To brew witty lines of verse for a newly finished painting;
To read a remarkable work over a leisure cup of tea.

Ruan, a learned scholar and the Grand Censor of the Qing, attempted to classify tangled styles of the past. He maintained that the styles up to Northern and Southern Dynasties are categorizable by the separate dominance of inscription in the north and manuscript in the south. Therefore the neglected inscriptions, or Northern School, should be equally respected. He had two great supporters in Bao Shichen and Kang Youwei, and because of their advertisement the practice of learning from stone inscriptions surged throughout the country.

Inscriptions versus Manuscripts.   (Extract)
By Ruan Yuan

The ancients made use of bronze and stone to praise kings' virtues, declare official merits and record historic events. To Han dynasty stone inscriptions could be commonly seen at scenic spots, temples and burial grounds. There were quite many skilled calligraphers in that period. During Jin dynasty Han steles still stood in great numbers in the north and their rubbings were circulated among practitioners. Compiled in the Tang, Book of the Jin paid greater respect to clerical script than others in judging calligraphers' ability. By Jin's standard one who was not good at clerical script might not be characterized as a calligrapher. Tang emperor Tai-zong liked very much Wang Xizhi's style. “Wang excelled in clerical script and his script has been an unparalleled wonder,” he wrote in Biography of Wang Xizhi. He had no single word about Wang's regular script and cursive script which we see today, because he could not but to follow the convention.

Manuscripts are those written on silk and paper. Some of Zhong You's manuscripts like Memorial were brought to the south during Jin's retreat. Because of this he was thought to be the founder of the styles of the south. What selected in Copybook of Chunhua, like handwriting by Zhong You, Wang Xizhi, Xi Jian, Xie An, et al., belong to manuscript. By banning on stone stele, manuscript flourished during Southern Dynasties when regular script and cursive script completely replaced clerical script. This is seen in Inscription of Crane and its contemporary Gate to Cloudy Mountain of the north. The two share a similar style with the former of little clerical script but graceful.