Some have called calligraphy the "representative oriental art." Others have said calligraphy is a "branch of Chinese culture." Calligraphy has been practiced in China for thousands of years; different eras have developed their own styles. Today, the works remain, though their spirits have vanished. Calligraphy was once one of the "trademarks" of the Chinese people; what will be its destiny now?

People have described Su Dongpo's written characters as the product of "a brush that carries wind and wave, innocent and naive." In fact, this is a fitting depiction of Su Dongpo's entire life.

Because he was falsely accused by petty individuals, Su Dongpo spent much of his life wandering without a roof over his head. His famous "Cold Food Observance" was a poem written when he was banished to Huangzhou: "Since I arrived in Huangzhou, I have already passed three Cold Food Observances.... The emperor's door is shut tight, And my ancestor's graves are ten thousand li away; I haven't the wherewithal even to cry; Dead ashes cannot be blown back to life." The poem brims with desolation and loneliness.

But even in an adverse and daunting environment, he was still able to "clap my hands and laugh at the gull, completely wrapped in woe." "Three hundred lychees a day, I don't mind living in the southern lands." Of himself, Su Dongpo once wrote, "I don't need my poems to be too meticulous, nor my calligraphy to be too innovative; innocence and naivete are my teachers." Not only his characters, but also his character, were "innocent and naive."

Knowing the person from his letters

One of the "six arts" of the classical era, calligraphy was one of the skills that intellectuals of ancient times were required to study. Ever since the Qin and Han dynasties, calligraphy was a major academic course. The Qin court included a post called the shishu lingli ("keeper of annals and books"), who reviewed all the documents submitted to the emperor. If they were not written properly, their authors would be censured.

In the Tang dynasty, calligraphy was an essential evaluation criterion in the mandarin examinations, and they had an official called the shuxue boshi ("master of calligraphy"). In the Ming dynasty, they put an even greater emphasis on calligraphy. There were even some imperial examiners who determined whether candidates passed their tests only by judging the calligraphy, and not the contents.

No one has reached a definitive conclusion as to when the art of calligraphy was invented. Early on in the Shang dynasty, there were pens made from hair. On some excavated bones and ceramic shards there are marks of writing brushes. The inscriptions engraved on containers during the bronze age were possessed of esthetic values too. But the earliest documents concerning so-called "creative" calligraphy can be traced back to the end of the Han dynasty. Zhao Yi in the treatise Fei Cao Shu ("Against Cao-style Calligraphy"), criticized the literati of the time, who were immersed in calligraphy to such a degree that "their lips and teeth are constantly black," and they "neither eat nor sleep."

In fact, in the broader definition, calligraphy is not a monopoly of China. In the West, "calligraphy" means "elegant writing." Calligraphers in England, France or Germany often add all kinds of ornaments to standard letters, such as stems, arabesques, tails or other abstract or representational objects. The Arabs often use script as architectural ornaments.

In China, calligraphy (shufa) refers specifically to characters written with a hair brush. Besides the line structure of the characters themselves, no extra elements are added. What is more important is that Chinese calligraphy is not ornamentation, but rather an art in unison with life.

The legend of calligraphy

The unique feature of Chinese calligraphy lies in its expressive devices--the characters themselves and the tool used for writing, the calligraphic brush.

The treasures left behind in Western art history tend to be architecture and sculpture, but in China it is the written word. Contemporaneous with the Parthenon in Athens, the artifacts most representative of Chinese culture are engravings on drum-shaped stone (the earliest discovered stone-carved scripts to date). Take for example the prized possessions of the National Palace Museum--the bronze Zhou- dynasty Maogong tripod and the Sanshi bowl. What Chinese people view as important are not the utensils themselves but the inscriptions upon them. In contrast with the Western alphabet, which has only a few dozen letters combined in a phonetic system, Chinese ideographs seem rich and varied. There is limitless scope for calligraphy. Curator of the Belgian Royal Museum of Art and History's Chinese department Jean-Marie Simonet shares these feelings. In his article, "Chinese Calligraphy in the Eyes of Europeans," he observes, "Compared to their European counterparts, Chinese calligraphers benefit from thousands of characters, which spare them from ornamental elaboration."

