Calligraphy is an art dating back to the earliest day of history, and widely practiced throughout China to this day. Although it uses Chinese words as its vehicle of expression, one does not have to know Chinese to appreciate its beauty. Calligraphy, in essence, is an abstract art.

East Asian calligraphy typically uses ink brushes to write Chinese characters (called Hanzi in Chinese, Kanji in Japanese, and Hanja in Korean). Calligraphy (in Chinese, Shufa 書法, in Japanese Shodō 書道, in Korean, Seoyae 書藝, all meaning "the way of writing") is considered an important art in East Asia and the most refined form of East Asian painting. Ink brushes (筆, in Japanese fude) are speciality brushes used in East Asian calligraphy. ... 漢字 hànzì, hanja, kanji… in Traditional Chinese and other languages. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Category Kanji (漢字 â–¶(?), literally Han characters) is the name of Chinese characters in the Japanese language. ... Hanja (hangul: 한자; hanja: 漢字; revised: hanja; McCune-Reischauer: hancha; lit. ... Shodō (書道 the way of writing) or Sho (書) is Japanese calligraphy. ... The history of calligraphy in Korea is very long. ... Geographic scope of East Asia East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. ... The Mona Lisa is perhaps the best-known artistic painting in the Western world. ...

This piece of Chinese calligraphy was penned by Song Dynasty official Su Shi. For centuries, Chinese literati were expected to master the art of calligraphy.

The style of Chinese calligraphy has evolved continually for thousands of years. About 213 B.C., under the famous emperor Qin Shi Huang, who perpetrated the "burning of the books," the Prime Minister Li Si drew up an official index of characters and unified the written form for the use of scholars. This is Zhuanshu and contained more than 3,000 characters. From that time to the present, there have been five major styles of calligraphy. They are Zhuanshu (seal style), Lishu (scribe style), Kaishu (block style), Xingshu (semi-cursive style), and Caoshu (cursive style, literally "grass-writing style"). All five styles of writing are still in use today. Image:Su shi-calligraphy. ... The Song Dynasty (Chinese: 宋朝) was a ruling dynasty in China from 960-1279. ... Su Shi (蘇軾) (1037-1101) was a writer, poet, artist, calligrapher and statesman of the Song Dynasty, one of the major poets of the Song era. ... Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) (November or December 260 BC-September 10, 210 BC), personal name Zheng, was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 247 BC to 221 BC, and then the first emperor of a unified China from 221 BC to 210 BC, ruling under the name First Emperor. ... Li Si (Chinese: 李斯; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Li Ssu) (ca. ...

Chu Sui Liang's (595–658) Meng Fa Shi Bei

For regular script characters, the character basically fits into a square space, with each character of roughly the same size and proportion. Learners of Chinese characters are likely to encounter this form first, and in learning to write Chinese characters the form enables the student to appreciate the proportions of each part of the character as well as each character stroke. Though brushpen has been used for over two thousand years, today, most students begin with pencil or pens, and the calligraphy of modern handwriting is also a challenge to read for those with expressive running hand script. Image:Meng fa shi bei. ... Image:Meng fa shi bei. ... Events The first mention of the state of Karantania on monuments. ... Events The union of Slavic tribes falls apart after Samos death Births Deaths King Samo of the Slavs Categories: 658 ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... Pinyin (Chinese: 拼音, pÄ«nyÄ«n) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard... 《尋隱者不遇》—賈島 松下問童子 言師採藥去 隻在此山中 雲深不知處 Seeking the Master but not Meeting by Jia Dao Beneath a pine I asked a little child. ... The Clerical script is a style of Chinese calligraphy that is still being used. ... Calligraphy in the Kaishu style The Regular Script, or in Chinese Kaishu (楷書 Pinyin: kǎishū) and Japanese Kaisho, also commonly known as Standard Regular (正楷), is the newest of the Chinese calligraphy style (peaked at the 7th century), hence most common in modern writings and publications (after the non-calligraphy... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Also known as Cursive Calligraphy. ...

Grass script is notorious for its economy of individual penstrokes. Quite often different characters written in the regular script form may resemble each other when written in grass script.

The clerical script is highly stylised, a development from seal script form. They are highly angular in appearance, and as a precursor to regular script, for modern readers of Chinese characters, they are highly legible, compared to grass script, or seal script.

Seal scripts are regularised scripts, which are noted for the uniformity of thickness and space of vertical, horizontal and curved lines. By its very name, the main use are found on seals or chops. Seal carving is one branch of Chinese calligraphy, and considered as a high art, since it expresses the carver's calligraphy and artistic expression in fitting a number of characters (the majority of which are of seal script form) into such a small area of space, and carved in reverse so that the imprint obtained gives the characters in their proper form. Moreover, due to the nature of the size of seals and lack of space, the development of Chinese characters have been affected by seal carving, since simplification of characters has often been practiced.

