Historian
See also: History of Chinese archaeologyOuyang led the commission compiling the New Tang History, which completed its work in 1060. He also wrote a New History of the Five Dynasties on his own following his official service. His style resembled that of the great Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian. He also focused on ethical considerations in historical analysis.
As a historian, he has been criticised as overly didactic, but he played an important role in establishing the use of epigraphy as a historiographic technique. Epigraphy, as well as the practice of calligraphy, figured in Ouyang's contributions to Confucian aesthetics. In his Record of the Eastern Study he states how literary minded gentlemen might utilize their leisure to nourish their mental state. The practice of calligraphy and the appreciation of associated art objects were integral to this Daoist-like transformation of intellectual life.
Read more about this topic: Ouyang Xiu
Famous quotes containing the word historian:
“There are secret articles in our treaties with the gods, of more importance than all the rest, which the historian can never know.”
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“We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.”
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“Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing—he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.”
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