Beyond the pragmatic function of communication, Chinese characters possess an elegant line structure which gives them an esthetic value in and of themselves; for this reason, an independent visual art has developed. The characters evolved from the elongated curved lines of the early zhuan (seal) script, to the square, flat style of li (clerical) script, to the simplified but ordered cao ("free-flowing" or cursive) script, up to the writing systems of today, the kai (standard) script and the xing ("running" or semicursive) script, stylistically set midpoint between cao and kai.

Pictures of the heart

The calligraphic brush has played an historic role in turning Chinese writing into an art. The construction of the brush's hairs, long on the inside and short on the outside, forms a conical tip. As the brush is lifted, pressed, twirled and bent, its hairs brought close together or spread apart, the ink metamorphoses into any number of marvelous, lovely, moving lines.

Because the brush is soft, it has limitless possibilities. It can change in a thousand different ways, according to one's personality and moods--powerful or delicate or smooth, melancholy or bleak....

Calligraphy can be a record of people's emotions. In different situations, people will naturally write characters differently. When Wang Xizhi of the Jin dynasty was gathered with close friends and tipsy with wine, he picked up a brush and with a lighthearted and carefree flourish wrote his famous Lanting Ji Xu ("The Gathering at the Orchid Pavilion"). Later, when he was sober, Wang Xizhi rewrote the words of "Orchid Pavilion," but failed to recreate its original appearance.

This is why the Chinese judge people by their writing. The ancients said, "A word is like its writer" and "If a person is true, his writing will be true."

The writing style of emperor Hui Zong of the Song dynasty was long, thin and showy. This unique style was called shoujin ti ("thin gold characters"). The artist Chiang Hsun once wrote of an anecdote from his childhood, in which his father was worried that he was too deeply intrigued with the shoujin style of writing. The reason was because the Song dynasty collapsed during Hui Zong's reign, and his writing style was the "script of subjugation."

The characters of Zhao Mengfu of the Yuan dynasty were extremely enchanting, but he defied the principle of "being loyal and serving no second master." Zhao was therefore criticized as "deficient in fortitude" and his characters as "lacking a gallant spirit."

"Judging the person by his calligraphy" or "criticizing the calligraphy because of the person"--both viewpoints inevitably tend to be too subjective. Yet calligraphic masterpieces certainly give people more than just an external visual sensation; often they are the display of a calligrapher's personality and life. Art history professor Chiang Hsun says that within the lines of Wang Xizhi's characters there is a "sound like being on the verge of tears." He was said to have "strokes of iron and hooks of silver," that is, a perfect modulation between the bold and the delicate. Wang Xizhi, of the Eastern Jin, which fled south from the encroachment of invaders, displayed a helpless yet defiant vital force through his calligraphy.

Yang Xiong of the Western Han described calligraphy as "pictures of the heart." He viewed calligraphy as a catharsis of one's inner spirit. Chinese people hold "pictures of the heart" in higher esteem than they do an actual painting. The commonly used phrase "calligraphy and paintings," demonstrates that a calligrapher's status precedes that of a painter. Because the tools used in calligraphy and painting are the same, and the methods of controlling them differ little, Chinese painters begin to practice calligraphy at a very young age. Calligraphy becomes a way of practicing painting, and there is even the saying, "A calligrapher can paint a picture, but a painter can't necessarily write a good character."

Taking nature as one's teacher

In "Elegy to Pen and Ink," the mainland Chinese author Yu Qiuyu wrote, "In ancient times, during calligraphy's heyday, cultured people's clothing and shoes, their conversations and behavior, their home furnishings, and even the way they based their relations with others, were all in harmony with calligraphy. The scent of ink pervaded their entire lives."

In the past, calligraphy was part of everyday living, and studying calligraphy did indeed teach one how to live. Man's relationship to nature and to heaven and earth was encompassed by the study of calligraphy.

During the Jin dynasty, Wang Xizhi's teacher Wei Furen taught him to write characters by studying the myriad forms of nature. To teach Wang to draw a dot, Wei wanted Wang first to get a feel for "rocks falling off of mountains." To draw a horizontal line, Wang was asked to observe "clouds pressed flat across the broad sky." When preparing to draw a vertical line, the object of meditation was instead a "10,000-year-old vine." Wang Yizhi became the greatest calligrapher in the history of China, earning the accolade "sage of the scrolls," and surely there is a connection between his achievements and his training.

