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

CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY

Ku K‘ai-Chih, an example of which is in the British Museum,' with the calligraphy of Wang Hsi-Chih, who lived in the same dynasty, you will notice a similar suppleness of stroke, a distinctive suppleness which was an innovation to both arts.

Chinese art critics continually debate the question whether Chinese painting and calligraphy were in origin the same or independent. Some hold that they sprang from the same root but parted company at an advanced stage of development. I cannot myself see that they have ever diverged far. The technique of the two is still very similar, and precisely the same medium is employed—ink—except that occasionally a few pale or rich colours are added to a painting, for embellishment rather than for their intrinsic qualities. And it cannot be gainsaid that now, as always, monochrome is preferred for most paintings—black monochrome, the ink of calligraphy. Moreover, we customarily speak, not of ‘ painting’ a picture, but of ‘writing ’ it. However the theoreticians may argue, I believe that instinctively the Chinese think of painting and calligraphy as branches of the same art.

The first two essentials of good calligraphy are a simulation of life in the strokes and a dynamic equilibrium in the design. Any Chinese painter would confirm that these are also the first two essentials of painting. Again, in making a piece of writing a calligrapher thinks first of the structure of the single characters with a view to their forming pleasing patterns in themselves ; then he considers their arrangement in the whole. A painter devotes himself first to composing each component part of his picture well, then to arranging the parts into the design of the whole.

1Jt is called ‘The Admonitions of the Instructress’. [ 208 ]