Studying Chinese Calligraphy

Deng Yizhe’s (邓以蛰) article entitled ‘Appreciation of Calligraphy’ Shufa Zhi Xinshang (书法之欣赏) in 1937 offered another perspective on valuing Chinese calligraphy that is through defining whether in utilitarian art or pure art. The difference between utilitarian art and pure art can be defined whether the expressions of feelings are the end product of an artwork, or in other words, whether the product is inspired by artistic or non-artistic purposes. Architecture and Chinese calligraphy fulfilled both utilitarian art and pure art at the same time. Take architecture for model, in the very beginning, architecture does not intend to create any artistic wish but to serve a practical purpose of building a space to stay, use, store or protect. After satisfying the simple needs, people found spare time to start decorating and polishing the appearances of these creation. Hence, they steadily perform their artistic usage, building up artistic function and can then rival pure artworks.

Chinese pictographs started as symbols to preserve memories of objects, movements and images. They were then beautified and unified to be used in writing and communication systems. Although the characters were modified and evolved through times, the practical purposes formed their basic forms of today’s words and terms. Since both calligraphy and literature used written characters as tools, it does not mean that they are utilitarian art. Calligraphy uses characters as tools and simply depend on it to perform, whereas literature uses literary language as a utility. Literature is valued for its form of language in poems and songs rather than relying on the shapes and strokes of characters. The value and context do not change with different sets of characters.

So how exactly does calligraphy step up onto the level of aesthetics appreciation? There are many choices of styles to be chosen to write a set group of characters, such as greater seal, clerkly script, running script and many more. Or can even invent another method to perform individual style, but only with tremendous knowledge of history, wisdom, experience and practices, so many scholars and calligraphers who are qualified to do so are in their elder ages. There are many ways to learn Chinese calligraphy and painting, but to ancient teachers, one is better to learn calligraphy first before jumping into painting. This is because they share similar brushstrokes rhythm as well as similar materials like brush, ink, water and rice paper.

Each Chinese characters are grouped or combined with eight simple brushstrokes, they are dot (点), dash (横), left-falling (撇), right-falling (捺), perpendicular-down (竖), hook (勾), right-upstroke (提) and bend (折/弯). The calligraphic term compiling these strokes is, ‘eight laws of the character Yong’, or Yongzi Bafa (永字八法) as the character Yong (永) collects all strokes used in all Chinese characters. Beginners are to practice these simple strokes as basic skills before being able to write characters in sentences. This is to ensure they can control the unpredictable ink with the flexible brush with ease in future practices. In well-written characters, there seems to be bone, flesh, blood and muscle to hold the characters together.

Even in a simple act like writing, the principle of ‘life’ is applied to cultivate rhythmic lines. Amateurs are also required to imitate and copy different styles and interpretations of writings from different time periods such as Tang, Sung and Qing. Ancient teachers and poets are highly respected due to their wisdom and knowledge, some had even foreseen the future course of morality. This is why the history of Chinese culture is so important. Only from learning the traditional art, the Chinese spirit can be inherited through two millennial generations.

Having characters in the Standard script to act as basic exercise to write, students may proceed the next step to practice the Running script. Like the term ‘running’ suggests, characters in this script set looks like they are written in faster manner. It looks easy to write faster by connecting the strokes but it really is not. No matter writing fast or slow, ‘life’ in the characters still need to be shown. There is a term in the Chinese calligraphy Yijing (意境) that can be translated to ‘mind state’. ‘Mind state’ means the calligraphic state in the spiritual realm. While writing a certain poem or sentences, a skilful calligrapher is able to write in their mind faster than writing with their hands on paper. During this process, calligraphers must have a very free ‘mind state’ to perform ‘in one go’ (一气呵成). It can be easily reflected in their writing and ink marks if the mind was not free and clean.

Following Running script, there is the Cursive script which the strokes and shape start to get unrecognizable because the ‘mind state’ of a calligrapher is so relaxed that strokes can be simplified using his or her style. This abstract form of calligraphy is tremendously hard to achieve, it takes years and even the whole life span. This is where the aesthetics of calligraphy is appreciated and treated as highest art form of the Chinese spirit.

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