Chinese Calligraphy in the Modern Era

 vissza  |  a kalligráfia gyakorlása 

The word “modern” in this chapter denotes approximately the past one hundred years. During this time, modernization and globalization have become increasingly greater factors in the ways people experience everyday life, carry on traditions, and practice art. Vast economic, social, technological, cultural, and political changes have led to increased interdependence, integration, and interaction among people in disparate locations. In this context, Chinese calligraphy, similarly to other aspects of Chinese tradition, has changed and adapted.

Modern Developments in Chinese Calligraphy

One of the most fundamental characteristics of Chinese culture, which it shares to some degree with other Asian cultures, is its stability and resistance to forces of change from outside. Chinese calligraphy, as a defining feature of Chinese cul-ture, is at the core of this stable structure. In previous chapters we have seen that the development of calligraphy reached its peak in the Tang dynasty (618–907), with numerous masterpieces created by the greatest calligraphers in history. Also in the Tang dynasty, the development of the art entered a stable stage. For the next thousand years artists have practiced the art by imitating classic works, rearranging patterns, and adding personal touches to the existing scripts. No new calligraphic styles have been created.

In traditional China, the brush was used for daily writing. Every educated person wrote with a brush. Gradually, owing to the aesthetic features of Chinese writing, an artistic function developed that would eventually become the dominant function of brush writing. When China entered the twentieth century, modern-ization and Western influences began to show their impact. First, the adoption of hard-tipped pens from the West changed people’s writing habits entirely; later also came TV, the Internet, and other freely accessible media. Chinese society, like the rest of the world, is becoming more and more commercialized and computerized. People favor readily available means of communication and entertainment, gradu-ally losing patience and motivation to use the brush and to practice calligraphy. Since the 1980s, with political reform in China and the liberalization of political control, the stable structure of Chinese culture is experiencing a radical transforma-tion. On this fast track of modernization, great changes have occurred in the area of calligraphy.

Traditional art must adapt to changing times. While the practical, daily func-tions of brush writing are becoming obsolete, the artistic nature of calligraphy has supplied enough life force for it not only to survive but also to prosper in modern society. This renewed vigor has led to a number of new developments, including ground calligraphy. Here we will examine two additional areas in which new devel-opments are taking place: hard-pen calligraphy and the Modernist and Avant-Garde movements.

Hard-Pen Calligraphy

Calligraphy can be roughly divided into two types: brush calligraphy and hard-pen calligraphy, which includes writing with any instrument other than a brush, for example, fountain pens and ballpoint pens. The two forms differ only in the instru-ments used. To produce artistic effects, hard pens for calligraphy may have a special design with a slanted rectangular tip. Future development of the art may lead to further innovations, such as writing with nylon soft pens and finger writing.

Hard-pen calligraphy apparently began in reaction to the adoption and fast spread of hard-tipped pens from the West. Hard pens were first imported into China in the early twentieth century along with Western notions of science and democracy. Be-cause of their convenience, hard pens rapidly surpassed the brush as the major tool for daily writing. In the early 1950s, during the mass-education campaign, young men wearing a fountain pen in the upper pocket of a Mao suit became a fashionable symbol of education.

Like any art form whose growth requires preparation, exploration, and fertile territory, writing with hard pens remained a convenience until the 1980s, when relaxed government policies led to a Chinese renaissance. While brush calligraphy thrived during this period, the time was also ripe for the development of hard-pen calligraphy. The convenience and popularity of hard pens together with the societal emphasis on writing paved the way. There was a nationwide upsurge of interest and public excitement quickly ignited. Books and writing models were published with soaring sales. Fast Writing with a Fountain Pen, for example, was one of the first books on hard-pen calligraphy. After its publication in 1978, 13 million copies were sold. Symposia, classes on TV, national contests, and exhibits, as well as newspaper articles and entire magazines, were devoted to the subject. In 1988 alone, more than sixty national contests were held, some of which attracted more than a million entries. The magazine Chinese Fountain Pen Calligraphy has a regular distribution of 400,000 copies. In 2003 a hard-pen calligraphy website called Chinese Hard Pen Calligraphy Online, among dozens of competitors, attracted 60,000 hits per day. Hard-pen calligraphy has become a popular, versatile, and vital calligraphic form.

