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

INTRODUCTION

bears the name of the owner and his wares. Nearly every restaurant, office or shop, and most private houses, bear also hanging quotations from the poets or philosophers, or lines from the ‘ Thirteen Classics ’, eulogizing the appetizing quality of the food provided or offering established moral sentiments or poetic feelings. These signs have a threefold use: as decoration, as advertisement, and as an attraction to people of taste. Many a calligraphy-lover has been seen wandering the streets of a Chinese town, finding entertainment and pleasure in these humble examples of the writer’s art. They are, it is true, as art, only decorative, and have therefore a shallower charm than those pieces of pure writing which are the product of real artistic feeling—their beauty is a beauty of the surface only ; but they are at least an improvement on the dead symmetry of printed characters.

Affection for the written word is instilled from childhood in the Chinese heart. We are taught never to tear up a sheet of writing, nor to misuse any paper with writing upon it, even if it is of no further practical use. In every district of a Chinese city, and even in the smallest village, there is a little pagoda built for the burning of waste paper bearing writing. This we call Hsi-Tzi-T‘a (#4 % ¥)—Pagoda of Compassionating the Characters. For we respect characters so highly that we cannot bear them to be trampled under foot or thrown away into some distasteful place. It is a common sight to see old men with baskets of plaited bamboo on their backs, gathering up this kind of waste paper from the streets and roads for burning in the Hsi-Tzii-T‘a. You may be sure these old men do not act only on an impulse of tidiness! There may be people nowadays who think them foolish ; but we cannot bring ourselves to abandon

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