The Thousand-Character Text, a primer children used for centuries to learn to write, includes this passage closely bound up with the ways of nature: "In primordial times when the universe was still taking shape, the sun and moon moved in their cycles, and the stars scattered across the vast expanse. The cold and heat came and went, and fall's harvest gave way to winter's store. . . ."

Many of the famous calligraphers of history gained inspiration and enlightenment from nature. Zhang Xu, a master of the Tang era "mad" cao style, got revelations about calligraphy from "the swordplay of Madame Gong Sun" and from "hooting horns." The Tang dynasty "mad" cao master Huai Su studied "the summer clouds turning into a multitude of queer mountains." Wen Yuke "witnessed snakes tangled in combat, and thus made a leap forward in his calligraphy." Wang Xizhi enjoyed watching geese, and the fluid lines of their necks surely had an impact on his calligraphy.

A bold discourse about lines

Beyond the question of the characters' meaning, calligraphy is a form of art, simply by virtue of the way it adapts the lines of nature. Foreigners who can't read Chinese characters can still appreciate Chinese calligraphy.

Li Lin-tsan, the former assistant director of the National Palace Museum, once had a visit from a German abstract artist. Because the artist had only an hour to spare, he asked Li to show him the most enlightening work of art available. Without a moment's hesitation, Li showed him Huai Su's "Self-Reflections," a collection of various people's praise for the author. This foreign artist, however, just looked at its unrestrained and expressively flowing lines. Afterwards, he said with great satisfaction, "Although I can't read a single Chinese character, I completely understand this Chinese calligrapher's state of mind."

One Western artist has described the Chinese fine arts as a "bold discourse about lines." Others have described calligraphy as "the music of lines" or "black lines dancing on white paper." Lines are indeed what give calligraphy life.

The art critic Hsiung Ping-ming in his book A Theory of Chinese Calligraphy mentions that Westerners who don't understand Chinese and lack a knowledge of the origins and schools of calligraphy, will be unable to appreciate and enjoy some aspects of the art, but at the same time their appreciation for it may be purer.

A famous man of the streets

Today people rarely use a brush and ink as writing implements, but for reasons of esthetics or in keeping with proper decorum, store signs, wooden tablets, and the mastheads of newspapers and magazines are often adorned with the calligraphy of famous people. The masthead of The China Times, for instance, was brushed by the "modern sage of the cao style" Yu Yu-jen; the calligraphic logos for Eastman Kodak film and the Chiahsiang Lou restaurant are the work of master artist Chang Ta-chien; noted chop carver Wang Chuang can take credit for those of Taiwan Bank, the Chung Hua Bookstore, and the Toward You Bus Company; whereas those of the Hung Fan Bookstore and Chiuko Publishing House are the handiwork of famous scholar Tai Ching-nung.

And many people use calligraphy as a form of self-cultivation. Yen Shih-hsi, who has just stepped down as head of the National Police Administration, practices calligraphy to calm himself. Ten years ago he became a calligraphy student of the artist Chiang Chao-shen and began practicing assiduously. Even when extremely busy with his duties, he still wields the brush for a half an hour to an hour every night before bed. And he does the same when abroad, always packing ink, brushes and an ink stone in his suitcase.

The miraculous uses for calligraphy don't stop here. For weddings or funerals, or for government banquets, often a calligrapher will be asked to make the invitations. Many top government officials specially use a brush to make comments on official papers. This displays the proper decorum for handling important documents.

A "good character" can't be built overnight

In everyday modern life from time to time we can see the imprint of calligraphy. Yet the living environment today is very different from the past. People are restless and busy, bustling all over the place. What people hold in their hands are cellular phones, and computers are omnipresent. Even calligraphers rarely find a chance to pick up the brush and write. Consequently, calligraphy is believed to be in a state of gradual decline.

Calligraphers of the older generation constantly repudiate the past. Situations in which one was allowed to create one's own style were few and far between. Rather, whenever anyone brought up the subject of calligraphy, they would always ask one question: "Whose characters are you imitating?"

People have long since turned to using ballpoint pens for convenience's sake. So-called "hard-pen calligraphy" is done with a fountain pen. Although its strokes are the same, a fountain pen is incapable of a hair brush's man-euverability. As calligrapher Tu Chung-kao puts it, "If calligraphy were architecture, then writing with a fountain pen would merely be the steel framework."

