Calligraphy（书法 Shūfǎ） is now considered an art form, but perhaps you didn’t know that traditionally it was much more – a way to cultivate personal character. It was considered essential for any cultured person to be skilled in calligraphy (as well as the related skill, painting).
The earliest form of Chinese script is Oracle Bone script, found carved into bone and shell mainly at historical sites near Anyang in Henan. The earliest texts written in Oracle Bone Script record the divinations of Wu Ding, who was king of the Shang Dynasty in 1250 BCE. However, because the script on the oracle bones was already well-developed it must have been in use well before that date and just has not survived in the archaeological record.
In addition, since it was difficult to carve curves into bone, the script was simplified, so it is likely not a good representation of the characters actually in use at the time. There is also plenty of evidence that brushes and ink, the two most important tools of calligraphy, were already in use. Bamboo ‘pages’ were commonly used for writing on, and so Chinese developed as a vertical script.
Over the hundreds of years of Imperial China there were many reforms to Chinese characters and several main styles were established. Since few paper documents survive, much of what we know about calligraphy before the Ming dynasty comes from stele, which were stone tablets carved with calligraphy written by scholars, officials and emperors.
In the later Tang Dynasty printing began, which stabilized the development of characters and five main styles emerged: (From most formal to least formal) Seal Script, Clerical Script, Regular Script, Semi-cursive Script (similar to normal handwriting) and Cursive Script. These are still written in much the same way today.
Calligraphers use the ‘Four Treasures of the Study’: the brush, usually made of animal hair, the ink, made of soot mixed with glue, paper (or sometimes silk) and an inkstone, which the dry ink was ground on and mixed with water. Whole industries and cultures have grown up around each ‘treasure’, and ink sticks, ink stones and brushes are often prized works of art in themselves.
When beginning calligraphy, students copy their teacher until they can replicate their calligraphy, writing the same character thousands of times until it is perfect. The amount of ink on the brush, the angle of the brush, the pressure applied and the type of paper used all affect the final character. The character 永 is often used for beginners as it includes all 8 major strokes found in Chinese characters.
One of the easiest ways to appreciate calligraphy is to go to your nearest park! There you’ll probably find older people practicing water calligraphy (or, as it is known in Chinese, ground calligraphy; 地书 Dì shū).
Learning calligraphy takes time and patience, but the rewards are many – not only does it teach culture, patience and control, but the focus required means it’s also a kind of meditation for many calligraphers!
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