Lan Ting Ji Xu (Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection)

Xing Calligraphy (running script) Lan Ting Ji Xu (Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Poems), the best-known masterpiece of Wang Xizhi, crowned not only itself as "the Greatest Running Hand" but also Wang as "the Sage of Calligraphy".

Back in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420), court minister and calligrapher Wang Xizhi (AD 303-361) invited 41 friends for an outing at the Orchid Pavilion in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province. Sitting by a flowing stream was a little cup filled with liquor. Whenever it passed in front of someone, that person was obliged to improvise a poem, or drink the liquor if he failed to come up with one. At the end of the day, 37 poems were composed by 25 scholars. Wang, as the initiator of this merry activity, picked up a brush and composed Lanting Xu, or A Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Poems.

Considered the greatest masterpiece of Chinese calligraphy, Lan Ting Ji Xu crowned not only itself as "the Greatest Running Hand" but also Wang as "the Sage of Calligraphy".

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