![]() have a very specific order in which the strokes are laid down. It also helps that all Chinese and Japanese and Korean characters/kana etc. That's why my old Chinese painting teacher called it primarily a performance art. There's no writing over a stroke to fill it out. When you make a mark with a brush and traditional Chinese inks, you cannot take it back or disguise it. One aspect of traditional brush and ink on silk or paper that differs somewhat from pen and ink on paper or vellum, is that the performance of the writer is foregrounded in the brush tradition, and only incidental to the pen and ink tradition. Just as in any art form, in order to get to the stage when you can become spontaneous with the brush, such as running or grass script, you first have to learn the rules and conventions so you know what and when to break them for a given effect. That fluidity seems to be in synch with the idea of releasing from constraints, or "letting go" that seems to be important to Euro/American ideas of Zen.īut, if you've ever tried to study traditional Chinese or Japanese or Korean calligraphy, it is anything but spontaneous, easy and fluid. On the other hand, there is something about the brush, as opposed to the steel or reed pen, or even the quill, that seems to lend itself to a more fluid movement. I do not plan on tackling that topic here. Brush calligraphy is not a tradition in English speaking countries, but then using another culture's tools, and religious terminology, if not the practice, but within your own cultural context of your language could be seen as falling somewhere in that grey area of appropriation and cultural enrichment. On the one hand, it could be another case of relatively benign cultural appropriation. I tried to explore why it would make me pause. ![]() When you said that you know someone practicing zen calligraphy with a brush and English words, it made me pause. Tools and materials comes to mind as central to my, "confusion" is too strong of a word, perhaps, "caution" might be a better term. ![]() I've been thinking a bit about this concept of "calligraphy" as practice, as mindfulness practice, and as zen practice.
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