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

CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY

temporary Western art, such as Surrealism. A section of the general public appreciates the productions of the Surrealists, partly no doubt on account of their novelty, but partly also from genuine insight into the ideals and intentions of the artists, The rest pooh-pooh the whole movement, which gives too severe a shock to their conventional ideas of beauty or is incomprehensible to them. Yet there is, after all, nothing essentially new in Surrealism; to the Chinese mind, accustomed through many centuries to an attitude of receptivity towards purely linear beauty, its principles cause no shock. A piece of our most ancient script, composed perhaps five thousand years ago, and a Surrealist drawing of the 20th century produce very similar aesthetic emotions. Compare, for example,

the Chinese word Fu ue in the ancient script with this draw-

ing by Hans Arp BEB. Viewed as realistic representations,

both appear strange, but viewed as abstract designs they are extremely fascinating.

Until recently Europeans tended to think of the Chinese mind as something highly mysterious. The Chinese, of course, never thought of themselves in this way, and the mystery must therefore have been the result of misunderstanding. Most of the obstacles to a right understanding of the Chinese are removed by a comprehension of the extent to which artistic emotion is indulged in by them for its own sake, and how largely they sacrifice realism to aesthetic satisfaction.

In ancient China the men of artistic genius perceived the beauty in the real and tried to represent it by simplifying the outline, in order to capture the essential shape of the object

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