Zhangcao, an early form of Chinese cursive script that grew out of clerical script, had nearly become a lost art before Wang took it up. Drawing on Qin and Han dynasty seal and clerical scripts as well as bamboo and silk manuscripts, he breathed new life into the thousand-year-old form.
"His calligraphy has been shown at venues across Shanghai before," Sun Xiangchen, executive dean of the Fudan Art Institute and one of the exhibition's curators, said, "but this is the first time an exhibition offers a comprehensive view of his achievements in both scholarship and calligraphy."
Among the important exhibits are works on loan from the Liaoning Provincial Museum and manuscripts donated by Wang's family.
