綾舟
Introduction To Far Eastern Calligraphy
I would like to share how to learn Chinese and Japanese calligraphy and talk a little about what is essential to the practice.
It is essential to study the Chinese and Japanese classics. Chinese calligraphy has been around for more than 2,000 years, and if you include hieroglyphs on turtle shells and oracle bone script, it has more than 5,000 years of history.
Chinese characters were brought to Japan from China in the 5th century. After the introduction of calligraphy from China, famous calligraphers began to appear in Japan.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Sokyu Ueda founded a new movement which is an abstract approach to calligraphy. With this new practice, we still learn the classics, but we cherish our own feelings and allow our brush to express our own thoughts.
My Philosophy
My calligraphy is just myself. It expresses all the emotions that we have, such as pleasure, delight, sadness, anger, happiness, and hatred.
Calligraphy incorporates rhythm and body movements as well. In other words, it asks you to be conscious of your breathing. It is like meditation. When you study the classical works of ancient Chinese and Japanese calligraphers, you should be very careful about the speed and rhythm. Then you can feel the classics' very precise and delicate nuances. When I find myself open to be synchronized with a classic, I feel a strong sense of release. When I attain such a state of mind, I can accept myself, and can go on to produce my own works with Chinese characters and develop abstract calligraphy freely based on the classics.
That is why I repeatedly study the classics and start from them over and over again. This is just daily and regular work for me. Before I complete a piece of work, I do a lot of trial runs. The more I write, the more I feel the rhythm and the flow in my work, and can find the harmony of the black and white. When I find it there, it brings me happiness and delight. I get power from this feeling. This is why I always come back to the classics.
Japanese people have developed specific calligraphy such as kana, through which we have demonstrated our own sense of beauty, wabisabi, for more than 1000 years. In the 20th century, Sokyu Ueda founded a new genre of calligraphy. It is called abstract calligraphy, or Chinese ink image calligraphy. The method of expression through calligraphy that he introduced then spread all over the world. My art is comprised of a mixture of Japanese cultural traditions and mentality. I like to call it "the heart of Yamato."