East Asian calligraphy

East Asian calligraphy

書.svg
The traditional Chinese character for "writing" or "book".
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese: 書法
Simplified Chinese: 书法
Japanese name
Kanji: 書道
Hiragana: しょどう (modern)
しよだう (historical)
Korean name
Hangul: 서예
Hanja: 書藝
Vietnamese name
Quốc ngữ: Thư Pháp
Hán tự: 書法

The art of calligraphy is widely practiced and revered in the East Asian civilizations that use or used Chinese characters. These include China, Japan, Korea, and to a lesser extent, Vietnam. In addition to being an artform in its own right, calligraphy has also influenced ink and wash painting, which is accomplished using similar tools and techniques. The East Asian tradition of calligraphy originated and developed from China, specifically the ink and brush writing of Chinese characters. There is a general standardization of the various styles of calligraphy in the East Asian tradition. Calligraphy has also led to the development of many other forms of art in East Asia, including seal carving, ornate paperweights, and inkstones.

Contents

Tools : The Four Treasures of the Study

The paper, ink, brush, and inkstone are essential implements of East Asian calligraphy: they are known together as the Four Treasures of the Study (T: 文房四寶 / S: 文房四宝) in China, and as the Four Friends of the Study (HG: 문방사우 / HJ: 文房四友) in Korea. In addition to these four tools, desk pads and paperweights are also used by calligraphers.

Paper, paperweight and desk pad

Paper
Scheme of Chinese calligraphy paper (for beginners) : page, paperweight, desk pad and usage.

Special types of paper are used in East Asian calligraphy.

In China, Xuanzhi (宣紙), traditionally made in Anhui province, is the preferred type of paper. It is made from the Tartar wingceltis (Pteroceltis tartarianovii), as well as other materials including rice, the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), bamboo, hemp, etc. In Japan, washi is made from the kozo (paper mulberry), ganpi (Wikstroemia sikokiana), and mitsumata (Edgeworthia papyrifera), as well as other materials like bamboo, hemp, rice, and wheat. Sometimes the brush is used to put ink on a pen.

Paperweight

Paperweights are used to weigh down paper. Paperweights come in several types: some are oblong wooden blocks carved with calligraphic or pictorial designs; others are essentially small sculptures of people or animals. Like inkstones, paperweights are collectible works of art on their own right.

Desk pad

The desk pad (Chinese T: 畫氈, S: 画毡, Pinyin: huàzhān; Japanese: 下敷 shitajiki) is a pad made of felt. Some are printed with grids on both sides, so that when it is placed under the translucent paper, it can be used as a guide to ensure correct placement and size of characters. These printed pads are used only by students. Both desk pads and the printed grids come in a variety of sizes.

Ink and Inkstick

Scheme of Chinese Inkstone, Ink Stick, and technique to use them.

The ink is made from lampblack (soot) and binders, and comes in inksticks which must be rubbed with water on an inkstone until the right consistency is achieved. Much cheaper, pre-mixed bottled inks are now available, but these are used primarily for practice as stick inks are considered higher quality and chemical inks are more prone to bleeding over time, making them less suitable for use in hanging scrolls. Learning to rub the ink is an essential part of calligraphy study. Traditionally, East Asian calligraphy is written only in black ink, but modern calligraphers sometimes use other colours. Calligraphy teachers use a bright orange or red ink with which they write practice characters for students and correct students' work.

Inkstone

A stone or ceramic inkstone is used to rub the solid inkstick into liquid ink and to contain the ink once it is liquid. Chinese inkstones are highly prized as art objects and an extensive bibliography is dedicated to their history and appreciation, especially in China.

Brush

Main article: Ink brush

The brush is the traditional writing implement in East Asian calligraphy. The body of the brush can be made from either bamboo, or rarer materials like red sandalwood, glass, ivory, silver, and gold. The head of the brush can be made from the hair (or feather) of a wide variety of animals, including the wolf, rabbit, deer, chicken, duck, goat, pig, tiger, etc. There is also a tradition in both China and Japan of making a brush using the hair of a newborn, as a once-in-a-lifetime souvenir for the child. This practice is associated with the legend of an ancient Chinese scholar who scored first in the Imperial examinations by using such a personalized brush.