Calligraphy strives for both composition (jieti) and feeling (biqing). Composition refers to the structure of the characters; feeling is the expression of an individual's personality. "Proper writing cannot be learned in a hundred days." The composition must be precise, the feeling rich--not something that can be attained on the very first try.

Wang Xizhi "sat by a pond practicing calligraphy, and all the pond's water turned to ink." The monk Zhi Yong spent 15 years in his attic without coming down in order to perfect his penmanship. He filled five big baskets with worn-out brush tips....

Since ancient times, imitating others has been the irreplaceable method for studying calligraphy. Studying by duplication began in the early Tang dynasty. At that time, the emperor Tai Zong collected all of Wang Xizhi's calligraphy. In particular, he invested immense effort in acquiring the "Orchid Pavilion" manuscript. When it was in his hands, he ordered such calligraphers as Ouyang Xun, Chu Suiliang, Yu Shinan and Xue Ji to reproduce it, then he gave copies to each of his ministers as models to imitate. Legend has it that the reason why the original "Orchid Pavilion" manuscript can no longer be found among the living is that Tai Zong took it with him to the grave.

Although many people remain skeptical about duplicating the characters of the ancient masters, thirtysomething artist Tu Chung-kao expresses the opinion that throughout history the number of literate people was exceedingly large, and to be able to make a lasting impression for all time is no mean feat. The great masters that are held up for imitation today discovered long ago the best way to achieve the most beautiful composition and shape for each character. Copying them is essential.

Building from a variety of sources

Nevertheless, writing characters that look just like Wang Xizhi's or Yan Zhenqing's does not equal good calligraphy. Besides having proper composition, writing characters requires having one's own style.

Tu Chung-kao describes duplication as "stealing" the words of the ancients. Likewise, "stealing" can be graded on a scale. "Those who are clever steal the machines; those who are not so clever just steal the products," he explains. Afterwards the thief must have the ability to "sell them off"; otherwise, he might easily be arrested. The so-called ability to "sell" refers to the skill of adaptation.

"First you must enter into the classics, then you will be able to exit the classics." Confirming this same line of thought, master of the Lingnan School Li Keran said that in order to write characters well, one must "use the greatest force to break in, and the greatest courage to break out." Yet whereas "breaking in" is not easy, "breaking out" is harder still, and many calligraphers never come out the other side, spending their whole lives repeating the writing of those who went before.

Well-known commercial calligrapher Tung Yang-tzu points out that when she was very young she practiced imitating Ouyang Xun's style. After she had graduated from college, she took some of her calligraphy to be mounted, and the proprietor thought the characters were drawn by an eighty-year-old man. But gradually she became dissatisfied with imitation and began to search for her own style. Whenever she picked up the brush, however, what came out on the paper were the characters of one famous master or another. Then she completely quit calligraphy and took to watching dramatic performances, reading, painting pictures and so forth, forgetting about her many copybooks. Finally, she took up drawing characters again. It turned out that she could exert her own unique style.

Read 10,000 books to be truly inspired

When the classical poet Lu You taught his son to write poetry, he made a famous statement: "If you want to study poetry, your skills must lie outside of poems." Calligraphy operates according to the same line of logic: The skills required in calligraphy come from outside of calligraphy.

Su Dongpo said, "If you use up enough brushes to make a mountain, this is not precious enough; one must read 10,000 books to be truly inspired." The Song-era calligrapher Huang Tingjian said, "The aura of a learned man's brush will show he has read a myriad of books; otherwise, he is just an unartistic bureaucrat."

In the past, a scholarly person invariably wrote calligraphy. Because ancient calligraphers frequently "felt inspired and expressed themselves," what they wrote were usually their own poems or essays.

Conversely, calligraphers of today can only read "when they can find the time," so the emotional force behind their brushes is limited. They can only rely upon the writing of their predecessors to express their own emotions. Even if the words are written better than their own, what they are expressing are the emotions of the ancients. There is always the regret of not being able to "scratch their own itch."

Chang Kuang-pin, who has retired from the National Palace Museum's calligraphy and painting office and has done considerable research in this art form, remarks that calligraphy is a genuine and sincere thing. The ultimate attainment in Chinese calligraphy is to express one's true nature. The characters of many modern artists reflect a unique style. The Buddhist master Hung Yi's calligraphy reveals self-cultivation, and the characters of Chi Pai-shih display a cordial sincerity.

