The Tang dynasty monk calligrapher famous for the wild cursive work The Autobiography was Huaisu.
Huaisu, who lived approximately from 737 to 799, was a Buddhist monk from Lingling in present-day Hunan. He became renowned for expressive cursive calligraphy, a style in which characters can be radically abbreviated, connected, and varied in size while still preserving rhythm and visual energy. His reputation grew in the Tang capital Chang’an, where poets and other artists admired his work.
The Autobiography is traditionally dated to 2 December 777. It is a long handscroll measuring about 28.3 centimeters high and 755 centimeters wide, now held by the National Palace Museum in Taipei. The work presents dramatic changes in scale and movement, making it one of the best-known examples of wild cursive, or kuangcao.
Huaisu is often paired with Zhang Xu, another Tang master of extravagant cursive, as the “crazy Zhang and drunken Su.” A modern complication is that the Taipei handscroll has been argued to be a Northern Song-period tracing or modeling copy rather than Huaisu’s original, although the work remains central to his artistic legacy.