Building on this popularity, hard-pen calligraphy developed along the same route as brush calligraphy, from an initial practical function to more emphasis on principles and artistic features, and finally to the separation of practical writing from artistic production. The rules and principles of hard-pen calligraphy are similar to those of brush calligraphy, although reinterpretation of the principles and adjust-ments in application have been made for the difference in instrument. Hard-pen calligraphy can be written in the same major script styles: Seal (zhuanshu (篆书)-, Clerical (lishu (隸书)-, Regular (kaishu (楷书)-, Running (xingshu (行书)-, and Cursive (caoshu (草书). Regular Script produced in hard-pen calligraphy is subject to similar stroke techniques and has the same character structure as that described earlier in this book. As with brush writing, the learning of hard-pen calligraphy also starts with Regular Script, by first following the standards and rules precisely, and adding individuality later. Many hard-pen calligraphers nowadays write in the Yan Zhenqing or Ouyang Xun styles; those with high artistic achievements also develop personal styles based on Tang dynasty standards.

Calligraphy, like fashion, reflects the trends of the times. Writing in the Qin and Han dynasties, for example, was characterized by classic elegance; that of the Jin dynasty featured graceful charm; the Tang emphasized principles; the Song and Yuan emphasized spirit and poise; and the Ming and Qing stressed unadorned ar-tistic delight. Two styles within the Regular Script were discussed: the Yan Zhenqing (颜真卿, 709–785) Style, which was disposed to stone carving, and the Wang Xizhi (王羲之, 303–361) Style, which was best viewed when handwritten on paper. Some artists try to rein-terpret these traditions in hard-pen calligraphy by producing new styles that incorporate both the grandeur of Yan and the grace of Wang. To overcome the built-in limitations of hard tips in artistic expression and the size of written characters, em-phasis is given to innovations in writing instruments and their effects. Thus, from the initial fountain-pen calligraphy, forms of writing using ballpoint pens, pencils, chalk, wood, bamboo, and feather pens have been developed.

Despite these developments, hard-pen calligraphy, like brush calligraphy, is threatened. The fast spread of computers and the Internet is rapidly changing not only people’s way of life and work, but also their way of writing. As technology provides ever easier and faster character encoding methods and convenient ways of converting audio to text files, handwriting is rapidly losing ground to mouse and keyboard. This new, sweeping, modern-world trend brings excitement to some and worries to others for the future of the art of calligraphy.

The Modernist and Avant-Garde Movements

The Modernist movement in calligraphy dates back only to 1985, shortly after China reopened its doors to the world and thus also to Western culture and ideas. In a provocative Beijing exhibit, which is often compared to the 1913 Armory Show that introduced Cubism to America, a group of young artists challenged and aston-ished viewers with a kind of calligraphy never before seen. These artists believed that in order for calligraphy to develop and remain relevant in modern China, rigorous traditional rules had to be broken to give way to new creative expression. While still conversant in traditional calligraphy, they departed from its canon by varying methods, materials, and scales. They also explored different media and techniques, such as reshaping Chinese characters, taking titular characters back to their picto-graphic origins, and mixing various writing styles on the same piece. While still using traditional instruments, they continue to apply innovative brush methods, ink methods, and treatment of paper for various effects. They handle Chinese characters in an unorthodox manner and often mix calligraphy with painting. Straddling the line between calligraphy and painting is the trademark of their work.

The Modernist movement did not stop there. After the explorations of the 1980s, some Avant-Garde artists were ready to go even further. Drawing inspiration from the experimental calligraphers of Japan and Taiwan, the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s and 1960s, and also from contemporary Western art, they began to take Chinese calligraphy in the directions of conceptualism and abstraction. Their work uses calligraphy techniques to create abstract symbols and images, some of which are based on the shape and structure of Chinese characters but carry no linguistic meaning. Western ideas and art have lit a fire beneath time-honored traditions, as these young artists have become the mainstream of the modern calligraphy movement.