Calligraphy has influenced most major art styles in East Asia, including sumi-e, a style of Chinese and Japanese painting based entirely on calligraphy. Geographic scope of East Asia East Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. ... Autumn Landscape (Shukei-sansui). ... Painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese arts, stemming from classic continental traditions of the early historical period (sixth-seventh centuries A.D.). Native Japanese traditions reached their apex in the Heian period (A.D 794-1185), producing many artistic devices still in use. ...

Example of calligraphy creation

folding (optional) Image File history File links Download high resolution version (960x1280, 171 KB) Description: the Chinese calligrapher Sun Xinde Source: own photography Date: July 2005 Author: Immanuel Giel Other versions: none File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese calligraphy Sun Xinde ...	beginning Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1280x960, 176 KB) Description: the Chinese calligrapher Sun Xinde Source: own photography Date: July 2005 Author: Immanuel Giel Other versions: none File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese calligraphy Sun Xinde ...	writing Image File history File links Download high resolution version (636x976, 100 KB) Description: calligraphy of the Chinese calligrapher Sun Xinde Source: own photography Date: July 2005 Author: --Immanuel Giel 4 July 2005 08:41 (UTC) Other versions: none File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese calligraphy Sun...	writing Image File history File links Download high resolution version (702x934, 127 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese calligraphy Sun Xinde ...
calligraphy Image File history File links Download high resolution version (960x1280, 171 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese calligraphy Sun Xinde ...	seal Image File history File links Download high resolution version (960x1280, 220 KB) Description: seal of the Chinese calligrapher Sun Xinde Source: own photography Date: July 2005 Author: --Immanuel Giel 4 July 2005 08:38 (UTC) Other versions: none File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese calligraphy Sun...	sealing Image File history File links Download high resolution version (457x733, 58 KB) Description: seal of the Chinese calligrapher Sun Xinde Source: own photography Date: July 2005 Author: --Immanuel Giel 4 July 2005 08:42 (UTC) Other versions: none File links The following pages link to this file: Chinese calligraphy Sun...	finished Image File history File links Download high resolution version (797x1012, 133 KB) Description: poem of Liu Yuxi by the Chinese calligrapher Sun Xinde Source: own photography Date: July 2005 Author: --Immanuel Giel 4 July 2005 08:39 (UTC) Other versions: none File links The following pages link to this file...

Famous Chinese Calligraphers

Nearly all educated men (and sometimes women) in China used to be proficient in calligraphy. However, the most famous among them are

Chinese Calligraphers & Their Masterpieces

• Wei Shuo 衛鑠 衛夫人
• Wang Xizhi 王羲之
• Huai Su 懷素
• Zhang Xu 張旭
• Yan Zhenqing 顏真卿
• Liu Gongquan 柳公權
• Ouyang Xun 歐陽詢
• Su Shi 蘇軾
• Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty 宋徽宗 趙佶
• Zhao Mengfu 趙孟頫

Lady Wèi Shuò (Traditional: 衛鑠, Simplified: 卫铄) (272-349), commonly addressed just as Lady Wei (衛夫人 Wei Furen), was a calligrapher of Eastern Jin Dynasty China who established consequential rules about the Regular Script. ... Wang Xizhi (303-361) is a famous Chinese Calligrapher in the 4th century AD. His most famous work is the Lanting Xu, the preface of a collection of poems written by a number of poets when gathering at Lan Ting near the town of Shaoxing in Zhejiang province and engaging... Huai Su was one of the two great Kuangcao calligraphers of the Tang Dynasty, a native of Tanzhou (present-day Changsha, Hunan Province). ... Yan Zhenqing (Simplified Chinese: 顏真卿; Traditional Chinese: 顏真卿; pinyin: ) (709 – 785) was a leading Chinese calligrapher and a loyal governor of the Tang Dynasty. ... Liǔ Gōngquán (柳公權, 778 - 865), was a Chinese calligrapher who stood with Yan Zhenqing as the two great masters of late Tang calligraphy. ... Su Shi (蘇軾) (1037-1101) was a writer, poet, artist, calligrapher and statesman of the Song Dynasty, one of the major poets of the Song era. ... Emperor Huizong (November 2, 1082 – June 4, 1135) was the eighth and one of the most famous emperors of the Song Dynasty of China, with a personal life spent amidst luxury, sophistication, and art, and ending in tragedy. ... Categories: Artist stubs | Calligraphers | Chinese painters ...

References

• Deng Sanmu 鄧散木, Shufa Xuexi Bidu 書法學習必讀. Hong Kong Taiping Book Department Publishing 香港太平書局出版: Hong Kong, 1978.