The Calligraphic Skill of Qin Hui and the Historical Controversy of Rejecting a Person's Work Because of the Person

The calligraphy of Qin Hui is a topic in calligraphy history centered on the powerful Southern Song chancellor Qin Hui and his calligraphic works. Qin Hui, courtesy name Huizhi, was a native of Jiangning. He passed the imperial examination as a jinshi in the late Northern Song and held power for a long period in the early Southern Song; he is an extremely controversial figure in history. His characters had considerable skill; besides running and regular script, he could also write seal script, and later calligraphic works record that he was skilled at calligraphy.

Judging from surviving materials, his calligraphy excelled in running and regular script, with graceful brushwork and well-balanced character structure, carrying the period flavor of the literati calligraphic style of the Song dynasty. The ancient text "Shushi Huiyao" records that he could also write seal script, and mentions that the three characters "Yu Tu Quan" on an old inscription at the Jinling Confucian Temple came from his hand, with the appraisal that it was quite worth seeing. Few of his ink traces survive; the Jiyu Tie, Shenxin Tie and other model-letter works found in catalogues allow a glimpse of his writing level.

The most widely circulated folk claim attributes the origin of Song typeface to Qin Hui, holding that he once created a font with thin horizontals and thick verticals to unify official document writing, which later evolved into the Song typeface used in printing. Although this claim is widespread, it lacks solid historical evidence; research on printing history generally holds that the Song typeface gradually took shape in Ming dynasty woodblock printing and should not be simply attributed to one person at one time.

Attitudes toward Qin Hui's calligraphy across the dynasties have been quite contradictory: on the one hand his brushwork skill is acknowledged, while on the other, because he framed loyal officials and insisted on peace negotiations, he is held in contempt, and his works have long received little esteem. This situation of rejecting a person's work because of the person has made Qin Hui's calligraphy a frequent subject for discussing the proposition that the writing reflects the person, and it also reminds people to view artistic level and historical evaluation separately.