Chinese Calligraphy

The Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar is very pleased to present the work of Manar al-Muftah as part of the annual series Qatar Now. Curated by Donald Early, Halim Choueiry and Jochen Sokoly

The Qatar Now series features the work of emerging and established Qatari artists and designers. A graphic designer by profession, Manar al-Muftah is also a graduate of VCUQatar.

It is the first time that The Gallery is featuring the work of an alumna in a solo exhibition at The Gallery.

The paper intends to show that archaeological data may offer a glimpse beyond the historical facts known about Wang Xizhi and his kin. The discussion centers on the question of the location of Wang Xizhi's tomb. Comparing written sources with archaeological material, i.e. Jin Dynasty tombs excavated in what used to be Kuaiji and in the capital area of Jiankang (present-day northeastern Zhejiang and Nanjing respectively), It will argue that there is ample reason to believe that Wang Xizhi himself was, in contrast to what was passed down in tradition, not buried in the mountains of Kuaiji, but near the Eastern Jin capital Jiankang, maybe even next to his kin.

本文主要利用為數可觀的唐至五代草書歌材料，配合當時的其他文獻記載與
傳世作品，試圖由藝術的角度，再配合宗教、社會與思想的層面綜合考量，為狂草勾勒歷史演變的輪廓。筆者觀察到此種藝術形式由盛唐，經中晚唐、五代，再到北宋，不僅風格數變，其內涵亦逐步擴充、轉換，最後在北宋文人書家的手下，由鬼神相助、神機充滿的天縱之書，轉而成為一種講求紀律、穩定與高度自覺的藝術實踐。這種強調人為掌控，心手相合的創作模式同時蘊含著個人情性抒發的無限可能，可視為北宋人文精神彰顯的表徵。本文分為「顛、酒、道」、「狂僧、神通、幻術」、「由『道』至『藝』：九至十世紀的新轉向」及「北宋文人與草書」四節，實以時間為軸，分別對應到八世紀前半、八世紀後半、九至十世紀，及十一世紀的時間段落。筆者期望藉此跳脫突顯「變」之兩端差異的模式，而是盡可能地勾勒每個階段的特性及發展過程。其中尤其希望關於九至十世紀的討論，能增進我們對介於兩個輝煌時代的這段「過渡」時期的認識，並對同時期其他藝術與文化方面的討論有所啟發。

This paper investigates one of the most prominent pursuits in the art of
calligraphy from Tang through Song: wild cursive calligraphy (kuangcao). By
tracing its rise and development from the eighth to the eleventh century, its pattern of development echoing that of the yipin, or “untrammeled,” style of painting from about the same time, hopefully it will offer insights into the artistic and cultural transitions between Tang and Song. Drawing from literary, historical, and visual sources, this paper considers the wild cursive from the artistic, as well as religious and social perspectives. In particular, I hope the discussions on the critical transitions and transformations occurring during the late ninth and tenth centuries will dispute the simple assertion that this phase between the two great empires is merely an age of
decline.

The Bokujinkai—or ‘People of the Ink’—was a group formed in Kyoto in 1952 by five calligraphers: Morita Shiryū, Inoue Yūichi, Eguchi Sōgen, Nakamura Bokushi, and Sekiya Yoshimichi. The avant-garde movement they launched aspired to raise calligraphy to the same level of international prominence as abstract painting. To this end, the Bokujinkai collaborated with artists from European Art Informel and American Abstract Expressionism, sharing exhibition spaces with them in New York, Paris, Tokyo, and beyond. The first English-language book to focus on the postwar history of Japanese calligraphy, Bokujinkai: Japanese Calligraphy and the Postwar Avant-Garde explains how the Bokujinkai rerouted the trajectory of global abstract art and attuned foreign audiences to calligraphic visualities and narratives.

https://brill.com/view/title/55005

臺灣書畫之發展，始於清領時期，經日本統治、光復以來的發展，期間各有不同。本文擬就今人研究之基礎，以「書畫」作核心之概念加以討論，包含沿習自中國的傳統繪畫及書法，以政治分期為綱，作一綜合之論述。大體而論，清廷統治臺灣時期，其藝術發展乃閩浙一帶藝風之延續；日本殖民以後，加入西方的藝術思想、教育體系，以及參酌西方風格改良之日本畫之影響；國民黨來臺以後，則深受大陸來臺書畫家風格之左右，逐步塑造出臺灣特有之書畫風格。因而本文以今日臺灣中壯輩書畫家朱振南為例，以其經歷、師承、書畫風格的探索，來討論戰後在臺灣出生成長一代的創作者，如何繼承並開展臺灣之書畫藝術，以及書畫藝術在未來所發展的可能性。

