He studied in detail the characters on the manuscripts and artifacts, dating back to the first millennium BC, that were at that time being unearthed at Mawangdui and other sites in mainland China, and began absorbing their distinctive forms into his own calligraphic style. He also made poems and paired-couplets out of the ancient inscriptions, pioneering a personal "something new from something old" approach.
對當時大陸才出土的馬王堆竹簡、侯馬盟書、中山王器銘、楚繒書等春秋戰國時期的文字加以研究，將其特殊的用筆和結構融入書風中，又取古物上文字集成詩句對聯，開拓出自己「以古為新」的書路。