"Yanxian is frail and consumptive; I fear he will scarcely recover. When he first fell ill, I feared it would not end there..."
Inside the government offices of Wenyang Commandery, the newly appointed governor, Liu Tan, stood before his desk, his brush racing like dragons and serpents as he copied Lu Ji's Pingfu Tie. When he reached the words "When Ziyang first came to stay, I could not fully...," his brush faltered. Thick ink spilled from the center stroke and spread into a black cloud, swallowing half the character "Yang."
Lu Ji's Pingfu Tie is now housed in the Palace Museum. Even among its clouds of treasures, its standing as one of the museum's crowning treasures is beyond dispute. The most prominent double-dragon seal in the picture-
(Continuing the caption above: the most prominent double-dragon seal is Emperor Huizong of Song's imperial seal, and the gold-painted inscription above it is in his own hand. During the Republican era, Prince Gong's descendants sold off their family possessions, including Night-Shining White and Pingfu Tie. The former passed through several hands before being sold to a Briton and is now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States. Brokers also sought to sell the latter to Eastern Japan for a high price, but thanks to Mr. Zhang Boju's tireless efforts, this national treasure remained in China. See the preceding picture for the colophon.)
Liu Tan stopped writing, his brows furrowing into deep creases, and sighed.
"When ordinary people practice calligraphy, the moment they use thick ink to seek weight and depth, their brushwork easily turns lifeless. Yet Lu Pingyuan used a worn-out brush and coarse paper, writing casually, and achieved something as natural as creation itself. That spark of vitality within the breast is the hardest thing to attain. The