Japanese calligraphy, shodou, is an art form using brush and black ink to write Japanese and Chinese characters. It is similar to the decorative calligraphy of the West, but is more deeply rooted as a fine art form, in part because every character has meaning and because of the great diversity of character shapes. Shodou is increasingly admired by Japanese and foreigners alike.
Because Japan didn’t have its own written language, they began copying Chinese calligraphy around the sixth century. However, this proved unsuccesful, as the Japanese and Chinese languages are completely unrelated. The Japanese language is actualy an Altaic language, related to Turkish.
Throughout the next several centuries, the Japanese made many adaptations and changes to the calligraphy. By the middle of the 12th century it had evolved into both Chinese characters and phonetics that was a more cursive, flowing, abbreviated and decorative script.
The Japanese calligraphers over the centuries had learnt more than just the Chinese language and its sytem of ideographic characters. They also adapted Chinese caligraphy to their own esthetics.
The Japanese then bagean using some Chinese characters to express sounds without regard for their meanings, to phonetically record Jaoanese words.
There are three basic style: kaisho, gyousho, and sousho.
Kaisho literally means “correct writing”. This is the style in which each of the strokes is made in a deliberate and clear way.
Gyousho literally means “traveling writing” and refers to the semi-cursive style of Japanese calligraphy.
Sousho means “grass writing” and refers to the flowing cursive style of calligraphy.
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1 comment:
nice work!
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