Today, calligraphy may also be done using a pen, but pen calligraphy does not enjoy the same prestige as traditional brush calligraphy.

A video showing how to hold a Chinese brush

Seal and Seal paste

Scheme of Chinese Seal, Seal paste, and technic to use them.
Main article: Chinese seal

Works of calligraphy are usually completed by the artist putting his or her seal at the very end, in red ink. The seal serves the function of a signature.

Study

The Chinese method of holding the brush

How the brush is held depends on which calligraphic genre is practiced. For Chinese calligraphy, the method of holding the brush is more special; the brush is held vertically straight gripped between the thumb and middle finger. The index finger lightly touches the upper part of the shaft of the brush (stabilizing it) while the ring and little fingers tuck under the bottom of the shaft. The palm is hollow, and you should be able to hold an egg within that space. This method, although difficult to hold correctly for the beginner, allows greater freedom of movement, control and execution of strokes. For Japanese calligraphy, the brush is held in the right hand between the thumb and the index finger, very much like a Western pen.

A paperweight is placed at the top of all but the largest pages to prevent slipping; for smaller pieces the left hand is also placed at the bottom of the page for support.

A man practicing calligraphy in Beihai Park, Beijing

In China, there are many people who practice calligraphy in public places such as parks and sidewalks, using water as their ink and the ground as their paper. Very large brushes are required. Although such calligraphic works are temporary (as the water will eventually dry), they serve the dual purpose of both being an informal public display of one's work, and an opportunity to further practice one's calligraphy.

In Japan, smaller pieces of Japanese calligraphy are traditionally written seated in the traditional Japanese way (seiza), kneeling down. In modern times, however, practitioners frequently practice calligraphy seated on a chair at a table. Larger pieces may be written while standing; in this case the paper is usually placed directly on the floor, but some calligraphers use an easel.

Calligraphy takes many years of dedicated practice. Correct stroke order, proper balance and rhythm of characters are essential in calligraphy. Skilled handling of the brush produces a pleasing balance of characters on the paper, thick and thin lines, and heavy and light inking. In most cases, a calligrapher will practice writing the Chinese character yong (永) many, many times in order to perfect the eight basic essential strokes contained within the character. Those who can correctly write the yong character beautifully can potentially write all characters with beauty.

Basic calligraphy instruction is part of the regular school curriculum in both China and Japan and specialized programs of study exist at the higher education level in both countries.

Noted calligraphers

Nearly all traditionally educated men (and sometimes women) in East Asia are proficient in calligraphy. The most famous are:

China

Chinese calligraphy of mixed styles written by Song Dynasty (1051-1108 CE) poet Mifu. For centuries, the Chinese literati were expected to master the art of calligraphy.
Cry for noble Saichō (哭最澄上人), written by Emperor Saga of Japan upon the death of the Buddhist monk Saichō in the 9th century. The influence of Chinese calligraphic styles had weakened after the Heian period, with this text as one of the few examples of the transformation to a native Japanese style.

See also [1]

Japan

Korea

Buiseonrando, which was written and painted by Kim Jeonghee. This original Korean calligraphy is called Chusache, which was named after his pen name.

See also

References

  • Daniels O, Dictionary of Japanese (Sōsho) Writing Forms, Lunde Humphries, 1944 (reprinted 1947)
  • Deng Sanmu 鄧散木, Shufa Xuexi Bidu 書法學習必讀. Hong Kong Taiping Book Department Publishing 香港太平書局出版: Hong Kong, 1978.
  • Qiú Xīguī (裘錫圭), Chinese Writing, Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2000. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.

External links

Chinese calligraphy (漢字字體)

Oracle bone script (甲骨文) • Bronze inscriptions (金文) • Seal script (篆文) [Large Seal Script (大篆) • Small Seal Script (小篆)]
Clerical script (隸書) • Standard script (楷書) • Semi-cursive script (行書) • Cursive script (草書)