About Oriental calligraphy

The art of calligraphy is widely practiced and revered in the East Asian civilizations that use Chinese characters. These include China, Japan, Korea, and formerly Vietnam. In addition to being an artform in its own right, calligraphy has also influenced ink and wash painting, which is accomplished using similar tools and techniques. The East Asian tradition of calligraphy originated and developed from China, specifically the ink and brush writing of Chinese characters. There is a general standardization of the various styles of calligraphy in the East Asian tradition. Calligraphy has also led to the development of many other forms of art in East Asia , including seal carving, ornate paperweights, and inkstones.

Main styles of oriental calligraphy

Hanzi

The oldest Chinese inscriptions that are indisputably writing are the Oracle bone script. The oracle bone script is a well-developed writing system, attested from the late Shang Dynasty from Anyang, and from Zhengzhou, dated 1600 BC. In addition, there are very few logographs found on pottery shards and cast in bronzes, known as the Bronze script, which is very similar to but more complex and pictorial than the Oracle Bone Script. Only about 1,400 of the 2,500 known Oracle Bone logographs can be identified with later Chinese characters and therefore easily read. However, it should be noted that these 1,400 logographs include most of the commonly used ones.

According to legend, Chinese characters were invented earlier by Cangjie (c. 2650 BC), a bureaucrat under the legendary emperor, Huangdi. The legend tells that Cangjie was hunting on Mount Yangxu (today Shanxi) when he saw a tortoise whose veins caught his curiosity. Inspired by the possibility of a logical relation of those veins, he studied the animals of the world, the landscape of the earth, and the stars in the sky, and invented a symbolic system called zì — Chinese characters. It was said that on the day the characters were born, Chinese heard the devil mourning, and saw crops falling like rain, as it marked the beginning of civilization, for good and for bad.

A complete writing system in Chinese characters appeared in China 3,200 years ago during the Shang Dynasty, making it what is believed to be the oldest “surviving” writing system. However, as the symbols used are predominantly pictographs, the linkages to the modern Chinese writing system would be decipherable only to linguistic archaeologists. The oracle bone inscriptions were discovered at what is now called the Yin Ruins near Anyang city in 1899. Sumerian cuneiform is currently regarded as being the oldest known writing system having originated about 3200 B.C. In a 2003 archeological dig at Jiahu in Henan province in western China, various Neolithic signs were found inscribed on tortoise shells which date back as early as the 7th millennium BC, and may represent possible precursors of the Chinese script, although there has been no link established so far.

Kanji

Kanji are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana, katakana, and the Arabic numerals. The Japanese term kanji literally means "Han characters".

Chinese characters first came to Japan on articles imported from China. An early instance of such an import was a gold seal given by the emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty in 57 AD. It is not clear when Japanese people started to command Classical Chinese by themselves. The first Japanese documents were probably written by Chinese immigrants. For example, the diplomatic correspondence from King Bu of Wa to Emperor Shun of the Liu Song Dynasty in 478 has been praised for its skillful use of allusion. Later, groups of people called fuhito were organized under the monarch to read and write Classical Chinese. From the 6th century onwards, Chinese documents written in Japan tended to show interference from Japanese. This suggests the wide acceptance of Chinese characters in Japan .

When first introduced, texts were written in the Chinese language and would have been read as such. Over time, however, a system known as kanbun emerged, essentially using Chinese text with diacritical marks to allow Japanese speakers to read the characters in accordance with the rules of Japanese grammar.

The Japanese language itself had no written form at the time. A writing system called man evolved that used a limited set of Chinese characters for their sound, rather than for their meaning.

Man'yōgana written in cursive style became hiragana, a writing system that was accessible to women (who were denied higher education). Major works of Heian era literature by women were written in hiragana. Katakana emerged via a parallel path: monastery students simplified man'yōgana to a single constituent element. Thus the two other writing systems, hiragana and katakana, referred to collectively as kana, are actually descended from kanji.

In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write parts of the language such as nouns, adjective stems and verb stems, while hiragana are used to write inflected verb and adjective endings (okurigana), particles, native Japanese words, and words where the kanji is too difficult to read or remember. Katakana is used for representing onomatopoeia and non-Japanese loanwords.

History of Chinese Calligraphy Styles

Seal Script

The Seal Script (often called Small Seal Script) is the formal script of the Qin system of writing, the informal script of which was precursor to the Clerical Script. Seal script is the oldest style that continues to be widely practiced. Today, this ancient style of Chinese writing is used predominantly in seals, hence the English name. Although seals (name chops), which make a signature-like impression, are carved in wood, jade and other materials, the script itself was originally written with brush and ink on paper, just like all other scripts.

Most people today cannot read the seal script, so it is generally not used outside the fields of calligraphy and carved seals. However, because seals act like legal signatures in Chinese culture and (to a lesser extent in modern times) Japanese culture, and because vermillion seal impressions are a fundamental part of the presentation of works of art such as calligraphy and painting, seals and therefore seal script remain ubiquitous.

Clerical Script

The Clerical Script developed from the Seal Script. In general, characters are often "flat" in appearance, being wider than they are tall. The strokes may appear curvy, and often start thin and end thick. Most noticeable is the dramatically flared tail of one dominant horizontal or downward-diagonal stroke, especially that to the lower right. This characteristic stroke has famously been called 'silkworm head and wild goose tail' in Chinese due to its distinctive shape.

The archaic Clerical Script of the Chinese Warring States period to Qin Dynasty and early Han Dynasty can often be difficult to read for a modern East Asian person, but the mature Clerical Script of the middle to late Han dynasty is generally legible. Modern works in the Clerical Script tend to use the mature, late Hàn style, and may also use modernized character structures, resulting in a form as transparent and legible as Regular (or standard) Script. The Clerical Script remains common as a typeface used for decorative purposes (for example, in displays), but it is not commonly written.

Semi-cursive Script

The Semi-cursive Script (also called Running Script) approximates normal handwriting in which strokes and, more rarely, characters are allowed to run into one another. In writing in the Semi-cursive Script, the brush leaves the paper less often than in the Regular Script. Characters appear less angular and rounder.

In general, an educated person in China or Japan can read characters written in the Semi-cursive Script with relative ease, but may have occasional difficulties with certain idiosyncratic shapes.

Cursive Script

The Cursive Script (sometimes called Grass Script) is a fully cursive script, and a person who can read the Semi-cursive Script cannot be expected to read the Grass Script without training. Entire characters may be written without lifting the brush from the paper at all, and characters frequently flow into one another. Strokes are modified or eliminated completely to facilitate smooth writing and to create a beautiful, abstract appearance. Characters are highly rounded and soft in appearance, with a noticeable lack of angular lines.

The Cursive Script is the source of Japanese hiragana, as well as many modern simplified forms in Simplified Chinese characters and Japanese shinjitai.

Regular Script

The Regular Script is one of the last major calligraphic styles to develop, emerging between the Chinese Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period, gaining dominance in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and maturing in the Tang Dynasty. It emerged from a neatly written, early period semi-cursive form of clerical script. As the name suggests, the Regular Script is “regular”, with each of the strokes placed slowly and carefully, the brush lifted from the paper and all the strokes distinct from each other. The Regular Script is also the easiest to recognize and read, as it is the script in which most beginners learn to write East Asian scripts.

The Regular Script is usually studied first to give students a feel for correct placement and balance, as well as to provide a proper base for the other, more flowing styles.

*** This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article " East Asian calligraphy" and " Kanji (disambiguation). " 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_calligraphy; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_(disambiguation)