The Evolution of Chinese Calligraphy

It wasn't until the third century when the secret art of papermaking began to get out of China, first to Vietnam and then Tibet. “Taught by Chinese papermakers, Tibetans began to make their own paper as a replacement for their traditional writing materials” (Georgia Tech). It was introduced in Korea in the forth century and spread to Japan in sixth century. There, during the eighth century, the Empress Shotuka undertook a massive project consisting of printing a million prayers - Dharani - on individual sheets of

Simple script is the new writing version so it’s easy to follow and write. And, the traditional script is the old writing version and more difficult than simple script. If Chinese has 2 versions in writing, Japanese has 4 versions in terms of writing. There are Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, and Romanji. Japanese still use Hanzi (Mandarin script) on their language, although a little and simplified into new vocabulary.

Although this was a great accomplishment and is now considered a symbol of China, it actually lead to the fall of the Dynasty. Shi Huang Ti used forced labor to construct the wall. Many of the peasants that were forced to work on the wall died of exhaustion, exposure to the elements, and hunger. This made him very unpopular with the people of China. Also, to keep his building project underway, he was forced to raise taxes. The forced labor, high taxes, and many deaths while The Wall was constructed lead to a number of revolts after Shi Huang Ti’s death and ultimately the fall of the Qin Dynasty. Finally, although the Qin Dynasty may have begun the construction of this Chinese Symbol, the Han Dynasty actually continued building The Wall. This proves that despite the idea that the Qin Dynasty was more influential because of the construction of the Great Wall of China, the Han Dynasty actually was more important to the development of

The exploration of the printing press originally came from the Chinese. The Chinese were the ones to first invent the woodblock printing process and even tried to experiment with movable wood types. According to the (Background Essay) it claims “with 50,000 characters, carving each character was impossible.” The English language only had 26 letters, but that still did not make the written communication easy. A small book would take months to complete and a book the size of the Bible took years. In 1455 Gutenberg was

The Tang and Song dynasties have been regarded as the “golden age” of arts and literature, setting the bar high for poetry, landscape painting, and ceramics. When international merchants brought their poetry, the Chinese invention of paper and block printing made poetry widely available in the Tang dynasty. They also invented new styles of ceramics and metalwork, influenced by

The earliest printing in China was the block printing method in the first Century B.C., where the individual sheets of paper were pressed against wooden blocks that had text and illustrations carved into them. This process could print hundreds and even thousands of copies, this technology played a significant role in promoting the spread of culture. A block carver named Bi Sheng made movable types with clay during the period from1004 to 1048. This method each type was carved with one character and the types could be set independently according to contents of different articles. After printing, the movable types could be reused and this improved technology is called movable-type printing. (LAN, 2008)

“The Chinese economy flourished in part because of a large number of technological innovations, one of the most important was the invention which revolutionized printing.” Chinese printers worked by carving the characters into wooden block, then they would cover the blocks with ink. Somewhere around 1040 though, printers began using characters made of wood, porcelain, or copper. Song China was the first society that had printed books. Gunpowder was another technological innovation that was invented during the Tang Dynasty but was originally used for fireworks and weapons; it also spread rapidly and revolutionized warfare.

Synopsis Chinese culture has been evolving for more than one thousand years with one of the most significant influences being the development of the Han dynasty. This paper analyses the ways in which the development of the Han dynasty influenced Chinese culture and to what extent. Knowledge of the Han period’s impact on Chinese culture, is obtained through the analysis of written and archaeological sources depicting the Western Han dynasty (206 B.C.–9 A.D) and Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 A.D). Research related to Chinese art and literature was conducted in order to gain information on how they evolved as a result of the Han dynasty. Closer analysis of primary sources, written and archaeological, provide insight into the mindset of the time

In 246 B.C., a 13-year old named Qin Shi Huang became king of China. During his reign, he standardized coins, measurements, and weights. He also built canals and roads connecting portions of the kingdom and erected the first version of the Great Wall. His greatest contribution, however, could have been all about himself.

Chinese history is made up of many long and successful dynasties. One Dynasty that flourished most was the Song(or Sung) Dynasty, which was a prosperous empire from 960-1279 AD. They were a very advanced society, and had many fields in which they excelled. Some of these areas were agriculture, printing, artwork, inventions, iron working, trade…. The list goes on. The Song Dynasty also had a very state-of-the-art government system. The only people that were allowed to work in/with/for the government were those who could pass a competitive examination. These people were called scholar officials. Song artwork and literature were also very important to them. They tended

Similarities in Wen Zhengming’s and Tang Yin’s can mostly be attributed to the influence of Confucian ideals. Wen Zhengming was a “wen-jen,” meaning he was “a scholar well versed in the classics, poetry, and history” (Scarce 417). Similar to Confucianism, they both have the aesthetic of “integrity and sincerity” and “spontaneity and simplicity” (Scarce 417). Spontaneity is reflected in Wen Zhengming’s calligraphy when the characters vary in thickness. For example, the first character down from the fourth column from the right is thick and vertical. However, the sixth character down from the fifth column from the right is thin and horizontal. These contrasting qualities exemplify the spontaneity and expression in Wen Zhengming’s calligraphy.

Throughout history there has been many historical figures that have shaped our world to what it is today. In ancient China the was a long period where the 8 states were in frequent wars. With the help of Shi Huangdi, China became unified and started to use his new legal system called legalism to enforce order throughout China. After China was unified people began exploring to promote trade and cultural diffusion. The chinese government hired an explorer named Zheng He.

Xu Bing’s is a Chinese artist who studied printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. His style of art is defined as social realist which was greatly influenced by his time at a re-education camp during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960’s and 70’s. he favored the popular phrase in that time “ Use your pen as a weapon and shoot down reactionary gangs”. Bing’s father was a historian and his mother was an administrator in the library of science. A Book from the Sky is a four volume printed bound book a total of 604 pages invented 4,000 characters and hand-carved them into wood blocks with walnut wooden cases written in 1988-1991.It is classified as sculpture. It is filled with false Chinese characters, invented by Xu Bing then he cut out pear wood to create the movable type printing technique invented by the Chinese in the 11th century. He uses a traditional Chinese typesetting, and binding stringing. ”Each sheet is folded to make two pages; there are nine columns per page and up to seventeen characters per column. Each double-page sheet is folded along the center line of the print rack and stitch bound. Six-hole stitching , a blank paper lining folded into each –double page covered corner, and blue-dyed volume covers all derived from traditional Chinese book of binding of the highest quality.

“Now, I, Vairocana Buddha am sitting atop a lotus pedestal; On a thousand flowers surrounding me are a thousand Sakyamuni Buddhas. Each flower supports a hundred million worlds; in each world a Sakyamuni Buddha appears. All are seated beneath a Bodhi-tree, all simultaneously attain Buddhahood. All these innumerable Buddhas have Vairocana as their original body.” (passage from the Brahmajala Sutra)

In the next room I came across a very unique and interesting collection of pieces. If you especially like or have any interest in calligraphy, then you are going to love what Hongmo Ren has done. Calling it REN-script, Ren has created what he calls a calligraphy and linguistic “experimentale.” Consisting of seven English and six French pieces, he has combined the art and beauty of calligraphy with writing of equal stature. In ten of his pieces he elaborates on the beauty of nature during various seasons and includes a complete verse from the Book of Genesis. The rest of the pieces are large single word depictions again in calligraphy with intricate detail.