Writing is a form of art; it's an expression of who we are, beyond the words we use. Even in this digitized age, I can still recognize my best friends' handwriting, just like how I can recognize their voices. I'll also bet that most of us make judgments on a person based on his or her handwriting -- bubbly "girly" handwriting or messy "doctor's" writing, to give a couple of stereotypical examples. There's an art to typefaces as well. The font I use for my resume is certainly different from what I chose for our wedding invitations. Corporations pay millions of dollars to develop their branding and "visual identity" -- my former employer used to mandate Trebuchet font, and my eyes were so well trained that I actually freaked out once when one of my client presentations came out from the printing room in Arial; my OCD self almost had all the presentation books reprinted but was assured by a manager that it would only be worth the effort if it came out in Wingdings.
Beautiful writing has always drawn me in, whether it's good handwriting or a pretty typeface, whether it's English or Chinese. Calligraphy in either language is no easy feat to master, but I recently decided to give Chinese calligraphy another go. I had (very briefly) tried to learn Chinese calligraphy and brush painting as a child but did not have the patience at the time to make much of it, but I'm hoping this time will be different. It first (re-)piqued my interest last fall when I was visiting my parents, and my mom was sharing the background and meaning of some of the scrolls on the living room wall (I'm sure she's done that many, many times, but I guess there's a time and place for everything, and this time it stuck with me). It was the first time that I saw the scrolls as something more than random art and decoration; the beauty of it was not in the words alone or the calligraphy itself, but how the style of the calligraphy (and calligrapher) expresses the message.
Today, there are five major styles of calligraphy: seal script, clerical, standard (kai shu), semi-cursive, and cursive.
Seal script (篆書, zhuan shu) was the formal script of the Qin (秦) Dynasty. While there were other more ancient scripts, this was the first that was widely practiced. Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇, literally translated "first emperor of Qin"), the first sovereign ruler of a unified China, had a bad rep as an extremely strict and ruthless ruler (how else does one conquer and unite all those independent kingdoms?), but he was the one who unified China economically and culturally -- he standardized Chinese units of measurements such as currency and weights, and he unified the language and Chinese script.
Clerical script is believed to have developed during the Han (漢) Dynasty. It looks more rectangular and less hieroglyphic than seal script.
The most easily and widely recognized "standard" style today is kai shu (楷書), which developed between the Han (漢) Dynasty and Three Kingdoms period and matured in the Tang (唐) Dynasty. It emerged from a neatly written, early period semi-cursive form of clerical script.
Semi-cursive script is also known as "running" script (行書, xing shu). As the English name suggests, the cursive nature allows strokes between characters to run into one another, and it approximates normal handwriting with rounder, less angular characters.
Finally, the cursive script (草書, caoshu, literally translated "grass script") has a more abstract appearance. There's more simplification of the characters, and not all characters are easily legible to the average person.
As a beginner, obviously I'm starting with kai shu standard script, roughly 3"x 3" size characters. The larger the characters, the harder it is -- a calligrapher needs more control of a bigger brush but begins to use more of his/her arm and less of the wrist to write. On the flip side, the smaller the characters, the harder it is too -- no margin for error yet ink bleeds! All I can say is, I've had one class to practice three basic strokes, and I walked away with maybe one good stroke out of two pages of practice. My teacher says having those good accidents means there's hope. He also says he can usually tell within the first half hour which students will come back and which will quit. I wonder which camp he thinks I'm in.
Beautiful writing has always drawn me in, whether it's good handwriting or a pretty typeface, whether it's English or Chinese. Calligraphy in either language is no easy feat to master, but I recently decided to give Chinese calligraphy another go. I had (very briefly) tried to learn Chinese calligraphy and brush painting as a child but did not have the patience at the time to make much of it, but I'm hoping this time will be different. It first (re-)piqued my interest last fall when I was visiting my parents, and my mom was sharing the background and meaning of some of the scrolls on the living room wall (I'm sure she's done that many, many times, but I guess there's a time and place for everything, and this time it stuck with me). It was the first time that I saw the scrolls as something more than random art and decoration; the beauty of it was not in the words alone or the calligraphy itself, but how the style of the calligraphy (and calligrapher) expresses the message.
Today, there are five major styles of calligraphy: seal script, clerical, standard (kai shu), semi-cursive, and cursive.
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| Chinese character for horse, from top right to left: seal script, clerical, standard, semi-cursive, cursive |
Seal script (篆書, zhuan shu) was the formal script of the Qin (秦) Dynasty. While there were other more ancient scripts, this was the first that was widely practiced. Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇, literally translated "first emperor of Qin"), the first sovereign ruler of a unified China, had a bad rep as an extremely strict and ruthless ruler (how else does one conquer and unite all those independent kingdoms?), but he was the one who unified China economically and culturally -- he standardized Chinese units of measurements such as currency and weights, and he unified the language and Chinese script.
Clerical script is believed to have developed during the Han (漢) Dynasty. It looks more rectangular and less hieroglyphic than seal script.
The most easily and widely recognized "standard" style today is kai shu (楷書), which developed between the Han (漢) Dynasty and Three Kingdoms period and matured in the Tang (唐) Dynasty. It emerged from a neatly written, early period semi-cursive form of clerical script.
Semi-cursive script is also known as "running" script (行書, xing shu). As the English name suggests, the cursive nature allows strokes between characters to run into one another, and it approximates normal handwriting with rounder, less angular characters.
Finally, the cursive script (草書, caoshu, literally translated "grass script") has a more abstract appearance. There's more simplification of the characters, and not all characters are easily legible to the average person.
As a beginner, obviously I'm starting with kai shu standard script, roughly 3"x 3" size characters. The larger the characters, the harder it is -- a calligrapher needs more control of a bigger brush but begins to use more of his/her arm and less of the wrist to write. On the flip side, the smaller the characters, the harder it is too -- no margin for error yet ink bleeds! All I can say is, I've had one class to practice three basic strokes, and I walked away with maybe one good stroke out of two pages of practice. My teacher says having those good accidents means there's hope. He also says he can usually tell within the first half hour which students will come back and which will quit. I wonder which camp he thinks I'm in.
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