Yazı denildiğinde akla insan ve kültür olgusu gelmektedir. Tarih boyunca insanlar kültürlerini yazılarına yansıtmışlar ve böylelikle yaşayan toplumlar ve uygarlıklar olmuşlardır. Her kültür yazısında ve sanatında kendinden izler taşımaktadır. Bu izlerin yazıda estetik boyutta biçimlenen hali güzel yazı yazma sanatı (kaligrafi) olarak adlandırılmaktadır. Ait oldukları kültürün özelliklerini ve estetiğini yansıtan kaligrafi, bu özelliği ile el yazısında kültürlere özgünlük katmaktadır. Dolayısıyla her yüzyılın ve o yüzyıla ait bölge insanının kendine ait özelliği, karakteri ve zaman içerisinde gösterdiği değişimler olduğu gibi kaligrafisinin de kendi içerisinde değişim, gelişim geçirdiği ve zamanla kavramsal, deneysel bir tavra yöneldiği görülmektedir. Ayrıca XXI. yüzyılda kaligraflar, sanatçılar ve tasarımcılar farklı kültürlerden etkilenmekte ve çalışmalarında da bu etkileri kendi kültürleri ile yoğurarak kullanmaktadırlar. Bununla birlikte çalışma yüzeylerini genişlettikleri, yüzey ve boyut anlamında sınırları kaldırdıkları da görülmektedir. Bu nedenle bu tez çalışması, yazının ve yazı sanatının tarihini ele almakla beraber yirmi birinci yüzyılın koşullarındaki yazı sanatının (kaligrafinin), günümüz tasarımcı ve sanatçılarına yansımaları ve onların kaligrafiye yeni yaklaşımlarını, bakış açılarını incelemektedir. Bölüm bölüm açıklamak gerekirse;
Birinci bölümde, genel olarak yazının tarihi ele alınarak, ortaya çıkma nedenleri, temelde ne tür şekillerde geliştiği, ayrı ayrı kültürlere ve bölgelere göre gelişimi, alfabesi olan toplumlarda alfabenin oluşumu ve Türklerin yazı dilinin tarihi ele alınmaktadır. 
İkinci bölümde, yazı sanatı bir diğer adıyla kaligrafinin çeşitli tanımları yapılarak, yazıyı güzel yapan şeyin ve kaligrafinin ne olduğu konusu incelenmektedir. 
Üçüncü bölümde, dünyadaki modern yazı sanatındaki yeni yaklaşımlar batı, uzak doğu ve orta doğu olmak üzere bölgelere göre araç gereçlerinden, yazı stillerine kadar irdelenmektedir. 
Dördüncü bölümde, farklı yaklaşımlarla kaligrafi yapan ve çeşitli disiplinlerle kaligrafiyi birleştirerek duvar, araba, cam, su, kum, ahşap, kumaş ve vücut gibi yüzeylere çalışan modern yazı sanatı sanatçı ve tasarımcılar arasından fark yaratanlar incelenmektedir. 
Beşinci bölümde, uygulama çalışmalarına yer verilmektedir. Öncelikle araştırmacının kendisi için tasarladığı bir logo çalışması ve aşamaları, ardından araştırmacıya ait el yapımı Korece taş mühür ve aşamaları, sonra da el yapımı bir sanatçı kitabı tasarlanarak, kaligrafinin de bir tür meditasyon olmasından dolayı meditasyon içerikli Türkçe - Korece başlık ve Türkçe alıntılar kullanılarak, kaligrafi uygulamaları ve artırılmış gerçeklik ile birlikte bir sanatçı kitabı uygulama aşamaları ve süreci sunulmaktadır. 


ABSTRACT

The thesis titled "New Approaches In The Art Of Writing (Caligraphy) At The Twenty-First Century And A Practical Implementation" aims to examine, in the international context, the regional differences calligraphy demonstrates, where it stands now, how it evolved, and how it blends with and differentiate from the traditional. Also, it aims to address the writing, which is the transmitter of our culture, in the context of calligraphy technique expressed in aesthetic forms, with an original understanding by taking advantage of today's technology. Furthermore, it aims to encourage individuals who received fine arts education to write in calligraphy, by raising their awareness that as the art of writing develops, the quality of the work increases.
 
It is of great importance to raise awareness of people about recognizing, knowing, claiming, and transmitting cultural values. Calligraphy, which has an important effect on the transmitting of cultures, adds originality to the cultures in handwriting by carrying aesthetic sensitivity. In this thesis, attention is drawn to the technique, originality, and the variety of applications used in today's writing. Therefore, it examines the artists and designers of the 21st century who develop new approaches to the art of writing.
 
