Beauty Behind The Brushstrokes Essay -- China Culture Art Papers

Beauty Behind The BrushstrokesChinese calligraphy, the ancient Chinese art of writing, has been around for as long as the history of China. Through deoxyguanosine monophosphate of years of evolution, many styles and forms have been developed and established, namely the zhuan, li, kai, xing and cao styles (shu). Different styles express different personalities and are used for different purposes and at different times. But the primal beauty of Chinese calligraphy, regardless of its style, lies in its expression of thoughts and feelings of the calligrapher and ultimately, the spontaneous response from the viewers mind. withal, these styles, with different degrees of variation in forms, possess varied directs of expressiveness. The different level of expressiveness lies in the varaition of forms and the degree of variation. Zhuan shu and li shu are mainly for official writings and zhuan shu is the precedent of li shu. Li shu follows a certain strict prescription with borderline var iations in the writings, and hence it is not very capable of expressing the thoughts and feelings of the calligrapher. However it is not until the materialization of li shu that this ancient form of writing can be considered as an art form with the capability of expressing ones feelings and thoughts, due to its flexibility and indefinite forms. Kai shu evolves from these two precedents and is the most commonly used style today due to its regular forms and legibility. However due to its slightly stricter prescription, it allows fewer variations and hence is less capable of exuding the calligraphers emotions and personalities. But with an injection of motion or flow in kai shu, the words become more than fluid and indefinite. Such style is named xing shu, which is more ... ...of thoughts and feelings, which are all merely preludes, lies the climax of the symphony of Chinese brushstrokes- the silent dialogue between human minds and their surroundings. kit and caboodle CitedS.H Khoo and Nancy L. Penrose. Behind the Brushstrokes Tales from Chines Calligraphy. Singapore Graham Brash Pte Ltd, 1993. Jean Francoise Billeter. The Chinese Art of Writing. New York Rizzoli International Publication, Inc, 1990. A.H Maslow. Towards a Psychology of Being. New York John Wiley and Sons, 1968. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Why import? In Critical Theory Since Plato ed. Hazard Adams. New York Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1971. Best, David. The Rationality of Feeling Understanding the Arts in Education. London The Falmer Press, 1992. Abstracted Works of calligraphyChiang Yee. Chinese Calligraphy. Singapore Graham Brash, 1938