The Art of Calligraphy

Following countless requests (= three) for an English Blog entry, here goes. Your wish is my command, dear Chinese and other non-German speaking friends: this is my first (and presumably only) entry in English. It will deal with a fascinating subject: The Art of Calligraphy - and its nemesis: me.

The Beauty of Writing - or: Me Wanna Buy Funny Things
I have always been attracted to all things written. All the more so, if done in Chinese characters. But I am positively overjoyed when these are written in a beautiful way. This we call calligraphy: we admire the daring strokes, the harmonious composition, the dynamic hand - while radiating our utter ignorance of what this is actually all about to the world in general.

To find out, on a fine summerly day like today, I ventured into Fuzhou Street, the kingdom of all things reading and writing, and into one of the countless shops that sell everything needed to practise this ancient art form with a history of over 2,000 years. Ever since back then, the Chinese people had had, of course, lots of time to conceive really difficult ways of bringing content onto paper. So even nowadays, as a serious adept of calligraphy, you certainly need more than a pencil and a scratchpad.

More precisely, one needs a special brush, an ink-stone to grind the ink, and the ink itself which comes in ornate sticks and needs to be ground to perfection on said stone, before being ready to use. (This also has the additional advantage of adding yet another difficulty to what is already an incredibly demanding skill. Starting off with ink that is either too thick or too thin can ruin all efforts before even starting to write.) Finally, one needs special paper - the most famous of which is produced in Zhejiang, the province just south of Shanghai, and a woolen cloth to spread underneath the paper to assist flawless ink distribution on the paper.

It's really difficult. Honest.
Real calligraphers can choose between hundreds of different kinds of brushes made of the hair of various animals, such as sheep or wolf. They employ dozens of different techniques of creating one of - again - dozens of different kinds of single strokes, to build from these the tens of thousands of different Chinese characters in one of the five big calligraphic styles (Seal Script, Clerical Script, Standard Script, Running Script and Grass Script). Even learning to do the basic strokes - we are talking one single line on a piece of paper - correctly and in an aesthetically pleasing way can take months to accomplish. To master the whole art of Calligraphy, including the shapes of the actual strokes, composition of the strokes within a character, the character in relation to its neighboring characters, the arrangement of all the characters on the piece of paper, plus the content and its relation to the individual characters - mastering all this takes one lifetime and more. Master calligraphers will study ancient calligraphy for years, will copy one piece of text for weeks and carefully mold one single character for hours.

And then there's me.

I went to this shop, bought an expensive wolf-hair medium-sized brush, a beautifully carved grinding stone, one ink-stick and a pack of allegedly good-quality paper, went back to my room, and without even knowing anything about the correct way to produce a certain stroke, just went at it.

My very own set of calligraphic gadgets: a wolf-hair brush (quite firm, so it doesn't store too much ink and is easier to control - perfect for beginners), resting on the grinding stone. To the left of the stone is the ornate case of the ink-stick which itself can be adored in all its splendour lying on a napkin (to keep it dry). To the lower right, behold the calligraphic paper (Huzhou-type) on top of my calligraphic woolen cloth.

Firstly, we grind the ink. This is a very meditative process. While employing gentle pressure and shifting the stick in circular motions within some drops of water on the smooth grinding stone, one can think about the aesthetic implications of transcending ethnic values into the written word via brush strokes. Or about the pain slowly building up in your forearm.

While overcoming a severe pang of Horror Vacui, the artist now emotionally and psychologically prepares for his intellectual explorations in the realm of mere aesthetic pleasure.

Lo and behold: The first stroke is done! So may this celebration of art in its purest form commence!

Umm ... and may the Chinese people in general forgive me ...