Chinese calligraphy : an introduction to its aesthetic and technique : with 6 plates and 155 text illustratons

CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY

and the brush-handle had been a good conductor ; no support “short-circuits’ the passage of the strength into the brush. In speaking of brush-play, the four words Hsi (jit), Hstian (Rk), Ch‘th (i), Chin (&), are often on our lips. They mean respectively, ‘Empty’, ‘Suspended’, ‘ Upright’, ‘ Tight’. They are the passwords to a good hand.

Having mastered the relations between hand and brush, we have to attack that most important problem, Yung-Pi (i 2), Brush Treatment (the phrase Yiin-Pi (3@ 4), Brush Movement, is sometimes used). It is often maintained that the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy are the product of YungPr Breadth or slenderness of stroke depend upon the pressure of the hair of the brush upon the paper. The exercise of this pressure should be at the command of the writer. The length and thickness of the brush-hairs vary with the size of character to be written, but seldom is more than half the length of the hair used, the other half forming a reservoir of ink. Too great pressure on the brush not only renders impossible the execution of the intended stroke but damages the delicate Chinese paper. Western painters sometimes press their brushes with some force upon the canvas without disaster, and the Western writer can bear heavily upon his pen or pencil because the texture of the paper is strong, but the Chinese has to curb his strength and render its impression by ingenuity.

In every kind of stroke there are three principal brushmovements: Tun (i), ‘to crouch’; 7% (4), ‘to raise ’; and Na (4), ‘to press the hand down heavily’. Let us suppose that we wish to write a character measuring about oneand-half inches square. A medium-sized brush will be re-

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