Chinese Calligraphy

INTRODUCTION
TO CHINESE
CALLIGRAPHY
               by
          Kam Law

CHINESE CHINESE

CALLIGRAPHY is a special art form which
seeks to express the written version of a
language in an artistic manner. Artists have
created calligraphy in Arabic, Chinese, English
and some other languages.

We will discuss Chinese calligraphy in this short
introductory article.

Since calligraphy is based on the written version
of a language, we need to have a simple
knowledge of the Chinese language before we
can have an understanding of Chinese
calligraphy. However, for the purpose of this
article, I will not talk about the origin of the
Chinese language and other characteristics. I will
just concentrate on the form of written Chinese
here.

The written form of Chinese is called Chinese
characters which are square in shape and
monosyllabic. Each character’s pronunciation
stands on its own and is not affected or altered
by the pronunciations of the character in front of
it. Each character’s pronunciation stands on its
own and is not linked to the pronunciations of the
characters in front of or behind it. Each character
or a group of two or three characters carries a
meaning.

There are basically six different scripts of the
same Chinese character. The characters we see
printed in newspapers and most of the books
belong to what is called the Regular Script. This
is not the first script created for the Chinese
written language. From the animal bones and
turtle shells excavated during the latter part of the
Qing Dynasty of China, ie, in the 17th century,
there is clear evidence that in the Yin period of
the Shang Dynasty (circa 1300 BC to circa 1027
BC), primitive characters based on the shapes of
animals, articles, and other natural phenomenon
and also ideas and concepts were carved on
those bones and shells which were used for
divination purpose. There were diviners who
were in fact officials in the King’s court trained to
make patterns on animal bones and turtle shells
and then put them on fire. The shells or bones
became cracked and a diviner, acting as a
medium between the gods and human beings,
was supposed to be able to interpret the cracks
and forecast the weather and the outcomes of
future events and activities received from the
gods were engraved on the bones or shells. After
the event, the actual happening was also
engraved on the bones or shells.

These characters are called Jiaguwen, meaning
Shell and Bone Script. A sample of Jiaguwen is
shown on the right.

Similar writings are also found engraved on
bronze vessels, utensils, weapons etc. and they
are called Jinwen meaning Metal Script.

Zhuan Shu (Seal Script)
The Seal Script was developed in the late
Western Zhou Dynasty (circa 850 BC) and
became popular in the Qin State during the
Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770 BC to 256 BC). In
view of the geographical spread of the different
states which were able to enjoy a high degree of
autonomy under the weak Eastern Zhou
Emperor, variations had appeared in the written
form of the languages used in the different
states. After the Qin State (256 BC to 202 BC)
had conquered all the other states during the
Warring States Period (475 BC to 222BC) and
then unified China, Qin Shi Huang, the first
Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, decreed that the
written language be standardized.

In order to differentiate the styles of the Seal
Script before and after standardization, the Seal
Script used during the Zhou Dynasty is called Da
Zhuan meaning Large Seal Script and the script
adopted after standardization is called Xiao
Zhuan meaning Small Seal Script.

The reason why this script is called Seal Script is
because it is commonly used for engraving seals
owing to its solemn but graceful style. The
structure of the characters written in the Seal
Script is quite different from that of the Regular
Script and looks like characters of an entirely
different language. Eyes that have not been
trained cannot read the script which has fallen
into disuse. A sample is shown on the right.

Ba Fen, or Fen Shu or Li Shu (Clerical Script)
Because of the regular and even structure of the
Seal Script, writing it requires tremendous efforts
and time. Political and military exchanges
between the warring states in the late Eastern
Zhou Dynasty rendered a lot of written work for
officials who were under pressure to do their
written work speedily. Apart from formal
commemorative documents, most written work
was done on wooden or bamboo strips. Less
attention was paid to the regular structure of the
characters and there are characters written with
some strokes joined by a thin line. A cursive style
of seal script was developed and this was used
until the Eastern Han Dynasty (25 AD to 220 AD).

When writing the Seal Script quickly, the strokes
and the characters could not be written as evenly
as the standard Seal Script, with the result that
the beginning of a stroke might be heavier and
the end of a stroke might be thicker than an
ordinary Seal Script stroke. From this was
developed the Li Shu, or Clerical Script. A
sample of a passage written in Clerical Script is
shown on the right.

It can be seen that Clerical Script strokes are in
general thicker than those of the Seal Script and
they are more stylish, with more variations than
Seal Script strokes.

Cao Shu (Cursive Script)
As people’s communication became more
frequent in the Eastern Han Dynasty, they
tended to seek a more efficient way to do their
handwriting. At the same time, paper was
invented which facilitated writing. Cao Shu or
Cursive Script as is seen and written today was
developed and became mature and very common
in the Jin Dynasty (265 AD to 316 AD). A sample
is shown on the right.

