It was unearthed in Chengqian Village, Cangshan County, Shandong Province in May 1973. The inscription is divided into two stones, one of which is forty-eight in height, twenty-two in width, and twenty-two centimeters in thickness, and the second is forty-eight in height, sixteen in width, and forty-four centimeters in thickness. The contents of the two stones are coherent, ranging from fifteen lines to twenty-seven characters, totaling three hundred and twenty-eight characters. Character diameter 1.7 cm. The sutra is first made of calligraphy and then engraving. The knife is close to the meaning of the pen. The carving method can be divided into single-sided knife, double-sided knife, and both single and double knife.
The inscription on the Cangshan portrait stone was unearthed relatively recently, so it is little known. There are not many critics of its artistic style. The writing of this note is natural and there is nothing artificial about it. Although there are many flat pens available, Zhonghe is still the main one. The horizontal strokes are characterized by being heavy on the left and light on the right, with no visible waves. They are thick but not dull. Although the vertical pen has an up, middle and light writing style, it does not feel frivolous. The writing method of the brushstroke is particularly lively, with the starting stroke being light and then ending with a heavy stroke, and the starting stroke being heavy and ending being light, appearing alternately. Dot paintings are mostly made of triangles, mostly with right-pointing points, such as "fish, horse, bird" and other characters. The structure is all arranged according to the shape of the glyphs, which are strange and neat, and naturally scattered. For example, the strokes of longer characters such as "Hua, Shou, Bo" are not densely arranged, but arranged in positions that are one or two times longer than other characters, avoiding the problem of urgency and achieving the effect of sparseness. There are often gaps between the strokes, but the breaks in the strokes connect the meaning, which is quite interesting. The liveliness of its composition is also rarely seen in Han dynasty steles. In the vertical arrangement, it does not consider the horizontal correspondence, but only uses the number of strokes between characters to naturally render the uneven ups and downs in the vertical writing process. From the whole article, it has received unexpected artistic effects.
(Excerpt from "Calligraphy" magazine)