In today's age of technology, the digital application opportunities offered to artists and designers provide benefits such as producing fast results, but they also pave the way for a mechanical understanding that, when not used correctly, strays away from originality. In order to get rid of this mechanical effect, it is thought that blending the manual applications with the digital environment will create a unique language. The authenticity, Plastique value (Although the translation of the word Plastique is plastic, it has many different meanings in art. For example, it can depict the beauty of a work of art, the works of art that are created by shaping a [non-static] material, or the sculpture-like pose of a dancer.), taste, and quality of the manual application cannot be created by any digital effect alone. Therefore, the art of writing, which plays an essential role in the transmitting of cultures, needs to be handled with a unique understanding in the twenty-first century. In this sense, this thesis constitutes a resource in the literature to guide researchers, artists, designers, and students.

Keywords: Calligraphy, art of writing, XXI. century calligraphy, modern calligraphy, contemporary calligraphy, lettering, hand writing, meditation, artist book.

ABSTRACT
The aim of this thesis is to identify in contemporary art practices the inflections that have either direct, or indirect origins in Taoism, the conceptual source of China’s principle indigenous, cultural practices. The thesis argues that the increasingly cross cultural qualities of contemporary art practice owe much to the West’s exposure to Taoism’s non-absolutist, non-humanist tropes, a cultural borrowing that has received slight attention despite its increasingly pervasive presence. This critical analysis is structured by Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the rhizome as a metaphor for cultural influences that are pluralist permeations, rather than a linear hierachy.
The thesis tracks discourse between the West and China from early contact to the present, tracing manifold aspects of Taoism’s modes of visual representation in Western art. Chinese gardens, Chinoiserie, calligraphy, and their coalescence in Chinese painting, are analysed to locate Taoist precepts familiar to the West, principally citing the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, Taoism’s founder. Here Taoist philosophy, as synthesised in Western thought, is proven to be a source of identifiable innovations in contemporary art practice. For example, spatial articulation as a dominant element of expression in installation art is traced to Western artists’ exposure to the conceptualised spatiality of Sinocised artefacts.
Taoist precepts are analysed in the Chinese tradition of improvising upon calligraphic characters as a key factor. This model is deployed using the skills set of studio-based research to identify the experimental nature and degree of improvisation in Western artists’ adaptations of Taoist methods in innovative painting, then sculpture. Investigations of artworks are structured upon correlations between Deleuze’s theories of representation and Taoist theories of creativity. A thematic connection with Taoism located in contemporary art, namely, notions of continuity and change, assists this detailed unraveling of creative processes, aesthetics, metonymy and meaning derived from Taoism in global, contemporary art.

Voix plurielles 10.2 (2013) 43 L'apprentissage du chinois à travers le geste d'écriture Pascale ELBAZ, INALCO, Equipe ASIEs, France Les caractères chinois sont souvent considérés par les occidentaux comme « pictographiques » ou « idéographiques », comme des figures (re)présentant des objets ou des idées et dont la composition serait à déchiffrer comme un rébus. Les Chinois eux-mêmes se réfèrent à leur système en terme de 表义 biaoyi (montrer/sens). La question qui nous intéresse ici, n'est pas tant celle de l'autonomie des caractères par rapport aux mots et aux sons de la langue mais la question de la pratique de l'écriture par rapport à celle de la parole et la façon dont on peut tirer un parti pris esthétique de cette spécificité dans l'enseignement du chinois. Nous aimerions montrer qu'une approche graphique de la langue chinoise est possible en classe de langue, qu'elle est légitime et efficace.

The Bokujinkai—or ‘People of the Ink’—was a group formed in Kyoto in 1952 by five calligraphers: Morita Shiryū, Inoue Yūichi, Eguchi Sōgen, Nakamura Bokushi, and Sekiya Yoshimichi. The avant-garde movement they launched aspired to raise calligraphy to the same level of international prominence as abstract painting. To this end, the Bokujinkai collaborated with artists from European Art Informel and American Abstract Expressionism, sharing exhibition spaces with them in New York, Paris, Tokyo, and beyond. The first English-language book to focus on the postwar history of Japanese calligraphy, Bokujinkai: Japanese Calligraphy and the Postwar Avant-Garde explains how the Bokujinkai rerouted the trajectory of global abstract art and attuned foreign audiences to calligraphic visualities and narratives. https://brill.com/view/title/55005

Qian Zi Wen Thousand Character Classic learning aid with key terms, and all of the Chinese radicals that appear as individual characters, explained in English.  Qian Zi Wen was a traditional Chinese poem taught to Children that contained 1000 unique characters.  Besides used to teach characters, it was also used to practice Chinese calligraphy.

