Sun Guoting wrote the earliest surviving Chinese manual on calligraphy, the Shu Pu.
Sun Guoting (646–691) was an early Tang-dynasty calligrapher celebrated for his cursive script. His Shu Pu, also translated as “Treatise on Calligraphy” or “A Narrative on Calligraphy,” combines practical discussion of writing with ideas about style, artistic judgment, and the relationship between technique and expression.
The surviving work is especially valuable because Sun wrote it in an elegant cursive hand while also explaining calligraphic principles. The manuscript is traditionally dated to 687, during the Tang dynasty, when calligraphy was treated as both a disciplined art and a major mark of a cultivated scholar.
Only the preface or surviving portion remains, and scholars have debated whether the extant text represents a complete work, part of one, or an unfinished composition. That uncertainty does not diminish its importance: Shu Pu remains one of the foundational theoretical texts for studying Chinese calligraphy and Sun’s reputation as both artist and critic.