6 - 2011 - Beyond Calligraphy

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Kanji 雨 consist of three compounds that all add to its pictographic nature. The top part 一 represents the heavens (天,てん, ten), the 冂 (けい, kei) represents

Figure 1. 又 (right hand), oracle bone script (甲骨文).

右　belongs to the 会意文字 (かいいもじ, kaii moji, i.e. characters that are a combination of two or more pictographs, or characters which meaning was based on an abstract concept).

Figure 1 日 (hi, sun), oracle bone script, from c.a. 1600 B.C.

Chinese and Japanese calligraphy is created with a brush, on a white sheet of paper that could be seen as a canvas. In opposition to the Western calligraphy, Far Eastern calligraphy is not a craft, but an art.

一 belongs to the 指事文字 (shiji moji, i.e. characters expressing simple abstract concept) group of characters. One theory says that the shape of kanji 一 is based on the 算木 (sangi), which were divination rods (small wooden sticks of a similar shape to matches, but longer and thicker). Sangi were

What all the calligraphy styles and schools set in various cultural realities have in common? How do we “read” the calligraphy? How do we relate to that black maze of undecipherable lines, and how can we hear what the ink is whispering to

Before we venture into the abyssal realm of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, we need to ask ourselves a question: what does “calligraphy” really mean? Word “calligraphy” has Greek etymology, and it derives