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

TRAINING

genuine masterpieces, but, as I have explained, it was an ambition that, until recently, was seldom realizable on any considerable scale. But during the last thirty years two new methods of reproduction have to some extent supplanted the old stone-rubbing process: lithography and collotype. And now most of the great work of the past can be purchased cheaply at any stationer’s shop in China. Books of calligraphy printed by lithography or collotype, and even a kind of stone rubbing issued in book form, have a much wider sale in China than books on painting or any other subject, for calligraphy excites universal interest, whereas painting and most other subjects have only a limited appeal. We believe that every one should try to write well, for the intrinsic satisfaction it brings to the writer himself as well as the esteem it gains him among others, even those he has never met.

Despite the new methods of reproduction, original masterpieces of calligraphy are still very highly valued by Chinese art lovers, some of whom will willingly pay higher prices for a piece of it which they feel they need than for an original painting. Not a few of our scholars collect calligraphy only and have no taste for painting. A cousin of mine used, when our family assembled to enjoy the family collection of art, to pay no attention to the paintings, jade, porcelain, and so on, but when a long roll bearing the characters of a well-known calligrapher was produced he gave no one else a chance to speak. He seemed to have been born with a love of calligraphy, for from early childhood he never ceased to study and practise it. To me it is strange that this art has never really appealed to the West.

The well-known calligrapher, K‘ang Yu-Wei, who died only a few years ago, once remarked: ‘To learn calligraphy one

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