Chang Kuang-pin believes that, besides the issue of diligent practice, writing characters is closely related to a person's life experiences. Because of this, when one is advanced in age and has a rich background, one gains a complete comprehension, and one's brushwork will naturally be different. Therefore, unless someone has reached fifty or sixty years of age, it is difficult to be accomplished in calligraphy. "This is a line of reasoning which can never be refuted," he says.

An individualist tradition

"No matter how dedicated we are, we can't compare to the ancients," says Tu Chung-kao, who has practiced calligraphy for more than 30 successive years and describes himself as a "withered bamboo shoot." Writing characters for the people of ancient times was their whole life. Today calligraphy is a leisure activity practiced at the margin of our lives. How could it possibly compare?

Chang Kuang-pin also points out that Taiwan's calligraphers operate as unassisted individuals. Everyone has their own biases, and we lack fair critics or an ethic of respect for superiors. "In Taiwan, everyone is their own master. No one dares critique someone else, so we lack the ability to give direction."

Furthermore, the tradition of calligraphy education is a cause of regret for many people.

Japan and Korea have long-established calligraphy departments and graduate schools in their universities. In mainland China, the Zhejiang, Central and Nanjing art institutes, among others, have all established calligraphy departments. Conversely, it has an "undefined status" in Taiwan; not only do we not have specialized calligraphy departments, in fine art departments and Chinese-language departments it is only a peripheral topic which receives little stress. Currently, calligraphy was passed on in Taiwan through private classes. Those with an interest would seek out a well-known instructor. Within the formal education system, there was never a plan to cultivate calligraphy teachers.

Lacking a pool of instructors, at the elementary level, calligraphy lessons are taught in a bare-bones curriculum. And without a specific method of teaching children the proper way to use the brush, it fails to pique children's interest.

Chang Kuang-pin believes that if we want to cultivate children's interest in calligraphy, first we must avoid giving them the bitter experience of lugging a hefty pen-and-ink set to attend lessons. One way of solving the problem is to set up calligraphy classrooms at school, providing children the "four treasures of the study" (paper, brush, ink stone and ink), and a comfortable environment to study calligraphy. Secondly, when children are first starting to learn, do not force them to imitate the standard strokes of famous calligraphers, but let them express themselves freely, and master wielding the brush. Later on, they can copy a number of practice sheets. Children should be allowed to emulate whichever pattern they like best, not forced to study a certain person's style.

In search of a modern spirit

But how can we, in step with the changing times, bring calligraphy closer to the lives of ordinary people? This is the direction many people have moved in promoting calligraphy.

Chang Ping-huang, a vigorous proponent of calligraphy, believes that to promote calligraphy today we must no longer follow the path of the fine arts, but rather must set out on a new course. Combining calligraphy with athletics, she believes, is a viable direction. "Actually, calligraphy is a kind of exercise that fluctuates between fast and slow, relaxed and tense, light and heavy, lifting and pressing. When you wield the brush, you must direct your qi to have a good effect. Despite a difference of form, there is an underlying similarity to such Taoist breathing exercises as taiji quan, waidan gong, and xiang gong."

Others have tried to promote calligraphy as a recreational activity. When Hsiu Ping-shan "retired" from politics, he drew inspiration from the recently popular "all-you-can-eat" restaurants to establish his own "all-you-can-write" center. The store is replete with brushes, ink, paper and ink stone, as well as exemplary calligraphy from all the great masters. Air conditioning and tea are provided, and a teacher even gives free instruction. Customers can arrive empty-handed and write to their hearts' content.

Besides actively developing the number of people engaged in calligraphy and thus increasing the forces who appreciate the painted word, another direction in which calligraphic activists are investing their energies is that of finding a way for traditional calligraphy to attain a contemporary spirit.

What is this so-called "contemporary spirit"? Japan, for example, has a contemporary painting style which emphasizes an imposing structure, attention to form and shape, and an intriguing feeling to the brushstroke--all of which happen to be Western modern art concepts.

