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Song
Dynasty Emperor Huizong (1082-1135) was a master artist
and calligrapher.
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This
cursive script by Tang Dynasty calligrapher Zhang Xu is
known as a “violently running style.”
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Some employers these days ask job applicants to send in a handwritten,
rather than a printed, resume. The reason? “One can judge
a person’s character and attitude by his handwriting.”
Since ancient times, Chinese people have believed that one’s
handwriting mirrors one’s personality. During the Tang Dynasty,
calligraphy was a key criterion in judging potential officials’
overall intelligence, finesse, and capacity to serve in government.
But where does calligraphy stand in today’s modern world,
as our mouse-maneuvering hands and keyboard-friendly fingers become
increasingly estranged to the horizontal vertical and all-side
inclining strokes of complicated Chinese characters?
Charming Chinese Calligraphy
Roland Buraud is a contemporary artist from France. He is fascinated
with Chinese calligraphy, and the tools used in its execution.
He collects writing brushes and arranges them on walls as works
of art. On a recent trip to China, he admitted, “I love Chinese
calligraphy as much as I do Chinese art, though I don’t understand
what the characters mean.”
Many foreigners share Roland Buraud’s love of Chinese calligraphy.
Ji Xianlin, a renowned scholar of Chinese studies and a professor
at Peking University cited a German colleague who was so engrossed
in watching someone writing calligraphy that he almost missed
his lecture. As an accomplished linguist in both Chinese and a
few foreign languages, Ji Xianlin feels proud that Chinese calligraphy
is the only language in the world that’s acknowledged as
an “art within an art.”
Han Tianheng, a noted artist and former vice president of the
Shanghai Academy of Chinese Painting, attributes the allure of
Chinese calligraphy to the structure of Chinese as a pictograph
rather than an alphabetic language. Each ancient character is
a simply sketched picture in itself. For example, the original
form of the Chinese character for “person” resembles
a profile of a human being walking, while the character for “eye”
is clearly a sketch of an eye. The character for “person”
under that for “eye” means, “to see.”
Celebrated calligrapher Wang Xizhi (321-379) of the Jin Dynasty
compared calligraphy techniques to the ancient military strategists
Sun Zi and Sun Bin’s arts of war. He said a piece of white
paper is like a battlefield on which a calligrapher should lay
out his characters and strokes as a military strategist might
deploy his troops in battle.
True Chinese calligraphers emphasize that the hand should follow
the mind when writing. They claim that calligraphers need to concentrate
their thoughts and vital energies on the tip of the brush to obtain
the perfect state of mind for writing. Only then will their hands
be free to wield the brush as the “snake crawls and dragon
flies.”
This is the process of accumulating, releasing and conveying
an artistic passion via the tip of a brush. When Ji Xianlin first
saw the stele carvings in the Huangshan Canyon of Shizhong Mountain
in Jiangxi, he felt his pulse quicken and his soul soar. On another
occasion, after viewing works of the great Qing Dynasty calligrapher
Deng Shiru, he remarked, “It was truly a physiological stir,
not only a spiritual one, that I felt.”
Are Computers Taking Over?
Now, however, many Chinese people are succumbing to “writing
amnesia,” a social disease of this modern computer age. Handwritten
letters, papers, reports and other documents are fading out of
modern life, and being replaced by printed or LCD versions produced
by keyboards and word processors. Not so long ago, people practiced
calligraphy every day, as they carried out their paperwork. These
days, as the need for the pen in daily life has declined, so too
has the standard of calligraphy. A recent investigation of Beijing’s
primary and middle school teachers found that the majority had
second-rate skills in the “three handwritings,” chalk,
ink pen and brush.
Since the late 20th century, computers and printers have almost
crushed the pen and brush industry, as people feel less motivated
to practice calligraphy when everything is printed or displayed
on a screen. The owner of a brush shop on Liulichang antique street
in Beijing says his sales are plummeting, and the ancient art
appears to be dying out. “Calligraphy means to the Chinese
nation what the eyebrows do to a person,” says Li Jing, council
member of the Shanghai Calligraphers’ Association. “Though
its decline won’t impact the development of a strong China,
the country will not look as beautiful without it. And from a
personal perspective, calligraphy helps to cultivate one’s
mind and improve one’s sophistication.”
With this in mind, the calligraphic Chinese seal for the 2008
Beijing Olympics has a very special meaning. Those who selected
the alluring emblem hope that it can lead to the rejuvenation
of Chinese calligraphy. The ancient art form has existed for 5,000
years – let’s hope that technology doesn’t render
it extinct.
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