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

COMPOSITION

Han times, but changes in the methods of composition have been effected continuously all through the succeeding dynasties, and are still being effected. In the Chin dynasty calligraphers, following the lead of ‘ the two Wangs ’, held grace as their ideal, and the less skilful exponents tended to become facile. In T’ang times Ou-Yang Hsiin, who preferred order, convention, kept writers firmly disciplined. The Sung calligraphers, led by Mi Fei, wrote with an air of thoughtfulness, strove to put their personal convictions into their characters. And soon. Every piece of writing displays not only the writer’s personality but the stamp of his epoch.

The first element of composition to be considered is the “skeleton ’—that which in painting would be called the rough sketch: the plotting out of the parts in relation to one another and to the spaces left blank. The Chinese name for this is Chien-Chna ({ii 28), and it is subdivided into Fen-Chien (Zt fil) and Pu-Pai (76 B).

Fen-Chien means ‘ relative division’. The Chinese character is always written in an imaginary square which, for the

purpose of analysis, itis convenient to divide into two

or four parts. As a great many characters are composed of

two or four elements, these arrangements are useful to the student. But to the calligrapher, anxious to avoid the rigid symmetry of the printed character, and 中 和 to achieve

balanced asymmetry, the nine-fold square [:

some ingenious but anonymous writer of the Tang dynasty, is

more serviceable, and it has been very generally employed for

the purpose ever since. It enables the writer to learn to make [ 167 ]