East Asian Calligraphy

The symbols (or 'characters' as they also are called) from China were originally pictograms, meaning that every character represented what it looked like. A horse symbol represented a horse and so on. As society became more complex words that had no physical image needed to be written down as well, this was often used by merging already existing characters into a new one. This is still practiced today when a new word comes into use. Because of this heritage every character has one or several sounds (like western alphabet) and a unique meaning. To the right we see a character that means "Intellect" written in a cursive script.

The Chinese symbols are called "Hanzi" in China, "kanji" in Japan and "Hanja" in Korea. It is however important to note that both Japanese and Korean have their own unique symbols. "Hiragana" and "Katakana" is part of the "Kana" writing system used in Japan; they have only one or two sounds and are without any special meaning. "Hangul" is writing system used in Korea that was developed during the 15th century. Both languages can mix their own characters with the Chinese ones (standard practice in Japan).

In east Asian calligraphy there are several different styles of writing, while in the west calligraphy has only had the mission to say something in a beautiful way, the eastern calligraphist however always tries to put emotions into the text. Often reflecting the story or meaning of a text making the impression stronger for the reader. So, different styles are used not only for their appearance but also to convey a message to the reader. In general you can put these styles on a scale from bold and clear to cursive and fluid both of these are represented in videos here (clear and bold is further down). In this scale there are endless variations, some can trace their roots back thousands of years while others are a part of contemporary art. Many natives in Japan and China prefer variations of the cursive script because of its flow and good capabilities to represent certain emotions. The character to the left means "Longevity" and is written in a cursive script with hard sharp lines.


Here we see a very abstract form of calligraphy by the Japanese artist Kazuya Akimoto. Using the ancient art form of calligraphy has appealed to many contemporary Japanese artists since it enables them to do something new while keeping with their cultural heritage. In both China and Japan is calligraphy still highly regarded among both old and young, it is even a mandatory school subject for all children in Japan.
More info about styles from Wikipedia