Zhang Zhi courtesy name Boying (伯英), was a Chinese

Chinese people

The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

 calligrapher during the Han Dynasty

Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

. Born in Jiuquan, Gansu

Jiuquan

- Suzhou town :The administrative center of the "prefecture-level city" of Jiuquan is the "District" of Suzhou , which occupies 3,386 square km in the eastern part of Jiuquan "prefecture-level city", and had a population of 340,000 as of 2002....

, he was a pioneer of the modern cursive script

Cursive script (East Asia)

Cursive script , sometimes translated as Grass script is a style of Chinese calligraphy. Cursive script is faster to write than other styles, but difficult to read for those unfamiliar with it. It functions primarily as a kind of shorthand script or calligraphic style...

, and was traditionally honorred as the Sage of Curives Script (草聖).

Biography

Despite the great fame he enjoyed in ancient times, no veritable works of Zhang Zhi's have survived. A catchphrase is attributed to him: "Too busy to write cursively" (匆匆不暇草書), which shows that the execution of cursive script, though originally invented for the sake of time-saving, requires a tranquil frame of mind.