The Art of Calligraphy: A Journey Through Time and Brushstrokes

How much do you know about calligraphy?

Even if you've never delved into Japan's beauty and history as a primary source of information, I'd like you to give it a try.

For those outside the realm of Kanji culture, there may be a psychological barrier, but if you view it as a pictorial sketch, it's not as intimidating.

If you try your hand at it for about two weeks until you get used to using a brush, you should begin to see the profound world of calligraphy, albeit faintly.

Calligraphy, represented by Chinese characters (Kanji), originally originated in China and was transmitted to Japan. Until modern times, knowledge in Japan was broadly cultivated through calligraphy.

What makes calligraphy unique is that it elevates characters, originally created as a means of transmitting information, to the realm of art.

Bold, imposing characters that resemble "art" tend to get attention, but in reality, they are not the mainstream. Many of the historical cultural assets of calligraphy are simply records or letters addressed to someone.

People have found extraordinary beauty in the characters engraved there and have inherited them as art.

Traditionally, there is a form of training in calligraphy known as "Rinsho" (臨書).

It involves the task of faithfully copying characters that serve as classical models.

For example, it means copying characters that have been left behind for over 2,000 years exactly as they are. Just as Greek art represented one ultimate form of beauty, calligraphy, as an art form, was also perfected in ancient times.

Therefore, whether it's someone from a thousand years ago or a modern person, they both learn from the same classical models.

Rinsho. Once you try it, you'll realize that simply trying to mimic the form won't allow you to write the same characters as the models. Within calligraphy lies a vast amount of information that is invisible to the uninitiated.

How to hold the brush, the angle at which to insert the brush, how to finish a line, the precise manipulation of the brush composed of thousands of hairs, brush pressure, speed, momentum.

All of these processes result in characters.

In other words, practicing Rinsho is equivalent to tracing the physical and mental movements at the moment the calligraphy was written.

The moment you realize this, a dialogue begins between you and ancient calligraphers. You'll begin to see landscapes from a distant, bygone era.

And you'll come to feel that, perhaps, communication through calligraphy in those times was of a higher dimension and contained denser information than what we have today, with printing technology, the internet, videos, and even virtual spaces.