Quote:
Originally Posted by dogsbody70
How very beautiful. It is marvellous. My friend tells me that usually calligraphers kneel at a low table to do the calligraphy.
I have a couple of books but have to confess I have not really attempted to copy. I llike the look of the Buddhist Sutra.
So much seems to depend on the way the writer holds the brush. I had a few lessons from a young Chinese gentleman, He used old telephone books for us to practice. Must have been an old school person. It goes to the times (still is in fact) when paper was extremely expensive and difficult to obtain.
Its good that you feel the spiritual sense whilst painting.
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Thank you. Great master, to teach you on on telephone books. This shows how abstract calligraphers think. He must have been an extraordinary man. It a reference to old school of calligraphy and respecting the paper, which back in a days was very expensive and hard to come by.
Well with kneeling it depends. In Japan mostly they study in seiza, or at the table. I cant sit in seiza due to knee injuries I got throughout years of studying martial arts. Nonetheless, whenever I write a large scale work, there is no other way but kneeling. You support yourself on one hand, suspend your upper body in the air and write with entire arm. After two or three hours it may be tiring haha.
Brush holding techniques vary, in China and in Japan. In fact, there are numerous ways of holding the brush, but the principal stay same - do not write with the brush but with your heart. Main and most basic rule is to hold is perpendicular to the paper surface. Some styles such seal style, cannot be written correctly if the brush is not held straight up. It has to do with "hiding the brush tip" technique and "rounding the lines". Holding brush vertically we ensure the line to be solid and consistent, ending of the line smooth and not abrupt.
That is why, in order to write powerful calligraphy one needs to study basics, slowly and with understanding. I reckon I need another 20 years or more
Understanding 楷書 then 行書 we can move to 草書, and then to other styles. I have been studying 7 years and only recently my teacher said, "perhaps I could introduce you slowly to tensho (seal script). And there is still Oracle Bone Script left as the oldest linguistically semi-mature alphabet. In short, after 10 years of studying, one begins to learn what calligraphy is about.
There are no shortcuts in this art.
Below, example of my 草書, although text itself was composed by one of the poets and philosophers of Tang dynasty.
Text in Chinese: 無道人之短無説己之長
Japanese version: 人（ひと)の短所（たんしょ）を言（い）わないほうが い、そして自分（じぶん）の長所（ちょうしょ）も言 ないほうがいい。
Translation: One should not speak of other persons demerits, as well as of his own virtues.
That was my first attempt of merging 5 kanji in one flow. 無道人之短 are written with one stroke of a brush without losing its contact with paper surface.