This free flowing and much abbreviated style
enabled the writer who was normally an
educated person to express himself * artistically.
Characters were not confined to their respective
squares and could be written as small or as large
as the calligrapher wished. Characters can be
positioned leaning towards the left or the right
and strokes may have various thickness and can
be joined together so as to create as much
contrast as possible yet maintaining harmony in
the entire calligraphy work.

*There were not that many women who were fortunate
enough to have an education in ancient China, but the
most famous and respected Chinese calligrapher in the
entire Chinese history, WANG XiZhi, learned
calligraphy from a lady by the name of Madame Wei.

Xing Shu (Running Script)
At more or less the same time, ie, during the late
Eastern Han Dynasty, another script which was a
hybrid of the Cursive Script and the Clerical
Script was developed. Characters written in
Running Script are also free flowing with many
variations but they are not as abbreviated as the
Cursive Script and can easily be deciphered by
the readers. An example is shown on the right.

Kai Shu (Regular Script)
The Regular Script evolved from the Clerical
Script and during the transition period, the two
terms were interchangeable. This script became
very popular in the Wei, Jin, and the North/South
Dynasties and was widely used. On the one
hand, it is as regular as the Clerical Script, but on
the other, the strokes have more variations and
are more stylish and more expressive than those
of the Clerical Script. This script is used up to the
present day and an example is shown on the
right.

Four Treasures in the Study
Having talked about the six different scripts of
Chinese handwriting, let us discuss how we can
do Chinese calligraphy. Although in recent years,
there is growing interest in learning how to do
Chinese calligraphy with a fountain pen or a ball
point pen, the traditional way of writing Chinese
is to use brushes, which is one of the four
‘treasures’ in a literati’s study.

Brush
A Chinese writing brush consists of two parts: the
stem and the tuft. The tuft is usually made of
animal hair such as rabbit or goat hair. Goat hair
is softer than other animal hair and as it is longer
than other animal hair, it is normally used to
make large brushes. Other materials such as hen
feather or reed have also been used but they are
not common. The stem can be made of wood,
bamboo, ceramic or other materials and is round.
Brushes come in many sizes and big brushes are
used for writing large characters.

It is the use of brushes that enables the writing of
Chinese to be developed into an art form. The
elasticity of the hair used to make the brush, the
tapering of the tuft of the brush at the end
coupled with the different degrees of
concentration of the Chinese ink and the
absorbent nature of the rice paper used for
Chinese calligraphy all enable the strokes in a
Chinese character to be written with varied
thickness in a stylish manner and in different
shades of black, bringing out the artistic nature of
the writing.

Paper
Paper used for doing Chinese calligraphy is
made of bamboo, rice straw, mulberry or hemp.
The production process is a lengthy one,
involving soaking the plant in water for over a
month, boiling the soaked plant fibre, pulping and
then sifting the pulp on a mesh to form a thin
sheet of wet and soft rice paper. The last and
most important step is to remove the mesh from
the wet sheet of rice paper and to let it dry.

Paper produced in this process is called Xuan
paper and is absorbent, enabling the ink applied
to look washy or sandy (dry). Rice paper is made
with different degrees of absorbency to suit the
artists’ requirements.

Ink Stick
Ink sticks are made of soot from burning pine
wood or ‘tung’ oil or sesame oil, and gelatin. Ink
used for Chinese handwriting is produced by
rubbing an ink stick in circles on an ink slab
containing a small quantity of water. The longer
we rub the ink stick, the thicker the ink will
become; the ink can be diluted by adding water
on the ink slab.

Nowadays, calligraphers normally used prepared
ink liquid for practice as producing ink by rubbing
ink sticks on an ink slab is time consuming and
laborious. Ink sticks are only used to produce ink
when a calligrapher wishes to do serious
calligraphy works either for exhibition or for works
that are commissioned.

Ink Slab
Ink slabs are made from stones with a special
quality. On the one hand, the stones should be
very hard, but their texture should be extremely
smooth on the other. The best ink slabs are
produced from the quarry in Zhao Qing in
Guangdong Province. These ink slabs are called
Duan Yan, being named after the place which
was called Duan Zhou in the past. Ink slabs are
also mined in She Zhou in Anhui Province and
Tao Yan in Gansu Province.

Ink slabs are often embellished with carving at
the edges and round the trough. Good ink slabs
are extremely expensive and have become
collectors’ items.

Ink slabs are useless on their own because
without ink sticks and water, they can best be
used to decorate the literati’s study. When we
wish to make ink, we pour a small quantity of
water on an ink slab and then rub an ink stick on
the ink slab in circles gently and evenly.

How to Hold a Chinese Writing Brush
Holding a brush is different from holding a
fountain pen or a pencil. For beginners, the
requirement is that the brush must be maintained
upright throughout the writing process. At a later
stage, the brush may be allowed to lean slightly
on one side but the tip of the tuft of the brush
should ‘always’ be perpendicular to the paper,
unless we wish to produce special effects.

