Drinking and Scribbling in the Garden: Xu Wei's Wild Cursive Calligraphy

Peter Sturman, professor of art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, discusses the artistic polymath Xu Wei (1521–1593) and his uninhibited style of calligraphy, known as kuangcao, or "wild cursive." Sturman introduces Xu's calligraphy—particularly, three scrolls that Xu wrote in an increasingly drunken state during a garden gathering—within the context of the colorful history of that script, which has been associated with wine.