The Contemporary Significance of Chinese Calligraphy

The Contemporary Significance of Chinese Calligraphy

Calligraphy is the most representative form of art and culture in Chinese culture. In ancient times, calligraphy in its pure sense was only a game of pen and ink used by the literati to express their feelings. Calligraphy has no independent form of expression; it relies on Chinese characters, often in the form of poetry. The poetry of the ancients was an integrated holographic form, either combined with chanting songs or with calligraphic ink.

Ancient people wrote calligraphy, the essence is to write poetry, calligraphy and poetry is the form and quality of one. Only the writing of poetry, the ancients defined as calligraphy. The later is not only so, all the ink of the ancients, including the decree writing, or inscriptions or letters are later people as a valuable calligraphy materials to learn. This is the concept of calligraphy in the broad sense of the later generation.

Today's people all know that to learn calligraphy, we must learn from the ancients, but we must think about what you want to learn from the ancients. What do you want to get in calligraphy? This is very important. It must be said that we later people have a deep misunderstanding of calligraphy, one of which is to confuse the practical, artistic and cultural aspects of calligraphy.

The Practicality of Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a practical form of writing Chinese characters. The category of calligraphy as now defined almost overlaps with the development of Chinese characters. This is typical of the practice of defining history with later concepts. For example, researchers of oracle bones, such as Dong Zuobin and Luo Zhenyu, have developed oracle bones into a form of calligraphic art, and we take it for granted that oracle bones are the "calligraphic creations" of earlier generations.

This is a misconception, just as many people think of Su Shi and Wang Anshi as mere literary figures. The forms of Chinese characters prior to the Han Dynasty were merely utilitarian; the writers did not have the physical and mental state invoked by the art of calligraphy, nor did they write them for the sake of creating an art, but purely for the sake of practical application. Calligraphy leaves behind the writing of decrees, and the inscription of tombstones is an example of this.

For example, the Duo Bao Pagoda Stele, the Divine Counselor's Tablet, and the Jucheng Palace Sweet Spring Inscription are not creations at the artistic level, but merely the writing of decrees, reflecting the spontaneous technicality of the writer. The broad meaning of calligraphy in ancient times is the text of all forms of communication, and later with an artistic vision and then look at these practical writing, it will be from the artistic point of view to produce a new take the meaning, which is the new discovery of the later, but not the original intention of the former.