International Symposium on Su Shi Calligraphy held in Meishan, China

Meishan city in southwest China's Sichuan Province hosted this year's International Symposium on Su Shi Calligraphy.

With an administrative history dating back more than 2,300 years, Meishan is the hometown of the great poet Su Shi. Among the Eight Great Prose Writers of the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties in China, Meishan's Su Xun, Su Shi, and Su Zhe are regarded the most famous in the world.

As a treasure of traditional Chinese culture, calligraphy embodies the essence of the Chinese civilization, and also serves as a bridge between cultures.

The poet Su Shi, also known as Su Dongpo, was a bright star in Chinese calligraphy. Su created a large number of calligraphic masterpieces that conveyed positive energy, such as "Han Shi Tie," the third most famous semi-cursive script in Chinese history. His emphasis on self-expression opened up a new era in Chinese calligraphy and exerted profound influence on the development of calligraphy and painting in later generations.

The symposium, which was held on November 4, invited over 50 experts and scholars from China, Russia, South Korea, Iran and Japan.

Focusing on international exchange and dissemination of the cultural legacy of Su Shi, the experts made speeches and held academic exchanges on Su Shi's calligraphy works, and explored their influence on literary works worldwide.

At the event, Hideu Horikawa, a Japanese expert on cultural exchanges, said that Japanese calligraphy originated from Chinese calligraphy. He explained that before the Meiji era, attention was paid to calligraphy before the Tang Dynasty. After the Meiji Restoration, attention tended to focus on calligraphy from the Song, Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. He also praised the event for promoting cultural exchanges between countries.

Kazmina Olga, an associate professor from the School of Foreign Languages at Southwest University in Chongqing told CGTN that if she could use one word to describe Su Shi, it would be "creativity." She added that Su not only led the fashion in his era, and was extremely creative, but his work still had a profound influence on people today, and that creativity is important at any time.

The symposium also discussed in detail and introduced the publication, the "Complete Works of Su Shi's Calligraphy."

To compile this "Complete Works of Su Shi's Calligraphy,"  the publishers had to collate nearly 10,000 high-definition plates covering almost all of Su Shi's most important calligraphy works.

As a major cultural undertaking, this comprehensive and definitive anthology of Su Shi's calligraphy works stands out for its use of novel materials, its large-scale format, exquisite reproduction and fine interpretation to create a unique publication.