书法
I love Chinese calligraphy. It’s quite simply grace on paper. The art has been called music without sound, as well as ink dancing for the lively and beautiful rhythms that can be put into simple lines and dots and dashes of black ink on white – the artistry and balance, the balance between desire and intellectuality. A well-written Chinese character is an artistic thought unto itself. Words from Western languages contain no visual idea, but are sound symbols for pronunciation – Chinese characters, however, include the three elements of thought, sound and physical form, and are artistic as well as functional. You look at skeleton, flesh, tendon and blood – just as a human being would not be alive without these four elements functioning well, so it is with a written Chinese character.
The skeleton is the underlying source of strength in a stroke, while the flesh is the thick part of the stroke that is solid. The tendon links the flesh to the skeleton and should be elastic and lively – it’s the turning point of each stroke, giving the character spring and strength. The blood refers to the thickness of the ink and how it affects the quality of the character. There’s also that mysterious element of spirit, or 气 (qi), which exists when the skelenton, flesh, tendon and blood – achieved through the skill of the calligrapher – are in harmony with the spirit of the calligrapher. The resulting quality of liveliness creates a character that is fresh in spirit and pleasing to the eye.
Viewing a piece of calligraphy is a bit like meeting a person for the first time: you approach, observe and appraise. Rhythm exists between individual characters as well as between rows of characters – alternating shapes and patterns create their own internal rhythm that lead the eye from character to character.
But basically, as with music, as with wine, the art is meant for enjoyment, though you can be as serious about it as you wish. And boy do people get serious about it. There is a tendency for calligraphers to go demented with obsession. "Crazy Zhang", for instance, dipped his hair into ink and used his head as a brush to write on the walls of his house. Zhang Zhi (张芝), a calligrapher of the Late Han dynasty, was so poor that he had no money to buy paper. He practised with ink and brush on his shirts and tablecloths, and even practised on the table with his chopsticks while he sat waiting for his meal. There was a pond in front of his house as he practised his calligraphy hour after hour, where he washed his brushes. After years of this, the water in his pond turned black. "Facing the pond" or 临池 (lin chi), came to mean and still means the practice of calligraphy.
Brushwritten characters are an integral part of Chinese life. Signs and banners hang outside most restaurants and shops, and private homes often have quotations from poets and philosophers written on scrolls hung on walls. Tombstones and memorials are also decorated with calligraphy engraved into stone.
Some adventures with 书法 on the blog here.