Calligraphy and painting

Calligraphy and painting

Chinese calligraphy as a unique art has much to do with the formal and structural characteristics of Chinese characters and writing tools.

By assembling strokes in a rich and variable way, Chinese characters possess countless forms and structures. Originated from ancient pictographs, the Chinese characters still preserve certain pictographic , symbolic and ideographic features.

The tools for character writing are “the four treasures in the study”: writing brush, ink-stone and paper. Proper manipulation of such writing tools makes the already varied and complex writing of Chinese characters even more colourful and dynamic, speaking with wit and humour.

Wang Xizhi is known as the sage of Calligraphy. He made a contribution to both the art of Chinese writing and the art form.

Wang Xizhi born in 303 AD in the state of Eastern Jin, he started learning how to write when he was seven. The little boy began by mastering the ZhengKai style calligraphy. As he grew older, the calligraphy began to develop his own style of writing.

Wang Xizhi’s most celebrated piece of calligraphy is Lan Ting Xu. This was written in 353 AD, his friends and relatives get together, they were asked to write poems by chance. The loser had to drink the wine as foreit. At the end of the day, 26 of the picnickers had to compose a tatal of 35 poems. Wang Xizhi was so happy that he took up his brush and wrote the Lan Ting Xuas a prelude to the collection of poems. He failed to reproduce the Prelude. Emperor Tai Zong of the Tang Dynasty liked it so much and when he died, Wang Xizhi’s Lan Ting Xu was buried with the emperor.

A good calligraphy is not only able to express his thpughts through his writing, he is expected to give life and form to his words. Both Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi, are respected for their patience and hard work.

Another key point in Chinese cultural is painting.

Traditional Chinese paintings can be classified into figure paintings,landscapes ang flower-and-bird paintings. Landscapes represent a major category in traditional Chinese painting, mainly depicting the natural scenery of mountains and rivers.