The Avant-Garde artists contend that, in order to revitalize Chinese calligraphy, calligraphers in the modern world should participate in exchanges with the inter-national art community. Chinese characters have isolated the traditional art from international recognition and have prevented those without knowledge of Chinese characters from gaining access to the art. Therefore, true modernization of the art, they contend, will not be possible unless it breaks away from the exclusive use of Chinese characters. Calligraphy, the Avant-Gardists argue, is the art of lines; it does not have to be the writing of Chinese characters. Therefore, in their work, read-able Chinese characters are discarded. Brush strokes and ink are used to draw shapes without linguistic meaning.

While modern calligraphy does not communicate words, it does communicate emotion through shape, color, shade, and placement. New Calligraphers argue that this abstract level of emotion, precisely because it is beyond words, is in fact purer, truer, and deeper. The same driving principle lies behind many twentieth-century movements in Western art and literature, including Abstractionism, Cub-ism, and the fragmentism pioneered by painters like Picasso and Miró, and vers libre poetry like that of Gertrude Stein and e.e. cummings, all of which sought to evoke emotion via connotation rather than literal coherence or precise visual reproduction.

Modern calligraphers hold that their works have distinct Chinese characteristics. At the same time, they open a wide space for artistic expression and the possibility of connections with Western forms of modern art. Modern calligraphy also allows those who are unfamiliar with Chinese characters to participate in calligraphic ap-preciation and even the creation of calligraphy works. They argue that this is the most promising direction for the future development of Chinese calligraphy.

It is no surprise that these trends have been strongly opposed by traditional Chinese artists. They argue that calligraphy is defined and universally recognized as writing and that writing in Chinese calligraphy consists of characters written in brushwork. The properties of brush-written characters as both an art form and linguistic units are the unique feature of Chinese calligraphy that distinguishes it from any other form of art. Any attempt to replace orthodox Chinese calligraphy with a character-free form would destroy it. It would also cause tremendous cultural disruption, depriving future generations of the chance to experience and appreciate this invaluable treasure of Chinese culture.

Chinese calligraphy is a symbol of Chinese culture and the soul of Chinese aesthetics. It has become an integral part of Chinese history, philosophy, and the Chinese mentality. It is a mature art form, with aesthetic principles and an aesthetic spirit. Once the aesthetic spirit declines and the principles are lost, the life of the art is gravely threatened. The so-called New Calligraphy, the traditionalists contend, is like trees without roots and rivers without headwaters. The artistic value and the linguistic function of Chinese calligraphy are like the two sides of a coin. The coin cannot be sliced open without losing its value. An art form devoid of linguistic meaning is not calligraphy.

The works of the Avant-Garde calligraphers are referred to as "modern", "an-ticalligraphy", "noncalligraphy", "destruction of calligraphy", and "New Calligraphism". In a society that has kept calligraphy on a pedestal for so long, making it both an inextricable cultural centerpiece and an elitist symbol, the traditions and values of calligraphy are now being pulled apart and reexamined along with China’s national and international identity.

Chinese Calligraphy in the West

When the influence of Chinese calligraphy made its first marks on Western abstract painting in the early twentieth century, it sparked an international conversation about image, text, texture, and meaning in art that continues to this day. Some Western artists believe that Chinese calligraphy is the most ancient and most con-densed of abstract art forms. It has the beauty of image in painting, dynamism in dance, and rhythm in music. Thus abstract art — the ultramodern art of the West — takes cognizance of the most ancient art—the calligraphy of the East—and estab-lishes an intimate relationship between the two. Thus, although calligraphy’s home is in China, it does not belong exclusively to China.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), one of the fathers of Abstract Expressionism, became famous for his attention to nonrepresentational forms and his distinct mix-tures of dots, colors, lines, and textures. He and his fellow artists and theorists believed their art shared much with the tradition of Chinese calligraphy. They in-tellectualized their work with Chinese philosophies—just as Chinese artists would, decades later, also engage in cultural borrowing, intellectualizing their modernist and Avant-Garde work with Western philosophies. The use of lines of varied power, pressure, movement, and flow by artists such as Kandinsky and Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) was believed to be modeled after the Chinese Running and Cursive scripts. Many people also think that Franz Kline (1910–1962), whose best-known abstract expressionist paintings are in black and white, closely emulates Chinese cal-ligraphy, although the artist himself may not acknowledge that connection.