The Japanese painting tradition first came from China, but after a number of years they developed their own style, and as modern Japanese calligraphy was pushed onto the stage of international art, it made a deep impression on all the countries of Europe and North America, to the point of their viewing calligraphy as a Japanese thing. One Chinese who happened to be a fairly good artist and was traveling through Europe was once doing calligraphy. A European friend of his saw him doing it, and in surprise asked him, "Can Chinese people write with a brush too?"

In Japanese calligraphy (shodou), particular attention is paid to bokushou ("manifestations of ink"), which is in fact controlled by changes in the ink's concentration and moisture. These techniques had already been utilized with accomplishment by such ancient Chinese artists as Wang Duo, Fu Shan and Xu Wenchang.

Even if Japan imitates the brushstrokes of the ancient Chinese, contemporary Chinese artists can hardly escape culpability for being "delinquent." Nevertheless, there are special circumstances of this age that explain why modern Chinese calligraphy is less advanced than Japan's. Tu Chung-kao offers an analysis of the reasons: Modern Chinese history has been absorbed with a series of wars, which have obstructed the development of the art of calligraphy. After World War II, political tensions between mainland China and Taiwan have been even less conducive to the development of art. The situation with Japan is exactly the opposite. Ever since the Meiji Restoration, Japan has seen constant reforms. They were able to recover from World War II, and without the burden of military concerns, they have seen prosperous development in every aspect, including economics and art.

Chang Ping-huang also remarks that because of political burdens and the duty to maintain traditional culture, China's traditional arts, including calligraphy, have perpetually been very cautious. We have not dared to bravely experiment with new creations. This has done great damage to our artistic life.

Tradition and modernity

Although it can be said that Japanese calligraphy has more of a "modern feel," Chang Kuang-pin believes that it is excessively absorbed with bokushou, to the point that the beautiful genius of Chinese characters has been obfuscated. Tung Yang-tzu also points out that modern Japanese calligraphy deconstructs characters and views them as abstract art, completely losing the human spirit behind them. For example, a typical broad ink rendering of "dragon" only expresses the shape of a dragon, not the Chinese character for dragon.

"We can't conceal the fact that in terms of modernizing calligraphy, Japan definitely walks in front of us, but because of this, it's not like we won't have a path to walk down. Nor will we have to follow in the steps of Japan," avers Tu Chung-kao. Chinese painting must travel its own route.

Ever since mainland China went through the Cultural Revolution, their foundation in calligraphy has not been able to compare with that of Taiwan. Chang Kuang-pin points out that the road the new generation in China is taking is in the footsteps of Japan. Occasionally, a few of them produce a few interesting works of art, but they don't have a firm foundation. Conversely, Taiwan's calligraphic arts are extremely worthy of attention. Chang Kuang-pin believes that in the last several decades in Taiwan, the "extra-curricular" system of calligraphy education has flourished in a big way. The skills that have taken root in people who are now in their thirties and forties are quite good too. The challenge remains in progressing to a new level.

The small minority of calligraphic artists among the new generation have attempted a synthesis between traditional Chinese calligraphy and modern Western art. The "Ink Wave Society" is a group composed of young people waving the banner of creating a new style of calligraphy. Lien Te-sen became famous for his work "MRT," in which he rendered the character xing (行), meaning "motion," in several disconnected pieces, and in the center drew the character gui (龜), meaning "turtle," in ancient seal script, thus mocking the progress of Taipei's traffic and mass rapid transit system. Hsu Yung-chin wrote the four large characters for "Republic of China" on paper, and brushed over the characters with light ink. In the blank spots, he pasted on strips of red paper to symbolize the national flag. The name of the work: "The Unfocusable Republic of China." Such so-called "modern art" works produced by the members of the Ink Wave Society, have been widely criticized. In particular, many traditional calligraphers believe that the Ink Wave Society is innovating merely for the sake of innovation, that fundamentally they are "blaspheming art." Lien Te-sen, one of the eight members of the society, comments that the Ink Wave Society's modern paintings do not equal calligraphy, but only possess the spirit of calligraphy. They take little stock in the doubts of outsiders. "When a lot of artistic movements first appeared, they were also the objects of criticism, slander and attack," he says.

In fact, traditional calligraphy has long had a contemporary face. In his book A General Discussion of Art, Chiang Hsun notes that during the Tang dynasty, when Zhang Xu and others wrote in the "mad" cao style, they accompanied their calligraphy with sword dancing and wine drinking, and while everyone was watching, they slashed out their characters in an instant. They even belted out wild screams. This kind of expression is close to modern performance art.

