What is Calligraphic Imagery

"Imagery" is a term used in classical aesthetics. It is expressed in the mind of the artist, in the work of art, and in the mind of the appreciator. Calligraphy artist with their own subject's aesthetic attitude to feel as the calligraphy of the shape of the text, the text will be formed in the mind of the calligrapher "image", it is the subject-object combination of products.

The word "imagery" originates from "Zhou Yi". The sentence, "The sages set up an image to fulfill their intention", initially reveals the relationship between "intention" and "image". When the objective material world of the "image" according to people's "intention" as a means of expression of human thought and emotion, it will become a spiritual "image". According to Shen Linshi of the Southern Qi Dynasty, the submerged dragon mentioned in the lines of the Zhouyi (《周易》), "the submerged dragon has no need for use", is "compared to the virtue of a gentleman", and the dragon submerged in the depths of the abyss is a metaphor for a gentleman's concealment of his thoughts and feelings. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Wang Chong's "On Heng" (论衡), "The Dragon in Disarray" (乱龍篇) for the first time linked the words "意" (meaning) and "象" (image) to each other. But "imagery" as an artistic concept, the earliest is the Sixth Dynasty Liu Si-fo in the "Wenxin Diao Long" of the "Divine Thought" in the "ingenuity of the light, peeping imagery and transport catty" point of view put forward.

Calligraphy is the material shell of the spiritual world. The historicity of the human spirit determines the historicity of the form, object and aesthetic realm of calligraphic expression. Traditional calligraphy is the product of collective and individual unconsciousness, and it is the imprint of historical life.