Eleven calligraphers from Yuncheng, north China's Shanxi Province, are giving a joint show at the Today Gallery in Wenhuiyuan Beilu, downtown Beijing.

The works have the tough and simple style which is typical of calligraphy from northern China, contrasting sharply with the elegance and beauty of calligraphy from the south.

The works on show included wall scrolls, mutually incompatible couplets and seal carvings.

Using casual and popular style of brush work and colored paper, these calligraphers have obviously been influenced by fashion as they focus more on the visual effects achieved with scrolls hanging on walls.

Renowned calligrapher Wang Lu, 60, who is also a researcher of calligraphic aestheticism, is taking part in the exhibition.

Steadiness, strength and honesty are expressed in his works, which followed the aesthetics rooted in the Yellow River reaches.

"Wang's style basically follows that of the inscriptions on tablets in northern China a millennium ago,'' said art scholar Zhao Chengkai.

"He also studied graceful writings in ancient scrolls and uses them to break away from the rigidness and over-exaggeration of the inscriptions,'' he said.

(China Daily November 15, 2003)