Puguang

CHINA, Shanxi, Datong; Yuan dynasty

A monk, calligrapher, and painter, Puguang had an original family name of Li, and was also known as Xuanhui. He was well-educated with good manners and integrity, and was known for his diligent and steadfast determination and strict adherence to monastic rules. The famous calligrapher Zhao Mengfu praised him for his achievements in calligraphy and recommended him to work in the imperial court. He was granted the position of grand scholar in the Institute for the Glorification of Literature, as well as the honorary title of Master Xuanwu. Under imperial order in 1312, he wrote Preface to the Sutra in Forty-Two Sections.
Puguang was skilled in the artistic areas of poetry, painting, and calligraphy. While his poems were light and graceful, his calligraphy was elegant and out of the ordinary. He was well-verse in regular, running, and cursive scripts, and was particularly skilled in writing large characters for horizontal inscribed boards. A large amount of Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) horizontal inscribed boards were inscribed by Puguang due to an imperial order prohibiting privately made inscriptions. In painting, Puguang learned landscape techniques from Guan Tong, and his bamboo paintings were modeled after the style of Wen Tong.
Extant calligraphic works by Puguang include Song of the Grass Hut by Master Shitou, currently kept at the Shanghai Museum. Han Yu’s Poem of Mountain Rocks, and an inscription at the end of Thousand-Mile Rivers and Mountains scroll painting by Wang Ximeng. His paintings in Book of Arhats are listed as an Important Cultural Property of Japan and is kept at the Seikato Bunko Art Museum in Tokyo.