Editing Lantingji Xu (section)

==Form and content==
The ''Lantingji Xu'' was written in the running (or semi-cursive) style on a cocoon paper with a weasel-whisker brush. It consists of 324 characters in 28 columns. The script of the ''Lantingji Xu'' was often celebrated as the high point of the running style in the history of Chinese calligraphy. The improvisational work demonstrated Wang's extraordinary calligraphy skill with the elegant and fluent strokes in a coherent spirit throughout the entire preface. The character ''Zhi'' (“之”) also appeared 20 times but was never written the same way.

Not only the aesthetic form of the manuscript is highly appreciated but also the transcendent sentiments expressed in the preface about life and death is a timeless classic. The preface starts off with a delightful description of the pleasant surroundings and the joyful ceremony, but carries on to reveal melancholy feelings towards how the transient delights brought by the vast universe would soon turn into retrospection. Wang reckoned the same emotion would be shared by the ancestors and his future generations even though the world and circumstances would be different. Scholars who study Wang, refer to his ideology expressed in the preface as a fusion of the [[Confucianism]], [[Buddhism]] and [[Taoism]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Long|first=Xianzhao|date=April 15, 1983|title=论王羲之和《兰亭》考辨诸问题|journal=纪念王羲之撰写兰亭集叙一千六百三十周年大会专辑}}</ref>