The Calligrapher Chung Yu (ca. 163-230) and the Demographics of a Myth

Chung Yu's life revolved around scholarship, the arts, national affairs, and his family's attempts to acquire and maintain status. Although we have no evidence that he imbibed Taoist ideas and practices, or even phraseology, specialists in the art of calligraphy, soon after his death, pictured Chung as a Taoistic hero-virile even in his mid-seventies and a calligrapher of transcendent skill. Here it is suggested that Chung Yu was neither the Methusala nor the Ts'ao-court leader he is often portrayed to be. Rather than relying on later legends and pseudo-biographies, as most modern studies have done, this article reexamines the oldest sources and attempts to establish the facts of Chung Yu's life and suggest some reasons for the problems deriving from early sources

Art · Demographics · Literature · Mythology · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Chinese history and philosophy · Demography · Japanese History and Culture

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