HOW DID JAPANESE CALLIGRAPHY GROW ?
Calligraphy’s original birthplace is China in the history. Japan was influenced by China in its use of the character and also in Calligraphy, or Shodo in Japanese language. The Chinese had original character and it’s believed that Japan imported their character as Kanji. After that, Kanji grew Japanized together with life style and sense of Japanese people, which made a little difference in the style and the form between original Chinese character and Japanese Kanji. Also in Japan new character called Kana ( or Hiragana) was born, which had a totally new and different impression in form of the character in comparison with Chinese character or Japanese Kanji.
With the stream of the birth of new characters, Japanese calligraphy left unique progression in the history. In that point of view, Japanese calligraphy is rather progressive than conservertive. Japanese calligraphy style changed its forms together with rise and fall of people.
The character was used only in a practical way in the early time of the history. Later on, the character became a way of expression of heart. This way of thinking was, then, accepted as a form of art, since then, it’s called Sho, or Shodo.
Its beauty and originality began to be regarded also as expression of human personality, in that respect, calligraphy or Sho has long been a kind of an education for humanity in standard Japanese society.
In the history, there are two streamlines.
Original is, of course, Chinese.
And the sideline or newline of calligraphy history has been Japanese one.
Expanding on the Japanese calligraphy history, there were several calligraphy artsits in each era. Their works are still admired as excellent examples of Shodo art, or calligraphic masterpieces.
In Japanese history textbooks of schools, Kookai (Kukai), Emperor Saga, Tachibanano Hayanari, Onono Michikaze (Ono Tofu) and some more great calligraphy artists are still taught as the classic calligraphers.
CLASSICS OF CALLIGRAPHY TECHNIQUES
Learning calligraphy or Sho often requires hard and constant training. In the early stage of the learning, they often try to learn classics of calligraphy. The purpose of that includes not only mastering the technique of the great artists but also touching their soul and integrated humanity. As this aspect shows, calligraphy or Sho is still staying in the line of human education in Japan. After this process, calligraphyers of new generation start searching for their own world of expression to become an artist.
Typical examples of classic calligraphy techniques are as follws:
KAISHO; This is the formal writing of Kanji ( Chinese character ) in clear looking style.
GYOSHO; As opposed to KAISHO, this style has a little sense of flow in the form. Character is still clear for readers but apparently the form is more flexible and soft looking than KAISHO.
SOUSHO; This is for fast writing. So it often breaks the character form and they don’t stay in the right form. Writers and readers need to know the forms of Sousho character to understand correctly.
REISHOTAI; Both right side and left side have spreading form like waves, therefore it looks wide horizontally.
TENSHOTAI; It looks long vertically. Edge of the character is rounded and character’s lines are drawn in the same width.
KANA; Japanese character, Kana ( Hiragana ), is the theme in this classic way.
Also there is another way to learn calligraphy called RINSHO.
RINSHO means writing the calligraphy with looking at the example.
Rinsho has 3 types.
KEIRIN; Tryin to write character in familier shape to the example.
IRIN; Focusing on understanding the meaning of the example.
HAIRIN; Writing without looking at the example after remembering the example.
CALLIGRAPHY TOOLS
Brush
For making calligraphy brushes, horse hair, sheep hair, racoon dog hair, or some other animals’ hair is used.
Sumi (Ink )
This is the ink for calligraphy. There are liquid type ( Chinese ink )and solid type ( Ink stick). For use of the ink stick, you need to rub it on Suzuri ( palette ) then the ink becomes liquid type.
Suzuri (Palette)
This is similar to the art palette. As above explained, this is also used for making liquid ink from ink stick
Paper
Recently factory-manufactured papers are used often, however there still are people using traditional handmade Japanese papers.
