Couplet in running script

On the sloping banks of the ancient inkstone, the musk-scented ink is green,
Around the miniature hill with its verdant growth, the basin of stone is cold.

He Shaoji is generally acknowledged as one of the most important and original calligraphers of the nineteenth century. Initially trained in the model-letters tradition, he later studied more archaic forms of script and established himself as one of the leading calligraphers of the Stele School. As he progressed from one focus of study to another, He Shaoji consciously synthesized each new technique with those he had mastered before and succeeded in creating a distinctive style that was all his own. He also devised a different way of holding the brush that required an extraordinary degree of physical exertion and mental discipline. By suspending his entire arm from the shoulder and bending both the elbow and wrist inward, much as a person drawing the string of a bow, He Shaoji not only changed the normal mechanics of writing, but also significantly altered the way that force and control could be exerted on the brush and the effect that certain movements would produce on the forms and structures of individual characters. This method also imparts a unique sense of emotional tension to his writing.

He Shaoji was born to a scholar-official family in the town of Daozhou (modern Daoxian), in southern Hunan Province, but moved as a boy with his parents to the capital Beijing, where his father pursued a successful political career. He Shaoji himself passed the national examinations in 1836 and was appointed to a series of positions in the imperial Historiography Institute (1838-49). In 1852, he became education commissioner for Sichuan Province, where he diligently conducted examinations throughout the province until mid-1855, when he lost his office for making an imprudent proposal to the throne and never sought government service again. He Shaoji subsequently served as headmaster of academies in Shandong and Hunan provinces, and in 1870 he accepted an invitation from the governor of Jiangsu Province to move to the city of Suzhou, where he later died.