Chinese Brushwork in Calligraphy and Painting Essay

Chinese Brushwork in Calligraphy and Painting - Essay Example The essay "Chinese Brushwork in Calligraphy and Painting" explores the history and development of Chinese Brushwork in Calligraphy and Painting. The term calligraphy, in an approving way, illustrates the Chinese use of line of painting. Brushwork can be described as an indispensable characteristic of Chinese painting. Brushwork and ink provide the basis for Chinese pictures even with employment of color. Chinese art Cognoscenti recognize the character of a line the moment they cite a painting. Chinese writing and painting developed simultaneously sharing the same techniques and tools. Some types of brushes able to create rhythmically diminishing and swelling lines developed between 4500 and 2000 BC embellished linear patterns on pottery jars. Block-like symbols characterize Chinese writing. These bock-like symbols stand for ideas. These symbols are referred to as the characters which evolved from pictograms. The ancient painters and calligraphers regularized the symbols where they de signed each one the symbols to conform to an imaginary square, whether composed of one or 64 strokes. The ancient Chinese calligraphers and painters drew the strokes in regard to a character in a certain order. Calligraphy developed swiftly yielding numerous classes of script. Regular and clerical scripts consist of short, detached strokes easily written with a brush. As the delight of writing took charge, calligraphers devised more techniques, as well as the cursive and running scripts where the calligraphers joined. character’s lines and dots they wrote independently in formal styles (Fazzioli, 1986, p. 35). The earliest form of Chinese writings was the oracle bones referred to as chia-ku-we. These writings were mainly used for sacred functions e.g. connecting with the gods. Chia-ku-we was an oracle-bone with inscriptions on tortoise shells and animal bones (Kwo, 1990, p. 61-63). Chuan-shu, a seal script, characterized the Second evolution of Chinese calligraphy. This form of writing emanated from oracle-bone script. The script was compatible other plans that calligraphers used previously (Kwo, 1990, p. 60). Another change was made to design an aspect that came up with clerical script, known as li shu. Calligraphers and painters wrote the design on silk and paper (Fazzioli, 1986, p. 67). This allowed additional fluid strokes. This is unlike previous cast of iron. The breakthrough of coming up with clerical script, which used brushes and ink marked the starting of calligraphy as a mode of expressing through art. The discovery of clerical script did not mark the end of calligraphy development, but it opened up chances for more improvements. Some of the later designed that improved the calligraphy writings include cursive script, standard script, and running a script (Kwo, 1990, p. 66). Cursive script started as a shorthand technique used in writing personal letters and notes inclusive of the writer and close friends. Invention of this script took place in the early second century B.C.E. Since cursive script allowed for more personalization, it became a channel for â€Å"individual expression that sometimes transcended the contents of the texts†. Creation of Kai-shu happened in efforts to improve the clerical script. It started from the Han Dynasty. Calligraphy gurus of Tang reign altered the previous script from the six reigns and created a â€Å"bold yet elegant standard-type script† (Nakata, 1982, p. 25) that balanced composition of character with brush movement. A simplified version and a freehand method of standard script were referred to as the running script