The Evolution from Clerical to Standard

Qiu Xigui. Chinese Writing. New Haven, CT: Birdtrack Press, 2000.
Summary

Just like other evolutionary scripts, the clerical script was not supplanted by the standard script overnight. The Eastern and Western Han Dynasty is when the clerical script was the primary style. As the script became more used a cursive style emerged. Also at this time a simpler-to-write version of the clerical script emerged called the neo-clerical script. This neo-clerical script merged with the cursive script to create standard script. Near the end of the life of the clerical it looked very similar to the standard script. The standard script did not become the primary script until around two hundred years later.

One theory for why the standard script became the most popular script was that a calligraphic master named Zhōng Yóu created it for his calligraphy. Later the renowned Eastern Jin calligrapher Wang Xizhi and his son built on the script to standardize it even more and to even out the strokes making it even "more pleasing to the eye." Even though the script had come into existence well before this time, it was mostly just used by men of letters. The average person used either the neo-clerical script or a variation of a semi-cursive script.

The meaning of the character "楷" is pattern, this meant that this style should serve as a guide or standard. By this early stage it had completely become separate from the other semi-cursive scripts but it had hardly become the model or standard script. Also during this early stage the quality of the script would change dramatically depending on who was writing it. If the script was written quickly it would look much more like the modern cursive, and if written with more car then it would be closer to the standard. It was not until the Song Dynasty that the specific script started to be called Kai Shu, before that time Kai Shu referred to any of the semi-cursive scripts that had become the standard of time.

The period when the clerical script stopped being used and the standard script became the primary script is hard to pinpoint. Most scholars place the date of the last official clerical script use was during the Wei-Jin period. This period was more than likely the transition stage between the two scripts. After the script was adopted the characters continued to be standardized and simplified, while the style that the characters when written in changed very little. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties period has been accepted to be the first use of the script by the majority of people. 

What made the standard script so popular that it moved from just a script used by the literary elite to being the script of the masses? The script was able to make the leap due to (1) its relation to the clerical script with similar stroke orders (popular at the time), and (2) that it was more simplified, but also preserved the inherent beauty.