INK BRUSSELS 2019 (Semaine de l’Encre - 布鲁塞尔水墨周), to be held from May 6 to 12, combines conferences and workshops in the field of contemporary ink held in Auditoire Victor Bourgeois and Espace Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta ULB, place Flagey.

This week of theoretical and practical events investigates the quest for abstraction in the practice of calligraphy and painting with a specific angle  on Chinese writing, offering the opportunity of direct contacts between the public and invited artists and scholars. This travelling event functions as a collaborative enterprise between ink artists, curators and academic or cultural institutions in the host country.

Paysage écrit/Ecriture peinte, a collective exhibition of 50 artists combining contemporary calligraphy and landscape painting, will be held in Espace Architecture from May 6 to 30, 2019. The show gathers artists from all origins who work with ink and paper as main media, (de)construct calligraphic geometries, engage in decoding and writing the landscape or experiment with language and gesture. A progressive itinerary looks at how each contemporary literati or letter artist departed from traditional artistic practices to explore the ways of abstraction. The exhibition unfolds in two parts, one devoted to nature and the other to culture, based on the basics of Chinese landscape painting: that a landscape is not to be seen or painted, but read or written. The versatility of nature, mountains and rivers allows Paysage écrit/Ecriture peinte to encompass a range of experiments dealing with the materiality, tools and gesture of writing, the limits of readability or perception, and geometries of ink and water.

Four satellite locations partner with INK BRUSSELS 2019: the art residency ODRADEK with Contemporary Inks, a collective show curated by Simone Schuiten and Kiran Katara on ink and intercultural dialogue between four practitioners of ink on paper East and West, the art spaces Garage Cosmos and ArtWeCare, as well as the Royal Museums of Art and History with Lithic Impressions, a display focused on epigraphy and rubbings, a technique of replication from stone carvings to ink on paper.

INK BRUSSELS 2019 team
Lia Wei (coordination), Zhang Qiang (academic supervision), Kiran Katara (Faculty of Architecture La Cambre Horta ULB), Simone Schuiten (ESA St-Luc and ODRADEK), Nathalie Vandeperre (Royal Museums of Art and History), Vanessa Frangville (EASt/ULB).

Partners Belgium
Université Libre de Bruxelles (La Cambre Horta ULB Architecture, EASt/ULB, Institut Confucius ULB), Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH), Ecole Supérieure des Arts St-Luc, Institut Belge des Hautes Etudes Chinoises (IBHEC), ODRADEK, Garage Cosmos, European Lettering Institute (ELI).

Partners China
Ink Art Research Centre 四川美院艺术学与水墨高等研究中心 (Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing), Centre for Contemporary Visual History 当代视觉史高等研究中心 (Taishan University, Tai’an), Renmin University of China (中国人民大学考古文博系).

Participating artists
Paysage écrit/Ecriture peinte
Leo, BELGEONNE  Gabriel, BIFACE  GRAPHY, CAO  Ying, CHEN Honghan, CHEN Jinchao, CHEN Muju, CHOU Li Chiang, CONG Peibo, CORNIL Lieve, DE LA FAYE Niko, ESCANDE Yolaine, FERRAGINA Silvio, GARCIA Jacob C. Alfred, HOU Guangfei, IKHLASSI Mouna, JIANG Hanxuan, KATARA Kiran, KE Jipeng, KNEIB André, KOKKINOS Niki, LIU Tanyu, LIU Yi, LIU Yun, LOU Meng, LV Zizhen, MA Kun, MA Yuanyuan, MERTENS Tristan, NEUENSCHWANDER Brody, PENG Meiling, PLISSART Marie-Françoise, SHAO Yan, SIMONET-LIN Rosa, TANG Kaizhi, VALKENBORGH Anne, VAN DE VEL An, VANDENHAUTE Jan, VIGNERON Frank, WANG Ruiqing, WEI Lia, WOUTERS Carry, XU Demin, YU Li, ZHANG Dawo, ZHANG Qiang, ZHANG Wenhai, ZHONG Ruoyi, ZHU Pengfei, ZHU Tianmeng
Lithic Impressions
Students of ESA St-LUC and IBHEC, WEI Lia, ZHANG Qiang
ODRADEK
CASE Charley, PESTIAUX Olivier, ZHAO Qiong, ZHU Tianmeng
ArtWeCare
LIBERSKI Casimir

