The Written Word in East Asia Kevin G. Carr, University of Michigan

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The Written Word in East Asia Kevin G. Carr, University of Michigan

Arts of Asia Lecture Series Fall 2017 Art on the Move Across Asia and Beyond – Part I Sponsored by The Society for Asian Art Dialogues Across Space & Time: The Written Word in East Asia Arts of Asia Lecture Series at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco Kevin G. Carr, University of Michigan 13 October 2017 Key Terms & Themes Chinese characters (漢字: Ch. hanzi, K. hanja, J. kanji), 5 main “modes”: rd 1. seal script (zhuanshu 篆書), from c. 1400 BCE, systematized 3 century BCE rd rd 2. clerical (scribe) script (lishu 隷書), in use c. 3 century BCE to 3 century CE nd th 3. regular (block, standard) script (kaishu 楷書), developed from 2 -5 century CE rd 4. semi-cursive (“running”) script (xingshu 行書), developed c. 3 century BCE to rd 3 century CE 5. cursive (“grass”) script (caoshu 草書)—various types, including: nd a. old cursive (derived from clerical script), from 2 century BCE; became rd th common by the 3 and 4 centuries CE b. wild cursive, from c. 8th century two phonetic scripts: a. Japanese syllabary (kana 仮名), now divided into hiragana 平仮名 and katakana 片仮名, from c. 10th century b. Korean phonetic script (hangeul 한글), created 1443 Select Bibliography Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, et al., eds. The Elegant Gathering : The Yeh Family Collection. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 2006. Knight, Michael, and Joseph Z. Chang, eds. Out of Character : Decoding Chinese calligraphy 法迹 : 觀遠山莊珎藏法術選. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 201. [Jerry Yang collection] Asian Art Museum Videos Decoding Chinese Calligraphy (Cai Xingyi demonstrates five major scripts) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRRiTo8sUwk Appreciating Chinese Calligraphy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEN0CzGv5-Y Excerpt from The Character of Characters, 2012, by Xu Bing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ1mpKlIxhQ Chart of Major Chinese Scripts - all of the following characters are the same: 龍 (“dragon”) .

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Towards Chinese Calligraphy Zhuzhong Qian
Macalester International Volume 18 Chinese Worlds: Multiple Temporalities Article 12 and Transformations Spring 2007 Towards Chinese Calligraphy Zhuzhong Qian Desheng Fang Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl Recommended Citation Qian, Zhuzhong and Fang, Desheng (2007) "Towards Chinese Calligraphy," Macalester International: Vol. 18, Article 12. Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl/vol18/iss1/12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute for Global Citizenship at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Macalester International by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Towards Chinese Calligraphy Qian Zhuzhong and Fang Desheng I. History of Chinese Calligraphy: A Brief Overview Chinese calligraphy, like script itself, began with hieroglyphs and, over time, has developed various styles and schools, constituting an important part of the national cultural heritage. Chinese scripts are generally divided into five categories: Seal script, Clerical (or Official) script, Regular script, Running script, and Cursive script. What follows is a brief introduction of the evolution of Chinese calligraphy. A. From Prehistory to Xia Dynasty (ca. 16 century B.C.) The art of calligraphy began with the creation of Chinese characters. Without modern technology in ancient times, “Sound couldn’t travel to another place and couldn’t remain, so writings came into being to act as the track of meaning and sound.”1 However, instead of characters, the first calligraphy works were picture-like symbols. These symbols first appeared on ceramic vessels and only showed ambiguous con- cepts without clear meanings.
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