山高水長
Last month I changed calligraphy teachers. My teacher until last year, Ransui, taught me boldness of style (and did his best to teach me balance), and I owe my calligraphy experience so far to him. However, his studio was near Omotesando which, once my partner and I both moved to start living with each other, became a lot further to travel to all of a sudden.
So last month, after a break in my tuition of about four or five months, I got a new teacher, a late-middle aged professor of calligraphy at Chuo University in Tokyo who teaches at a studio near where I live in Taito ward. Wtih Ransui, it was all vim, zoom and bold black lines.
With my new teacher, things are all different. There is a new delicacy of touch that I'm having to take on board, with the effect of making me feel like I'm almost back at square one - in some ways a slightly despairing feeling, but in others exciting, in that I'm now stepping into new territory.
Today I'm posting my work under my new teacher for the first time. It is the best I could do this morning after an hour's practice and as such I should be proud of it, but it has significant flaws all the same.
It reads 山高水長, or "mountain high, river (literally "water") long."
It's a truism in Chinese/Japanese calligraphy that the simpler the character the more difficult it is to get it right, probably because the space around it is thereby defined that much more starkly, and any imbalance becomes that much more conspicuous.
The character I am proudest of here is 山, and least proud of, 水. However, as I said, it's more about the balance than the individual form, and I think I am slowly improving the vertical balance between my characters.
But the ultimate point of calligraphy is to be inspired by the play between the form and the lyricism of the characters. So there it is: mountain(s) high, river long. This photo of the Atlas mountains south of Marrakech comes to mind, taken in January when my partner and I visited Morocco.
Last month I changed calligraphy teachers. My teacher until last year, Ransui, taught me boldness of style (and did his best to teach me balance), and I owe my calligraphy experience so far to him. However, his studio was near Omotesando which, once my partner and I both moved to start living with each other, became a lot further to travel to all of a sudden.
So last month, after a break in my tuition of about four or five months, I got a new teacher, a late-middle aged professor of calligraphy at Chuo University in Tokyo who teaches at a studio near where I live in Taito ward. Wtih Ransui, it was all vim, zoom and bold black lines.
With my new teacher, things are all different. There is a new delicacy of touch that I'm having to take on board, with the effect of making me feel like I'm almost back at square one - in some ways a slightly despairing feeling, but in others exciting, in that I'm now stepping into new territory.
Today I'm posting my work under my new teacher for the first time. It is the best I could do this morning after an hour's practice and as such I should be proud of it, but it has significant flaws all the same.
It reads 山高水長, or "mountain high, river (literally "water") long."
It's a truism in Chinese/Japanese calligraphy that the simpler the character the more difficult it is to get it right, probably because the space around it is thereby defined that much more starkly, and any imbalance becomes that much more conspicuous.
The character I am proudest of here is 山, and least proud of, 水. However, as I said, it's more about the balance than the individual form, and I think I am slowly improving the vertical balance between my characters.
But the ultimate point of calligraphy is to be inspired by the play between the form and the lyricism of the characters. So there it is: mountain(s) high, river long. This photo of the Atlas mountains south of Marrakech comes to mind, taken in January when my partner and I visited Morocco.
So now you're learning to dance on your toes, with a brush, David?
ReplyDeleteJan