Conference speakers
Zhang Qiang (Sichuan Fine Arts Institute), Lia Wei (Renmin University, EASt/ULB), Yolaine Escande (CNRS), André Kneib (INALCO), Jean-Marie Simonet, Thierry Kandjee (Landscape Chair, Faculty of Architecture, La Cambre Horta, ULB), Katrina Simon (Associate Dean, Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture at RMIT University, Melbourne), Sonia Keravel (Maître de conférences en théorie et pratique du projet de paysage, ENSP de Versailles), Georges Pirson (Faculty of Architecture, La Cambre Horta, ULB), Catherine Mosbach (Landscape Architect, Mosbach Paysagistes), Françoise Lauwaert (LAMC/ULB, EASt/ULB, Raphael Van Daele (EASt/ULB, EHESS), Jacob Alfred Garcia (guqin player, Beijing Conservatory of Music), Silvio Ferragina (calligrapher, Istituto Politecnico di Milano), Simone Schuiten (ESA St-Luc, ODRADEK), Brody Neuenschwander (artist), Zhu Pengfei (artist), Jiang Hanxuan (artist)

Zhao Mengfu's ambitious return to the past by promoting the historical value
of the Two Wangs’ calligraphy played a significant role in the formation of
discourse on elegance and vulgarity. Zhao received numerous commissions
from various people to create calligraphy in the styles of the Two Wangs. For them, Zhao’s works after the Two Wangs were almost priceless. To
possess Zhao’s works in the manner of the Two Wangs makes the owner
appear to be a man of refined taste. As a result, Zhao came to be under
constant pressure to fulfill the commissions. His juejiao shu is one of the
works created from his social obligations, so-called yingchou (應酬). As the
Two Wangs became culture heroes for early Yuan literati, their works or
copies of their masterpieces were greatly sought-after. Zhao had to respond to
the high demand for calligraphic works in the manner of the Two Wangs. In
doing so, he emerged as the most important arbiter of taste during his
lifetime, setting the standard for his contemporaries to follow. The possession
of works by the Two Wangs and works after them among collectors and
men of letters was of great significance in the culture of the revival of the
Wei-Jin tradition. The return to the past movement led by Zhao and his
circle of friends was at the center of the formation and continuation of the
revival of the Wei-Jin culture. The slogan for the return to the past is not
merely rhetorical. It encompasses its cultural and socio-economic dimensions.
Advocates of the return to the past movement came to be considered men of
elegance, whereas the others were regarded as vulgar. The owners of works
by the Two Wangs or works after them fashioned themselves as rich yet
elegant men of letters. As such, cultural discourse on the return to the past
has many layers of meaning.

From medieval times to present, calligraphy has been theorized as a product of 'spirit' rather than the hand, and has been situated atop the Chinese aesthetic hierarchy. Recognizing calligraphy as a key aspect of national identification, the People's Republic of China applied for its recognition to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Through the process of constructing calligraphy as ICH, a simplified calligraphic canon emerged, which epitomizes the "correct spirit of tradition." Building on art historical and anthropological questions of transmission and authentication of the classical tradition of calligraphy, this paper challenges this idealized conceptualization by investigating how a contemporary Chinese ICH regime has worked to 'entextualize' calligraphy into present social and political circumstances.

Since the mid-1980s Chinese Calligraphy Art has undergone a radical change and has opened itself to experimentation. Among the different currents, the Modernist and the Avant-garde show the modernization process of Chinese calligraphy that aims at turning the art of calligraphy into an internationally comprehensible art form. In this paper, I analyze these two movements by means of the artworks of two representative artists, Wang Dongling and Xu Bing, which clearly illustrate how “Chinese Modern Calligraphy” could be a reflection of the emerging trends in contemporary Chinese culture.

Chinese calligraphy Chinese calligraphy, (Chin. 書 法 shū faˇ), contains the essence of Chinese culture. Calligraphy is one of four noble arts in China. It is a connective dimension where the Chinese language, history, philosophy, and aesthetics merge. Shufa's literal translation "the way of writing" expresses the very root of the art; close bonds with Chinese written signs, on the one hand, and painting, on the other. It is a known art for the cultivation of the mind, which is one of the most distinctive features of Chinese culture.

Eight essays by Fei Deng, Phillip Bloom, Jeremy Fan Zhang, Xiaolin Duan, Hui-wen Lu, Patricia Ebrey, Jie Liu, and Yiwen Li. Introduction by Patricia Ebrey and Shih-shan Susan Huang.

For more info, visit:
https://brill.com/view/title/35018?lang=en

This second part of the study of Daoist seals focuses on types, building on Wang Yucheng’s earlier studies. They come in four: 1) seal script; 2) heavenly scripts; 3) talisman-inspired; and 4) graphic. The underlining criterion is the Daoist strategy of image-making: it sheds light on the interlocking relationship of Daoist texts and images. The first type is purely script-based, while the fourth is purely graphic. Between the two is the core zone of Daoist visual culture as it blends image with text.

