At some Chinese universities, official texts were inscribed on stone drums, and students acquired their textbooks by making rubbings from them. Not only was this a good way of generating copies, it produced standardized texts, without textual variations, an invention usually attributed to Renaissance Europe. Ideally, the calligraphy that a poem came in should be of as high an artistic caliber as the poem itself. The large number and complexity of Chinese characters provide a wide range of design problems that challenge even the best calligrapher's abilities, as well as allowing the widest range of potential forms with which to express himself. This range becomes even larger in the cursive styles of writing, in which the calligrapher abstracts, simplifies, or elides the characters, working on intuition and a sense of the design of the whole text.
Poems often appear with paintings, and developments in each art influence the other.
The brush, however, does not allow the calligrapher to rest his hand in mid stroke, which would cause a running blot. The artist has to work quickly and this encourages both spontaneity and care in visualizing what he wants to do before dipping brush in ink. The artistry of the calligrapher has shaded into the craft of the inscriber and block-printer. By the 9th century, characters could be painted by master calligraphers on stone or wood blocks with enough skill and precision to accurately reproduce the graceful curves, sharp angles, and outer hair traceries. Another reason for the continuity of the three perfections is the nature of written Chinese.