and sixth centuries, for children to learn characters. The text contains 1,000 different characters which Zhou picked from the works of great calligrapher Wang Xizhi in the fourth century, and rearranged in sentences. The text has been passed down not only for educational purposes but also, as a reference for artists to learn from Wang's style of writing.

Anhui province calligrapher Ren Zhi recently published his rendition of Qian Zi Wen in various calligraphic scripts. He unveiled the album in Beijing at China National Academy of Painting where his 120 works are on show until Saturday. The book and the exhibition shows Ren's calligraphic exploration over the past decade, during which he has v experimented by integrating the five principal scripts of Chinese calligraphy to form more styles.