Since the mid-1980s Chinese Calligraphy Art has undergone a radical change and has opened itself to experimentation. Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy has gradually lost its connection with Chinese language and has gradually strayed from the concept of linguistic unity which comprehends sound, signified and graphic sign. A vivid debate on Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy is involving art critics in China nowadays. Wang Dongling and the Modernists think that, despite many changes and influences, we can still refer to the traditional calligraphic lexicon to describe the calligraphic production of contemporary Chinese Art. They still remain deeply rooted in the signified system of Chinese writing, even if they break with the strict rules of Chinese classical aesthetic, contaminating their art with Western elements, especially from abstract art, and focusing on the stylistic exploration (which means a pictorial approach to calligraphy, a drastic reduction of the number of characters, a reshaping of characters). Wang Nanming and the Avant-garde think that “contemporary calligraphy is not calligraphy yet”. It is “anti-calligraphy”: the contrary, the deconstruction, and the negation of the traditional calligraphy. Their Art aims at a radical and total transformation of calligraphic art, annihilates Chinese tradition, rejects the use of legible characters, experiments with new languages and new media within the idiom of international contemporary art, in order to make people reflect upon human condition or to challenge conventional thinking. The result is the creation of works of art that could be assimilated to universally comprehensible forms of art, such as: Abstract art, Abstract expressionism, Conceptual art, Performance art, Contemporary dance, Multimedia art, and even Street art. This paper aims at showing how still valid and extremely productive are both these two theoretical and creative/practical approaches to Chinese calligraphy in China nowadays.  Both of them reflect the aim of Chinese contemporary society at dialectically facing their past tradition and at opening to a new one as well. For all of these artists, Chinese calligraphy represents the starting point of the creative process but not the finishing line. The author thinks there can be no finishing line at all, but just an attempt to create a new artistic language that turned the art of calligraphy into a medium for global comprehension and communication.

The imperial family of the Jin state (1115-1234) in northern China identified itself as “Jurchen,” ethnically distinct from the majority of its empire’s subjects. The veneration of Confucius, his descendants and affiliated sacred sites, and the classical scholarly and artistic culture associated with him formed central elements of the ideology on which the Jin state came to rely for legitimation. This ideology also fused the Jurchen national mythology, sacred geography, and writing system with Chinese classical elements and literati cultural forms, as embodied in multilingual stele inscriptions. The role of Chinese officials in legitimizing the Jin is exemplified by Dang Huaiying (1134-1211), who produced literary and calligraphic works linking Jin rule both to Chinese antiquity and Jurchen claims of exceptionality. These approaches to legitimation were drawn on by later states in China, with Confucius’s descendant Kong Yuancuo cooperating with both the Jin and Yuan courts.

The earliest existing Chinese Buddhist manuscript found in the world, the Buddhasaṃgīti-sūtra, was excavated at Toyuq in Turfan, and was dated the sixth year of Yuankang 元康六年 （296 CE）, in the Western Jin. It was a copy by Dharmarakṣa’s (384-433) monk disciple Zhu Fashou 竺法首. (Figure1, 1a) Who was one of the distinctive Buddhist scribes in Dharmarakśa 竺法護 translation team. During the period when Buddhism was initially transmitted into China, historical documentation and archaeological findings both demonstrated the sacred Buddhist writing by Buddhist monk scribes from Central Asia played a key role in transmission of Buddhism without borders. It also enhanced producing the diversity and vigorous calligraphic styles in China during 3rd to 5th century. However, before the 20th century, early Buddhist scribes or foreign calligraphers were unknown in history of Chinese calligraphy or official records. This paper aims to examine the early sacred writing culture with a broader and more in-depth study of the extent and nature of the role of the Central Asian Buddhist scribes, as well as the significance of their calligraphic expertise to the history of Chinese calligraphers and calligraphy.

The fear that people are losing the ability to write by hand—carrying wider consequences with regards to culture, identity, and nationality—resonates widely in Chinese society. Due to the worldwide shift towards digital communication technology, the method by which an increasing number of people write Chinese characters has changed. Touchpads, mobile phones with software that allows one to choose characters from a list in pinyin, and voice recognition all reduce the time actually spent writing characters on paper. Practicing calligraphy offline is regularly hailed as a remedy to combat the demise of the written character. Arguing that media practices have always been subject to the material conditions of technology, this article contextualizes calligraphic practices occurring within new media as remediations of earlier practices. The digital realm, I suggest, is not a separate space, but part of the social totality of the everyday in which quotidian calligraphic practices can occur. Through an examination of calligraphy apps, an online calligraphy exhibition, the CADAL (China Academic Digital Associative Library) database, and personalized calligraphic fonts, this article endeavors to be an initial exploration of online calligraphic practices. I contend that rather than forming a rigid binary relationship with traditional calligraphy, these practices can be imagined as remediations, and as such, can generate inventive deviations from the dominant idea of what calligraphy is or should entail.