When we pick up a brush, we should press (ye)
the thumb gently on the stem of the brush. At the
same time, we should hold or guard (ya) the
brush with the first joint of the index finger from
the finger tip, thus exerting opposing pressure
against the thumb. We should form the middle
finger into a hook (gou) and also press the first
joint of the middle finger from the finger tip gently
against the brush, so that the total pressure from
both the index and middle fingers should equal
the pressure from the thumb. The ring finger
should be placed behind the brush, providing the
middle finger with support (ge). The small finger
should be just beneath the ring finger, also
providing support for it (di).

The whole idea of holding the brush in this
manner is to surround the brush with even
pressure from all directions so that the brush can
remain in a steady and upright position.

While we are holding the brush, we should pay
attention to the following points:

a.        there should be as little gap as possible
between the fingers,
b.        the palm should be hollow as if it is
holding an egg and should be kept more or less
upright but the forearm should be parallel to the
desk.
c.        when we write characters larger than
three inches square, we should not let the
forearm touch the desk, neither should we rest
the elbow on the desk,
d.        the brush should be maintained in an
upright position, especially when we are doing
Seal, Clerical or Regular Scripts.
e.        the motion of the brush is caused by the
rotation of the wrist and the movement of the
arm. Under no circumstances should we move
our fingers in order to move the brush.
f.        we should keep the arm and the hand
holding the brush in a relaxed state; do not
squeeze the brush.

There are a number of other ways of holding the
brush, for example, holding the brush with all the
fingers on the same side acting against the
thumb, or holding the brush with the thumb and
the tips of only the index and middle fingers.
However, the way I have described above is the
most common and easiest to learn and master.

How to Write Different Strokes in Chinese
Characters
It may have been noticed that the strokes in the
Seal Script comprise basically horizontal, vertical
and semi-circular strokes which are regular and
evenly spaced. There are no dots or strokes that
taper off at the end like those in the Regular
Script. It was suggested by past masters that the
character (Yong) on the right consists of all the
different strokes in Chinese characters (this is
disputed because it does not contain at least two
other stroke forms – the angle or bend and the
right falling circular stroke with a hook) and each
stroke is given a name as follows:

1.        Ce - dot
2.        Le - Horizontal stroke
3.        Nu - Vertical stroke
4.        Ti - Hook
5.        Ce - Left rising whip
6.        Lue - Left falling sweep
7.        Zhuo - Peck
8.        Zhe - Right falling slice

When one looks at the strokes in the above
character, one may think that if one were to
follow the strokes, one should be able to write
the character. This may be true with ordinary
handwriting. However, if we were to do it properly
and artistically, we would need to move the tip of
the brush according to the directions as shown
within the strokes in the figure on the right.

At the beginning, we may not find it easy to follow
the directions and move the brush forward and
backward within the small space of a dot or when
we start writing a horizontal or vertical stroke.
The secret is that when we start writing a stroke,
we should use the tip of the brush to follow the
directions as shown above. After we have
finished the ‘start’ of a stroke, we may then press
the brush slightly to complete the stroke.

There are several other essential points that
should be borne in mind when we do Chinese
calligraphy. We should have a feeling that
something is holding back our brush while we are
moving the brush in the direction of our choice.
By injecting this feeling into our hand
movements, the strokes will become powerful
and robust.

If we wish to write a horizontal stroke from left to
right, we should start the stroke by moving the tip
of the brush from the right and then move it to the
left before we actually start the stroke from left to
right. The same applies if we wish to write a
downward vertical stroke, ie, we should move the
tip of the brush upwards before we move the
brush downwards.

We should hold the brush just tightly enough so
that it does not fall on the desk. By holding the
brush lightly and tenderly, the weight of our arm
and the weight of the brush will enable the brush
to have contact with the paper. Writing of course
involves the brush touching the paper, but
‘touching’ only will bring about weak and insipid
strokes. We should avoid such strokes.

In this context, touching is quite different from
contact, which involves control and feeling and
enables the brush to 'speak' with the paper.

Before we start writing a character, we should
first of all have an image on the paper of the
character we wish to write and then follow the
image. An image can be changed many times
and improved upon but once a stroke has been
written, it cannot be altered.

Sequence of Writing Strokes in a Chinese
Character
Most Chinese characters consist of more than
one radical and several strokes. Past scholars
have from their experience suggested that the
radicals and strokes in a character be written in
the following sequence so as to enable us to
achieve better balance and better spacing of the
strokes in the characters:

1.        From top to bottom
2.        From left to right
3.        Horizontal strokes first, then vertical
strokes
4.        (3 radicals) Centre first, then first left
and       then right
5.        Border first, then strokes inside border
6.        Upper border first, then strokes inside,
bottom stroke last.
Conclusion

Learning Chinese calligraphy appears to be a
formidable undertaking at first. However, I can
assure you that once you have started learning,
you will find untold enjoyment and contentment in
the practice and in the creative process at a later
stage.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a first
step of our feet.

         THE END

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