"Rebellion against orthodoxy" was also known long before the present day. Chang Kuang-pin points out that in the past people drew characters with hair, shirt sleeves and sugar cane pulp. Other people acted like spiritual mediums, drawing characters in a frenzied state. It is only that such things have slowly become submerged in the long stream of history. What then is the true way? What is "great and abiding" art? Perhaps we should not be anxious to set it in stone, but should leave it for the test of time.

The light at the end of the tunnel

In "Elegy to Pen and Ink," Yu Qiuyu wrote: "Calligraphy is like ancient poems; although they are beautiful in nature, they have lost their central role in society. Calligraphy has become a secluded path which has been maintained meticulously, but which ultimately will pass away like Tang and Song dynasty poetry."

In fact, ancient people also lamented the dwindling of calligraphic art. Seven hundred years ago, Ouyang Xiu in the Song dynasty lamented that "calligraphy has never been as deserted as it is now." But afterwards the four great calligraphers Su Dongpo, Huang Tingjian, Mi Fu and Cai Xiang appeared. The Ming and Qing dynasties highly valued guan-ge ("official")script, which put an emphasis on somber and sedate regulation but lacked personality. During this period, there appeared Jin Nong, Zheng Banqiao and other avant-garde calligraphers of the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou" school whose free and unique styles surprised others. Today, however, Chinese calligraphers seem to have walked into a cul de sac. Yet most calligraphers feel neither despair nor nonchalance.

Just as Chiang Hsun said, "All the perfect art forms are memoirs to past history. Contemporary artists must dwell with contradiction and confusion, struggling and groping for direction; they must try to carve out a new path to express inner feelings through unwieldy and unfinished forms. We can be sure that the art of calligraphy will finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Picture Caption]

The greatness of Chinese calligraphy lies in its ability to expose truefeeling, and no style does this better than the cao script. The below photo shows part of the Tang dynasty "mad" cao master Huai Su's "Self Reflections." (courtesy of the National Palace Museum)

Calligrapher Chang Kuang-pin. Because "calligraphy and painting have the same origin," many Chinese calligraphers can also paint, and all Chinese painters must learn calligraphy.

The eminent and proper engraved characters on the Zhou-dynasty Maogong tripod have much esthetic value of their own. (courtesy of the National Palace Museum)

As the writing, so the man: The lines in Su Dong-po's "Cold Food Observance" are unrestrained, just like his personality. (courtesy of the National Palace Museum)

Calligrapher Chang Kuang-pin. Because "calligraphy and painting have the same origin," many Chinese calligraphers can also paint, and all Chinese painters must learn calligraphy.

The eminent and proper engraved characters on the Zhou-dynasty Maogong tripod have much esthetic value of their own. （courtesy of the National Palace Museum）

As the writing, so the man: The lines in Su Dong-po's "Cold Food Observance" are unrestrained, just like his personality. （courtesy of the National Palace Museum）

Treasured calligraphies, Wang Xizhi's scrolls "Peace," "He Ru" and "An Offering of Oranges" are regarded as being closest to his true spirit. （courtesy of the National Palace Museum）

The twentieth-century calligrapher and Buddhist master Hung Yi's highly cultivated characters show a calmness and utter lack of storm and stress. （courtesy of the Ho Chuang-shih Calligraphy Fund）

Does Chinese calligraphy not mix well with modern Western architecture? The photo above shows a work of calligraphy by Tu Chung-kao. The photo below shows a modern variation of the traditional "forest of tablets" which is next to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.

All around us, in everyday life, calligraphy makes its mark.

Starting from tradition, while exploring new creative horizons is the direction in which modern calligraphers are striving. The upper photo shows Lien Te-sen's contemporary work, "Abuse of Culture" （courtesy of Lien Te-sen） The photo on the lower left is a good example of Tu Chung-kao's personal style. The photo on the lower right shows a work by a modern Japanese calligrapher, which emphasizes the "play of the ink." The shapes and meaning of characters become secondary considerations.

Besides hoping that their children will acquire good handwriting, parents also hope the study of calligraphy will instill the virtues of patience and perseverance. Whether the legacy of calligraphy can be passed along can only be answered by the next generation.