Nel testo proposto si vorrà tracciare un profilo dell'evoluzione della scrittura e poi della shufa, l'arte della calligrafia cinese, partendo dagli albori di questa civiltà fino all'epoca contemporanea. La finalità non è quella di scrivere una storia della scrittura o della calligrafia, ma descriverne il rapporto con la società e con l'evoluzione della cultura in cui si è sviluppata. Si prenderanno in considerazione diversi periodi storici e diversi artisti, i più significativi, ma non per descrivere la loro arte, poiché sarebbe riduttivo in poche pagine, ma verranno presi da esempio al fin di dimostrare lo stretto legame che caratterizza l'arte della scrittura e il mondo in cui si sviluppa. Nell'appendice si analizzeranno i caratteri cinesi sotto una luce più tecnica e semiologica, infatti per la comprensione dell'arte calligrafica non si potrà prescindere da una conoscenza della struttura del carattere.
Questa espressione artistica, pur essendo la prima arte in Cina, è poco conosciuta e di conseguenza poco studiata nel mondo occidentale, in particolar modo in Italia. I motivi possono essere molteplici, dall'assenza una rispettiva espressione artistica, alla difficoltà di studio, infatti per uno studio approfondito bisognerà possedere una profonda conoscenza della lingua cinese. Queste pagine serviranno, oltre che a dare un quadro generale, a sfatare e chiarire alcune vecchie idee inesatte che sono state tramandate nel secolo passato.

This essay takes as its focus Ezra Pound’s early years in London – the ‘British Museum years’, as he called them in Canto LXXX – and how his early engagement with East Asian art, particularly Chinese painting, shaped his aesthetic and returned at pivotal points during his career. The influences of Chinese poetry, Japanese Nō, and other verbal and performative traditions on Pound’s writing were of course profound, and in several senses these traditions overlap or intersect with those of the visual arts: the visual emphasis Pound gave to Chinese writing in his adaptation of Fenollosa’s essay ‘The Chinese Written Character as a Medium of Poetry’; Pound’s sensitivity to elements of the Nō stage set, such as the green needles of the pine trees and the elaborate costuming of the shite; or his interest in kōdō or ‘the way of incense’ picked up when reading Frank Brinkley’s Japan: Its History, Art and Literature (1901) during his residence in Stone Cottage with W. B. Yeats (Araujo 2018: 114). An extensive scholarly tradition treats Pound’s Chinese and Japanese literary aesthetics in fine detail, and this essay will not seek to provide an epitome of that tradition except where it informs specifically visuals aspects of Pound’s East Asian aesthetic. Instead, a focus on Pound’s early interactions with Chinese painting shows how specific artworks, and the genres they exemplified, installed themselves in Pound’s aesthetic repertoire, providing him with a wellspring upon which he could draw at later points in his poetic career.

A partire dalla metà degli anni ’80, la calligrafia in Cina subisce una radicale trasformazione e si apre alla sperimentazione, diversificando i suoi esiti come mai aveva fatto in precedenza:  il connubio indissolubile che la legava al sistema significante della scrittura cinese viene gradualmente meno e  dalla costola unitaria dell’atavica e ormai obsoleta calligrafia tradizionale germogliano quattro distinte e valevoli correnti (classica, neoclassica, modernista e d’avanguardia). Questo avviene in risposta ai cambiamenti politici, sociali e culturali che interessano la Cina dal 1978 in poi e che spingono la calligrafia ad avviare un’opera di “modernizzazione” che le permetta di tornare in auge ed entrare nel meccanismo in atto della globalizzazione artistica. Di particolare rilevanza sono, in questo senso, la corrente modernista e quella d’avanguardia che mostrano due approcci antitetici, ma complementari, al problema dell’egemonia culturale cinese, e dunque al diverso modo di integrare tradizione e modernità, pensiero occidentale e pensiero cinese,  interessi individuali e interessi della società, e conciliare cultura “locale” e cultura “globale” in seno al dibattito, non solo artistico, che interessa ad oggi la Cina contemporanea. 
Nel movimento modernista, infatti, nonostante si renda necessaria una rottura rispetto alle rigide regole dell’estetica classica e sia forte la contaminazione di elementi sia nipponici che occidentali, si rimane ancora saldamente ancorati al sistema della scrittura cinese e al lessico calligrafico, seppur entrambi rimodulati attraverso una sperimentazione stilistica molto spinta e che risponde alle esigenze della contemporaneità. Si assiste così al tentativo di inglobare elementi  “non-cinesi”, assimilandoli e integrandoli  al sostrato pre-esistente, ma ineluttabilmente intaccabile, della tradizione. 
Nella corrente d’avanguardia , invece, si attua una trasformazione radicale dell’arte calligrafica, che viene decostruita e annichilita, trasformandosi talvolta in “anti-calligrafia”. Il rigetto nell’uso di caratteri intellegibili, la forte contaminazione da parte dall’arte occidentale,  la sperimentazione di nuovi linguaggi e materiali inediti, la creazione di forme artistiche nuove mostrano la reazione oppositiva e di denuncia dell’artista contemporaneo che non si riconosce più in una cultura egemone che limita la sua libertà creativa. Egli desidera andare oltre gli schemi impositori, azzerando il pre-esistente per tentarne una  reale palingenesi. È dunque, in questo caso, che il “globale” tende a prevalere sul “locale”, riuscendo a creare una effettiva integrazione tra le due componenti su scala mondiale.
Sia per la corrente d’avanguardia che per quella modernista, dunque, il diverso modo di intendere e relazionarsi alla scrittura cinese rivela un diverso orientamento non solo artistico, ma anche culturale, sociale e politico. Le diverse modalità in cui il potere si è approntato ad esse nel loro sviluppo diacronico le rende, infatti, specchio dell’orientamento culturale egemonico prevalente .

