{"id":242,"date":"2010-03-22T19:39:14","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T19:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/?p=242"},"modified":"2018-07-27T14:41:04","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T14:41:04","slug":"japanese-calligraphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/japanese-calligraphy\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese Calligraphy"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Early Japanese calligraphy was first influenced by Chinese calligraphy. The piece of writing on the\u00a0left is titled \u304c\u3063\u304d\u308d\u3093<\/strong> (\u697d\u6bc5\u8ad6<\/strong>) and was produced by Empress K\u014dmy\u014d (\u5149\u660e\u7687\u540e<\/strong>). The Empress copied this text from the Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi.\u00a0All the original\u00a0works done by Wang Xizhi have been lost, so the only copy of this form of calligraphy still left to us is\u00a0Empress K\u014dmy\u014d’s \u304c\u3063\u304d\u308d\u3093<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This piece is called, “Cry for Noble Saich\u014d” (\u54ed\u6700\u6f84\u4e0a\u4eba<\/strong>)\u00a0by Emperor Saga (\u5d6f\u5ce8\u5929\u7687<\/strong>). In contrast to the writing above, the characters\u00a0are more rounded and less sharp. The characters are also less compact than the characters in the piece, \u304c\u3063\u304d\u308d\u3093. <\/strong>In the late Heian era (\u5e73\u5b89\u6642\u4ee3<\/strong>), calligraphers began to slowly break away from Chinese influences to\u00a0develop a unique Japanese style of calligraphy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is an excerpt from a collection of poems called, \u304d\u3093\u3060\u3044\u3057\u3085\u3046\u304b<\/strong> or “Superior Poems of Our Time”. The author’s name is Fujiwara no Teika (\u85e4\u539f\u5b9a\u5bb6<\/strong>). By the time of the Kamakura period (\u938c\u5009\u6642\u4ee3<\/strong>) (1185-1333 AD) and the Muromachi period (\u5ba4\u753a\u6642\u4ee3<\/strong>) (1333-1573) Japanese calligraphy became more restrained, but yet retaining the innovative cursive style started in the Heian period.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Japanese calligraphy has been affected by Zen Buddhism. Zen calligraphy tends to be very minimalist, with an emphasis on singular characters or phrases. The strokes tend to be dark, heavy and broad. Zen calligraphy is a spiritual experience for some calligraphers. The calligrapher is expected to put all his\/her concentration in the strokes with fluid movments of the brush.<\/p>\n

There are of course, many more styles of calligraphy not mentioned here. The point of this post was to show how Japanese calligraphy can be beautiful, technical, and various in form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Early Japanese calligraphy was first influenced by Chinese calligraphy. The piece of writing on the\u00a0left is titled \u304c\u3063\u304d\u308d\u3093 (\u697d\u6bc5\u8ad6) and was produced by Empress K\u014dmy\u014d (\u5149\u660e\u7687\u540e). The Empress copied this text from the Chinese calligrapher Wang Xizhi.\u00a0All the original\u00a0works done by Wang Xizhi have been lost, so the only copy of this form…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8026,8027],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-japanese-calligraphy","tag-japanese-writing-styles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6211,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions\/6211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/japanese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}