On Sept. 28, the famed calligrapher and educator Tian Yingzhang died at the age of 74.

Arguably the best-known calligrapher in contemporary China, millions of Chinese learned Tian’s calligraphy style through his tutorials, workbooks, videodiscs, and online courses. After his passing, Tian’s fans showered him with praise, calling him “the sole master of our time,” “a true calligrapher,” and an unmatched artistic giant.

But others — including many artists, critics, and connoisseurs — were more measured. Despite acknowledging Tian’s contributions to the field of calligraphy education, few professional calligraphers see him as a true master of the art, or even place him in the field’s upper echelons.

What explains this gap in perception? The answer lies in the ambiguity of the word calligraphy itself. The Chinese word for calligraphy, shufa, or “way of writing,” can be read in two different ways. One refers to neat and legible writing, comparable to English penmanship. In conversation, “You can handle a pen” refers to someone whose writing is easy to read, aesthetically pleasing, and most importantly, matches the standard character forms taught at school.

But there is another conception of calligraphy, one which treats it as a serious form of visual art and, indeed, the epitome of Chinese artistic expression. This lineage traces its roots all the way back to Li Si (d. 208 BC), chancellor to the emperor Qin Shi Huang and possibly China’s earliest calligrapher.

Li’s style, like his legalist political philosophy, was meticulously organized and harmonized with classical proportions, and his works can still be found on steles that were erected throughout the empire. Later calligraphers built on his legacy, even as they expanded the boundaries of the art. In the fourth century AD, southern Chinese aristocrats, including Wang Xizhi, introduced a spontaneous, sensitive touch to their impromptu letters and manuscripts.

Many calligraphers of this period, including major figures such as Sun Guoting, were also critics, and they eagerly defended their hobby as a form of art. According to this group, calligraphy is a “picture of the heart.” It mirrors the personality, morality, and temperament of the creator. Those who create outstanding calligraphy are therefore thought to possess admirable personalities. Proponents of these ideas also believed that calligraphy could capture the transient passions of a specific instant. Exceptional works often arose from significant events, intense feelings, or moments of sudden epiphany.

This approach was a far cry from an emphasis on the static quality of a person’s handwriting. Rather, it invited readers to track the strokes’ journey as if tracing the mind of the calligrapher.

Paradoxically, as calligraphy rose in prestige, it became increasingly institutionalized. When medieval China expanded its bureaucratic and examination systems, scholars who had political ambitions found that writing in a neat and pleasant style could help them on exams and in their careers. Another game changer was the rise of the publishing industry between the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties. Books printed with typefaces lacked the nuance and sensation of handwritten copies. While calligraphers with unique styles continued to be respected, more uniform and static aesthetics nonetheless gained traction. By the late imperial period, officials had adopted a stiff and robotic style infamously called guangeti, or “the style of offices and bureaus,” which was all but indistinguishable from a print typeface.

Beginning in the 17th century, calligraphers unnerved by this trend, including Wang Duo (1592–1652), Fu Shan (1607–1684), Ruan Yuan (1764–1849), and He Shaoji (1799–1873), began working to bring about the revival of calligraphic self-expression and vibrancy. Art critics of the late imperial period such as Bao Shichen (1775–1855) and Kang Youwei (1858–1927) also criticized regimented handwriting styles as stale and stiff, and called for calligraphers to reject their stultifying influence.

The result was a concerted push to reclaim the transcendental status of calligrapher, as advocates began displaying large scrolls of calligraphy in semi-public spaces such as lobbies or galleries, much like paintings today.

But this revolutionary idea of calligraphers as artists was never popular outside elite circles, and works guided by this philosophy — despite their glorification in museums and by academics — have often been criticized as pretentious, eccentric, contrived, and above all, ugly. (Google the term choushu, literally “ugly writing,” and you’ll get thousands of results from amateur critics disparaging established calligraphers from the 17th century all the way to the present day).

Indeed, many of the tributes that poured in after Tian’s death took aim at contemporary professional calligraphers as “ugly writers.” Critics accused them of being cultural impostors in a way reminiscent of how Western critics sometimes call contemporary art a sham and Picasso a fraud.

Rather than focus on lofty notions of dynamism or momentum, Tian cared first and foremost about good handwriting. In his workbooks, identical characters were always written the same way, down to the stroke. Although Tian’s preferred style can be traced to Ouyang Xun (557–641), he domesticated the famed calligrapher’s signature dynamism into a tamer, more mellow form. For those who saw calligraphy as an art, this was an appalling choice, as it stripped away any nuance that might provide visual impact or emotional resonance. But for students seeking practical handwriting advice, Tian’s uniformity provided an easy-to-follow model that proved popular.

Tian’s approach makes all the more sense when situated in the context of his career. In the 1980s, Tian was employed by China’s central government to hand-write appointment letters and official correspondence, as well as train others to do the same. In this role, clarity and formality mattered most, rather than artistic impulse.

The popularity of Tian’s tutorials should also be understood as a result of historical circumstance: The expansion of China’s educated population after 1949 and the related need to teach millions of students to write clearly and well.

Up through the first half of the 20th century, most literate Chinese learned to write with a brush. Although they might eventually use a pen, their handwriting often retained the distinctive influence of rigorous calligraphic training. But the literacy movement launched by the People’s Republic of China cultivated a generation that never learned to write in the traditional way. Educated in public schools, they began with pencils, modeling their characters after printed fonts in textbooks, rather than canonical models from ancient masters.

China’s push for higher literacy rates accelerated during the 1980s, as the country imposed nine-year compulsory education for all children. This increased demand for accessible instruction materials on good handwriting, a hole Tian’s calligraphy coursebooks quickly filled.

Tian’s tutorials focused on kaishu, the regular script most commonly used in schools, and most of his books were designed to be followed directly with pens rather than the brushes used by generations of calligraphers. But even Tian’s brushwork followed a regularized, arguably oversimplified approach. Overall, his courses prioritized practical, standardized writing for everyday use, rather than the lofty aspirations of artistic calligraphy.

Fundamentally, that’s what the controversy over Tian’s achievements boils down to: two different views of calligraphy — two sets of aesthetics, aspirations, and attitudes toward calligraphic practice.

For professionals who learned to write with a brush at an early age, writing standard regular script characters is an effortless task. The real challenge — and achievement — for them is to unlearn the “standard” way of writing and break free from the constraints of book knowledge, just as the 17th-century reformers strove to do. By contrast, for the majority of the population, “good handwriting” is in itself a valid and genuine achievement. The general public is baffled by the outlandish works of celebrated artists and rarely has any interest in understanding the manifestos accompanying them.

Now, Tian Yingzhang is gone, and calligraphy, even in its most basic form, is on life support. At a time when the replacement of pens and pencils with keyboards and touchpads is imminent, even Tian’s extensive tutorials can seem anachronistic. Artistic calligraphy may yet survive, thanks to the sponsorship of connoisseurs, collectors, and critics. But if we forget how to write, it will lose its raison d’être as an independent art form.

Editor: Cai Yineng; portrait artist: Wang Zhenhao.

(Header image: Tian Yingzhang and his calligraphy textbook. Visuals from @官塘书法 on WeChat and yac8.com, reedited by Sixth Tone)