唐代銅鏡是繼漢代銅鏡之後第二個中國銅鏡製作的高峰期，然而唐代銅鏡在裝飾手法上，與漢代銅鏡大異其趣。即使是繼承漢代銅鏡裝飾手法的銅鏡銘文，其銘文裝飾風格與內容都與漢代出入甚大，獨具唐代特有的風格。前人對唐代銅鏡銘文之研究，多以為斷代依據之文獻參考，少就內容及風格上作探究。本文擬先以文字在鏡面上的布置，做類型之分類，繼之以銘文內容作一探究，後考察唐代銘文之書風，亦加以分類。希望透過本文蒐集分類之嘗試，替唐代銅鏡之銘文得一粗淺之概貌。透過書風上與唐代碑刻書法之比較，唐代銅鏡之銘文，不僅有著出乎想像的多樣性，並比對之過程，能見其時代之變遷。除有助於傳統斷代之依據，亦能見唐代銘文多變豐富，具有高度之藝術價值。

Since the mid-1980s Chinese calligraphy art has undergone a radical change and has opened itself to experimentation. Nowadays in China this artistic revolution has sparked a vivid debate among the art critics on three main topics: (1) definition of the phenomenon; (2) analysis of its nature; and (3) classification of the artistic production. In this article, all these aspects are analysed in order to give a comprehensive view of the present theoretical discussion and of its future development.

Since Kumārajīva translated the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (Diamond Sūtra) into Chinese in 402, it has become one of the most important and widely circulated sūtras of Chinese Buddhism. Over 2,000 manuscripts (scribed and printed) of the Diamond Sūtra were found in the Dunhuang “Library Cave”; one manuscript of the Diamond Sūtra, now on display at the British Museum (Stein Collection Item no.S.P.2.), is the world's oldest and most comprehensive intact printed book. It is dated in the colophon, which reads: the 9th year of Xiantong (868) of the Tang Dynasty. Due to its importance for the history of Chinese Buddhism and the development of printing technology, it has attracted widespread academic attention.  In this paper, I will focus on the artistic traditions of the manuscript, examining the S.P.2. Diamond Sūtra from three perspectives: (1) the painting style of the frontispiece; (2) the calligraphy style of the engraved characters; and (3) the government official stone engraver.
Through study of the painting and calligraphic styles of Wu Daozi and Liu Gongquan of the Tang dynasty, this paper shows that the woodblock print S.P.2 was created under the influence of the Chang’an artistic tradition. There is evidence of two government official engravers’ names, Qiang Yan (強演) and Shao Jianhe (邵建和), inscribed on the colophon of the stone rubbings Diamond Sūtra written by Liu Gongquan (柳公權). The workshop team established the model for the woodblock print by collaborative artwork from contemporary master painters, calligraphers, and court engravers.

This paper uses present-day philosophical aesthetic terminology to examine important aspects of Chinese calligraphic appreciation, as they are revealed in classical texts on this art. I hold that the aesthetic objects in the experience of a calligraphic work are twofold: the outer form and the inner expressive qualities. I propose that calligraphic appreciation can be understood as a process of retrieval, a term I take from Richard Wollheim. Highly pertinent to the retrieval view is a recurring topic in traditional calligraphy criticism – whether a trained calligrapher is an ideal critic. I argue that a trained calligrapher is an ideal critic, because proper calligraphic appreciation relates to the kinesthetic experience one accumulates chiefly, if not only, through calligraphic practice.