Some world-renowned artists, such as Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), Henri Matisse (1869–1954), and Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), openly declared the influence of Chinese calligraphy on their works. In Matisse’s paintings, the trained eye can perceive traces of calligraphy strokes. These are more clearly seen in some of his later mixed-media works that were largely done in ink. Some of Pollock’s paintings also display the impact of the Cursive Script. Picasso once said: "Had I been born Chinese, I would have been a calligrapher, not a painter", acknowledging both the influence on his work and his reverence for calligraphy as a high art form.

In spite of this recognition and appreciation by several masters of Western art forms, Chinese calligraphy influenced the works of Western artists only in terms of the techniques they used in the production of lines. Traditional Chinese calligraphy, used to write Chinese characters, was never more fully incorporated into Western art. This situation has not changed even after World War II, when the Western world has become much more involved with East Asia.

The first formal exhibition dedicated to Chinese calligraphy in the United States is believed to have been held at the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art in 1972.6 In more recent years, with the opening of China and the introduction of Chinese art to the Western world, the art of Chinese calligraphy has found a new audience in the West. You have already seen some works of these Chinese artists.

Most of the major art centers, such as the British Museum in London and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, now offer a respectable amount of Chinese calligraphy on permanent display. Many calligraphy works, both traditional and modern, can also be viewed on their (and other) websites. Some modern Chinese calligraphers now live and work in the West, where they mix Western abstract art with Chinese calligraphy and computer technology to create a universal visual language for the new millennium and also express the contradictions and com-plexities of multiculturalism. Not only is their art displayed across the globe, special exhibits frequently showcase newer works as well. In its new contexts, Chinese cal-ligraphy is proving applicable to a full range of expression, including that of modern identity consciousness and politics.

Xu Bing, one of the most universally acclaimed expatriate Avant-Garde artists, who now lives in Brooklyn, New York. Xu Bing manipulates language in his art, bringing fresh understandings of the powerful role words play in our lives. In works such as Word Play, Xu Bing uses the instru-ments and techniques of Chinese brush writing to write English words. Such works challenge the preconceptions of written communication and reflect the complexi-ties of cross-cultural communication. In 2002, Word Play featured in one of the first major exhibitions focusing on the work of a living Chinese artist in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC.

Abstract or modern calligraphy exhibitions are more successful in the West than exhibits of traditional works. Western viewers often state that because they are un-able to read traditional Chinese calligraphy texts, they cannot fully appreciate the works. Some also say that cultural differences hinder their appreciation. The work of abstract calligraphers, often influenced greatly by Western abstract art without the involvement of Chinese characters, is usually more accessible to such viewers.

Whether or not the typical museum visitor is aware of the rationale and argu-ments behind New Calligraphism, the postmodern tendency toward unintelligibil-ity has aided its reception in museums across the Western world. For the first time, Western viewers have not been handicapped in their appreciation of a piece simply because of their inability to read it as a text. Non-Chinese and Chinese alike are qualified to "read" a piece of New Calligraphic art.

Outside of high art, Chinese calligraphy is also entering the everyday life of non-Chinese populations. A simple trip to a local Wal-Mart or Target store may reveal examples of Chinese calligraphy in various forms, such as a set of napkin holders that feature brush-written characters for the elements (天 tiāa, "sky", 地 di, "earth", 風 feng, "wind", 水 shui, "water", 火 huo, "fire", 金 jin, "gold"); framed posters or prints of individual characters such as 智 zhi, "wisdom", or 勇 yong, "courage", or more abstract notions such as 自由 ziyou, "freedom", complete with their English translations written below; necklaces and bracelets displaying the characters 福 fu, "blessings", and 愛 ai, "love"; and men’s and women’s shirts emblazoned with Chinese characters in calligraphy. Apparently, designers have worked quickly to incorporate Chinese culture into their products to satisfy the interest and curiosity of Western consumers. They have taken what was once the idealistic center of China’s art and united it with the ideals of Western art to create a completely different feel. Although it takes place within the familiar styles of Western popular art and fashion, this cross-pollination has played a large part in bringing Chinese art styles into mainstream Western life.

