Chinese calligraphy : an introduction to its aesthetic and technique : with 6 plates and 155 text illustratons

VII COMPOSITION

HE composition of Chinese characters—proportioning

of the parts, spacing within the imaginary square,

poise, posture, adaptation in the interests of pattern or meaning—is not governed by inviolable laws. It issues from the calligrapher’s personal aesthetic. Just as two painters will paint the same scene and produce utterly different pictures, so two calligraphers writing the same characters will produce completely different pieces of writing. There are, of course, for each of the recognized styles—Li-Shu, K‘ai-Shu, Ts‘ao-Shu, &c.—general principles of composition, and these cannot be ignored with impunity, for they are less laws than warnings against the pitfalls which await the careless or over-confident ; but even within a single style a writer can—indeed, mustexercise choice.

The changes in the general style of calligraphy which took place from dynasty to dynasty were in large part changes of composition. Necessarily ; for, as was remarked by the great calligrapher Chao Meng-Fu of Yiian dynasty, brushwork never changes. Modern Chinese characters are stylized ideograms (pictures of zdeas) which have developed out of an original small number of pictograms (straightforward pictures of things). No fundamental changes of structure have taken place since

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