Regular script, also called 正楷, 真書, 楷體 and 正書, is the newest of the Chinese script styles. It is the most common style in modern writings and third most common in publications.
History
Regular script came into being between the Eastern Hàn and Cáo Wèi dynasties, and its first known master was Zhōng Yáo, who lived in the E. Hàn to Cáo Wèi period, c. 151–230 CE. He is known as the "father of regular script", and his famous works include the Xuānshì Biǎo, Jiànjìzhí Biǎo, and Lìmìng Biǎo. Qiu Xigui describes the script in Zhong’s Xuānshì Biǎo as: However, other than a few literati, very few wrote in this script at the time; most continued writing in neo-clerical script, or a hybrid form of semi-cursive and neo-clerical. Regular script did not become dominant until the early Southern and Northern Dynasties, in the 5th century; there was a variety of regular script which emerged from neo-clerical as well as from Zhong Yao's regular script, known as "Wei regular" or "Wei stele". Thus, regular script has parentage in early semi-cursive as well as neo-clerical scripts. The script is considered to have matured stylistically during the Tang Dynasty, with the most famous and oft-imitated regular script calligraphers of that period being:
In addition to its many names in Chinese, regular script is also sometimes called "block script" or "standard script" in English.
Characteristics
Regular script characters with width larger than 5 cm is usually considered larger regular script, or dakai, and those smaller than 2 cm usually small regular script, or xiaokai. Those in between are usually called medium regular script, or zhongkai. What these are relative to other characters. The Eight Principles of Yong are said to contain a variety of most of the strokes found in regular script. Notable writings in regular script include:
Tombstone-Record of Beauty Tong of the Sui Dynasty
Sweet Spring at Jiucheng Palace of the Tang Dynasty
Derivatives
Imitation Song typefaces are typefaces based on a printed style which developed in the Song dynasty, from which Ming typefaces developed.
The most common printed typeface styles Ming and sans-serif are based on the structure of regular script.
The Japanese textbook typefaces are based on regular script, but modified so that they appear to be written with a pencil or pen. They also follow the standardized character forms prescribed in the Jōyō kanji.
Zhuyin Fuhao characters, although not true Chinese characters, are virtually always written with regular script strokes.
