Chinese Calligraphy
In China, calligraphy is a type of traditional Chinese
visual art and was prized above all kinds of Chinese arts in traditional China.
Calligraphy is a form of communication, but as well it is a way for a person to
express their inner world with beautiful handwriting and benevolence sense.
Calligraphy was an important part of Chinese culture in ancient China, where
children of high officials had to learn this form of art and it was essential
to use calligraphy skills in a literature Imperial Examination.
Calligraphy has
a long history of surviving 2000 years and evolved into five different style of
writing calligraphy. In Qin Dynasty (221BC – 206BC) the Prime Minster Li Si
promoted calligraphy during the time, the first form of writing was on bronze
pottery and it was known as seal characters. Calligraphers had elegant writing,
which formed slender font, even speed and strength, and even thick lines and strokes.
In Eastern Han Dynasty, the people had simplified the seal characters, which
had too many strokes. The new form of calligraphy was much neater and more
elegant than previous calligraphy writing. When beginning to write calligraphy,
the point of the brush must go the opposite direction like a silkworm and
steadily stretches to form a warp like a swallow.
To practise calligraphy, you
need the four treasures of study: writing brush, ink stick, paper, and ink
slab. The writing brush is made of wool, bristles and others for the nib, while
the shaft is usually bamboo, jade and others. As well there are different kinds
of writing brushes that give writing Chinese character a distinct feature. The
ink stick should be ground to look like refined black with shine. It is usually
made from pine soot, which under goes a procedure of moulding, steaming and
mixing with glue. Paper is now the material used to be written on, but back in
ancient China, tortoise shell, ivory, bone and bronzes were used as written
material for calligraphy. As for ink slab, they were made artistically and
endured a passage of time to honour the royal families from the Tang Dynasty.
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