Yale University Press 2008
Wen C Fong: Prologue
Calligraphy and painting inextricably bound. Both ideographs (the picturing of concepts) and painting (the picturing of nature) are seen as expressions of the artist's self, as bearing his/her 'presentational energy'.
WCF describes the component parts of one piece of early (1300BCE) calligraphy in 3-d terms:
'With their silhouettes fitting together and set against the flat material ground of the bronze surface, they create a planar structure with fully articulated organic forms in the round moving independently in space.'
Poised to go 3-d
The space around the figure is not just background but 'belongs' to the figure and contributes to its qualities. A yin-yang relationship between line and surface, negative and positive, carrying energy . Also a place that carries an extension of the calligrapher's body; calligraphy as '. . . the materialisation of the power of the artist. . . to appreciate calligraphy is to relive the physical action in one's mind.' (Gao Yougong) A calligrapher uses their whole body, their calligraphy a kinaesthetic form. Also connected to what is being represented: '. . . a correspondence between the form of motion in nature and the motion of his hand in drawing.'
Figurative painting is understood to convey the spirit of it's subject through its material form, through its 'form-likeness'. The image through its magic likeness to this spirit is the prototype of the natural form (not the other way round as in western art).
Calligraphic brushstroke is the key to painting; what is painted is a 'trace', an extension of the artist's self. Contrast the western view of a painting representing something external to the artist and is considered from the viewpoint of the viewer; the presentation of the artist is missing e.g. from semiotic theory. Objects can be painted calligraphically using different styles of brushstroke.
In standard script, the strokes and dots create the structure while the turning brushwork expresses emotion; other way round in cursive script. Running style evolved at a time when expression of individuality was becoming possible.
By 8th century virtual space had evolved in painting with foreshortening and 3-dimensionality. A landscape shows not what the artist sees but what is in his mind's eye; makes a vastness of scale possible which is organised into one of 3 planar structures, vertical, horizontal or mixed. Continual adjusting of relationship to what might be seen as pictorial illusion.
To paint something was a process of aligning oneself with the understood truth of things, not mimetic.
The work is an invitation to contemplate.
Art practice seen by some as a servant of the Dao or Great Way, by others as fed by it.
Calligraphers revisited past masters, copying, adapting innovating. Who was chosen and how their work was treated could express political views. Brushstrokes can be laden with art-historical connotations and so stylistically communicate intention and meaning.
A poetic appreciation of individual calligraphic works or styles eg. 'light as a startled bird', 'like vines and grasses linked together', 'a gentle wind breathing through the forest'.
Shitao's one-stroke painting - myriad forms emerging, all connected, brought into relationship and order by his one flowing stroke.
* * * * *
Flicking through the images in this huge volume, some of the things that caught my eye:
- the particular kind of elegance of incised script (as opposed to brushwork)
- decaying supports with ragged edges and rough holes, mottled surfaces (like a rough monoprint), edges of lines crumbling so form starts to dissolve
- the structures (boxes within boxes) that shape a character
- the way red seals animate a monochrome script; what governs their placing? (sometimes overlap script)
- calligraphy on bamboo strips; strips stored in transparent tubes and arranged vertically
- fluidity of 'I know your sadness' p131
- ying huang zhi, a type of semi-transparent beeswaxed paper used for tracing calligraphy
- vertical columns always very straight
- dense text, the effect of an eruption of space into this
- subtly different shades of paper (creams, browns, pale green) joined together
- cursive script looser than running; despite the names, characters are rarely joined together but much greater irregularity of size, emphasis given to different strokes
- the free-est calligraphy in the book is by Mao Ze Dong
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| Mao Ze Dong, Poem written on the Long March 1935 |
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