Chinese calligraph

I knew that many foreigners know a little about Chinese calligraph. I want to introduce it because I love it. It's a part of Chinese traditional culture.

In ancient China, the oldest Chinese characters existing are Jiǎgǔwén characters carved on ox scapula and tortoise plastrons, because brush-written ones have decayed over time. During the divination ceremony, after the cracks were made, the characters were written with a brush on the shell or bone to be later carved.
With the development of Jīnwén (Bronzeware script) and Dàzhuàn (Large Seal Script) "cursive" signs continue. Moreover, it is evident that each archaic kingdom of current China had its own set of characters.
Imperial China
In Imperial China, the graphs on old steles — some dating from 200 BC, and in Xiaozhuan style — are still accessible to us.
About 220 BC, the emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first to conquer the entire Chinese basin, imposed several reforms, among them Li Si's character uniformisation, which created a set of 3300 standardized Xiǎozhuàn characters[1]. Despite the fact that the main writing implement of the time was already the brush, few papers survive from this period, and the main examples of this style are on steles.
The Lìshū style (clerical script) which is more regularized, and in some ways similar to modern text, was then developed.
Kǎishū style (traditional regular script) — still in use today — is even more regularized. The Kaishu shape of characters 1000 years ago was mostly similar to that at the end of Imperial China. But small changes have be made, for example in the shape of 广 which is not absolutely the same in the Kangxi dictionary of 1716 as in modern books. The Kangxi and current shapes have tiny differences, while stroke order is still the same, according to old style[2].
Kǎishū simplified Chinese script was created by the Chinese government after World War 2, to promote simplification of writing and increase literacy. Simplified script is occasionally used in calligraphy.
Cursive styles and hand-written styles
Cursive styles such as Xíngshū (semi-cursive or running script) and Cǎoshū (cursive or grass script) are "high speed" calligraphic styles, where each move made by the writing tool is visible. This styles especially like to play with stroke order rules, creating new visual effects.

This is the history of Chinese calligraph. In China, handwriting is an important part of studying life even the whole life. It is regarded as a part of personal charictors. People who has good writing will very be pround it.
Some foreigners don't learn about Chinese calligraph and maybe have prejudice about it. I hope more people can learn about this great art.