Calligraphy is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner".
Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Chinese characters have a documented history spanning over three millennia, representing one of the four independent inventions of writing accepted by scholars; of these, they comprise the only writing system continuously used since its invention. Over time, the function, style, and means of writing characters have evolved greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes, the units of meaning in a language. Writing a language's entire vocabulary requires thousands of different characters. Characters are created according to several different principles, where aspects of both shape and pronunciation may be used to indicate the character's meaning.
The regular script is the newest of the major Chinese script styles, emerging during the Three Kingdoms period c. 230 CE, and stylistically mature by the 7th century. It is the most common style used in modern text. In its traditional form it is the third-most common in publishing after the Ming and Gothic types used exclusively in print.
Seal script or sigillary script is a style of writing Chinese characters that was common throughout the latter half of the 1st millennium BC. It evolved organically out of bronze script during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC). The variant of seal script used in the state of Qin eventually became comparatively standardized, and was adopted as the formal script across all of China during the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC). It was still widely used for decorative engraving and seals during the Han dynasty.
Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones, usually either the shoulder bones of oxen or the plastrons of turtles. The writings themselves mainly record the results of official divinations carried out on behalf of the Late Shang royal family. These divinations took the form of scapulimancy where the oracle bones were exposed to flames, creating patterns of cracks that were then subjected to interpretation. Both the prompt and interpretation were inscribed on the same piece of bone that had been used for the divination itself.
Chinese bronze inscriptions, also referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, comprise Chinese writing made in several styles on ritual bronzes mainly during the Late Shang dynasty and Western Zhou dynasty. Types of bronzes include zhong bells and ding tripodal cauldrons. Early inscriptions were almost always made with a stylus into a clay mold, from which the bronze itself was then cast. Additional inscriptions were often later engraved onto bronzes after casting. The bronze inscriptions are one of the earliest scripts in the Chinese family of scripts, preceded by the oracle bone script.
Zhu Da (朱耷), also known by his pen name Bada Shanren (八大山人), was a late-Ming and early-Qing dynasty Chinese painter, calligrapher, and poet. He was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi, in 1626, at during the Ming-Qing Transition. Zhu was mentally ill and displayed erratic behavior. He was related to the House of Zhu, which was destroyed and executed by the new Qing dynasty. Fearing that he would also be purged and executed, he fled to a Buddhist temple and learned the teachings of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, becoming a monk for 30 years.
Japanese calligraphy, also called shūji (習字), is a form of calligraphy, or artistic writing, of the Japanese language. Written Japanese was originally based on Chinese characters only, but the advent of the hiragana and katakana Japanese syllabaries resulted in intrinsically Japanese calligraphy styles.
Yan Zhenqing was a Chinese calligrapher, military general, and politician. He was a leading Chinese calligrapher and a loyal governor of the Tang dynasty. His artistic accomplishment in Chinese calligraphy is equal to that of the greatest master calligraphers of history, and his regular script style, Yan, has often been imitated.
Korean calligraphy, also known as Seoye (Korean: 서예), is the Korean tradition of artistic writing. Calligraphy in Korean culture involves both Hanja and Hangul.
Semi-cursive script, also known as running script, is a style of Chinese calligraphy that emerged during the Han dynasty. The style is used to write Chinese characters and is abbreviated slightly where a character's strokes are permitted to be visibly connected as the writer writes, but not to the extent of the cursive style. This makes the style easily readable by readers who can read regular script and quickly writable by calligraphers who require ideas to be written down quickly. In order to produce legible work using the semi-cursive style, a series of writing conventions is followed, including the linking of the strokes, simplification and merging strokes, adjustments to stroke order and the distribution of text of the work.
The clerical script, sometimes also chancery script, is a style of Chinese writing that evolved from the late Warring States period to the Qin dynasty. It matured and became dominant in the Han dynasty, and remained in active use through the Six Dynasties period. In its development, it departed significantly from the earlier scripts in terms of graphic structures, and was characterized by its rectilinearity, a trait shared with the later regular script.
Cursive script, often referred to as grass script, is a script style used in Chinese and East Asian calligraphy. It is an umbrella term for the cursive variants of the clerical script and the regular script.
The term large seal script traditionally refers to written Chinese dating from before the Qin dynasty—now used either narrowly to the writing of the Western and early Eastern Zhou dynasty, or more broadly to also include the oracle bone script. The term deliberately contrasts the small seal script, the official script standardized throughout China during the Qin dynasty, often called merely 'seal script'. Due to the term's lack of precision, scholars often prefer more specific references regarding the provenance of whichever written samples are being discussed.
Zhong Yao, also referred to as Zhong You, courtesy name Yuanchang (元常), was a Chinese calligrapher and politician who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period of China. He served in the state of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period. His calligraphy was highly regarded as he was known as one of the Four Worthies of Calligraphy (書中四賢) in the history of Chinese calligraphy.
Chinese characters may have several variant forms—visually distinct glyphs that represent the same underlying meaning and pronunciation. Variants of a given character are allographs of one another, and many are directly analogous to allographs present in the English alphabet, such as the double-storey ⟨a⟩ and single-storey ⟨ɑ⟩ variants of the letter A, with the latter more commonly appearing in handwriting. Some contexts require usage of specific variants.
Chinese characters may be written using several major historical styles, which developed organically over the history of Chinese script. There are also various major regional styles associated with various modern and historical polities.
A water-dropper is a small device used in East Asian calligraphy as a container designed to hold a small amount of water. In order to make ink a few drops of water are dropped onto the surface of an inkstone. By grinding an inkstick into this water on the inkstone, particles come off and mix with the water, forming ink.
Qiu Xigui is a Chinese historian, palaeographer, and professor of Fudan University. His book Chinese Writing is considered the "single most influential study of Chinese palaeography".
A copybook is a book containing examples of calligraphic script, meant to be copied while practicing calligraphy.