What Is Chinese Calligraphy?

A literal translation of shufa (書法), "Chinese calligraphy", was provided at the begin-ning of this book. Now, before closing it, we come back to the basic question of what is Chinese calligraphy.

The modern calligraphy is an experimental form of modern art trying to respond to two of the questions facing Chinese calligraphy in the context of contemporary international culture: (1) How can it maintain indigenous Chinese characteristics; and (2) How can it participate in communication about modern art in the global community? The modernist movement in calligraphy that began in the 1980s soon became engaged in an inevitable, heated debate regarding whether it is possible to have an art called calligraphy in which no traditionally meaningful characters are written at all. Controversies continue to rage about the basic nature and definition of calligraphy.

A traditional definition of Chinese calligraphy is that it is the art of writing Chinese characters using a Chinese brush. This definition entails three basic features of Chinese calligraphy: its artistic nature, the writing of Chinese characters, and the use of a brush. By this definition, Chinese calligraphy is truly a visual art and yet not only a visual art. Both its creation and its appraisal involve unique, profound con-notations within the context of Chinese culture. It uses Chinese characters as the media of expression to write poems, lyrics, prose, and philosophical sayings. The literal content and the artistic, visual beauty complement each other. The perfect combination of the beauty of form and the beauty of content is the very reason the Chinese have been fascinated by the art for thousands of years.

By contrast, the definition promoted by the Avant-Garde movement is that calligraphy is the art of lines, and Chinese calligraphy is no exception. By this definition, calligraphy is deprived of its linguistic requirement and treated simply as one more form of visual art. Like painting, the Modernists contend, Chinese calligraphy was originally meant to create images that represent objects in the real world (by the use of pictographic symbols). But this bottom line has long been broken, first by the creation of individual nonpictographic symbols as early as in the Shell and Bone Script and then by an overall abstraction of the writing system through the Clerical transformation in the Han dynasty. The Modernist movement is taking calligraphy one step further in the direction of abstraction. If painting without representational images can still be painting, then calligraphy without readable characters can still be calligraphy. The Modernists maintain that questioning the illegibility of modern calligraphy is irrelevant because modern art, in general, increasingly blurs the line between different types of visual art.

Over more than two thousand years, until the 1980s, Chinese calligraphy and its practitioners did not interact with outside influences. Chinese and Western cul-tures were isolated from each other for so long that artistic exchange would have been unimaginable. Now as they meet and interact, we see more and more that calligraphy, a defining feature of Chinese culture and the greatest of the traditional Chinese arts, is more than just beautiful writing, as the word suggests. Instead, it is the embodiment of an entire art style. The dialogue between tradition and mod-ernization and between East and West can be seen as healthy and energizing for its future development.

The Modernist movement does have deep concerns about the continued viabil-ity of the art. This anxiety is affirmed in the fact that the Modernist movement is not a hermetic or unidirectional progression; new concepts of all kinds continue to play a strong, catalyzing role in inspiring new techniques. At the same time, the new trends have not signaled the end of previous styles. All over China today, modern trends based on all traditional and classical script styles can be found.

The current debate on the future direction of Chinese calligraphy is essential to reestablishing its values and investigating its possibilities. While the new global era is bringing about new thinking and exploration, as well as modernizing Chi-nese calligraphy and involving it in contemporary art worldwide, it is difficult to imagine that Chinese calligraphy will either retain its traditional forms and mean-ings by rejecting new methods and ideas or carve out a new identity by discarding its time-honored traditions. More likely, various factions and methods will learn to coexist peacefully, reinforcing each other under the Daoist principle of harmony with diversity...