Chinese Calligraphy: An Overview

Since the dawn of civilisation, China has cultivated a particular branch of the visual arts that has no equivalent anywhere else in the world. On first encounter, Westerners mislabelled it “calligraphy”… only today are true art lovers outside China progressively beginning to prospect the riches of this artistic El Dorado that has finally opened up to them.

– Simon Leys, ‘One More Art’ (1996)

Chinese calligraphy is either unknown or misunderstood by many outside China.

On the surface, it’s simply Chinese ink characters written with brushes to look nice. 

This is both true and an oversimplification.

In fact, it’s a central feature of Chinese culture. It has a long history linked to some of China’s most important cultural and political figures.

Read on for a clear overview and brief history of what many call the supreme Chinese art.

Encountering Chinese calligraphy

I lived in China for five years without grasping calligraphy’s nature or cultural significance.

I wasn’t even sure whether it was more of an art or a hobby (it’s both).

And I didn’t give it much thought, despite the fact that I was – like the proverbial fish – surrounded by it everywhere, including:  

• In shop signage and company logos
• In advertisements
• On packaging
• On hanging scrolls on walls in businesses, homes, classrooms, etc.
• On gates, arches or large rocks outside housing compounds, shopping centres, parks, etc.

And more.

My previous assumptions about calligraphy were: 

• ‘It’s like calligraphy in the West – an arts and crafts hobby (though maybe slightly more popular in China).’ I didn’t, for example, think there would be famous calligraphers from the past (can you name a famous Western calligrapher?), let alone ones of great historical significance.
• ‘It’s just a series of fonts.’ I thought the different styles calligraphy I saw everywhere were just arbitrary fonts, created for branding or simply to stand out.
• ‘It’s an activity for school children and retirees.’ The former did it as part of learning how to read and write; the latter as a hobby to keep their mind sharp.

I then first became aware of how ignorant of Chinese calligraphy I had been when I read Simon Ley’s article (quoted above) ‘One more Art’.

I read it years after I had left China, but it gave me a grounding.

From there, I began reading more.

Understanding what Chinese calligraphy actually is

Chinese calligraphy has been practiced and admired as a high art form for around 3,000 years.

It was often practiced and passed down by the elites, including: 

• Scholar-officials
• Poets
• Artists
• Generals and other military officials
• Emperors and princes.

Being literate was a necessity for Chinese officials. And good calligraphy writing was a highly prized skill, even after printing was invented during the Tang dynasty.

Many officials, bureaucrats, and scholars were judged on the appearance of their writing. Some it believed reflected their inner nature and cultivation.

If the heart is right, then the brush will be right.

Lu Shihua (1714 – 1789 AD)

Components of calligraphy

Aesthetics

Chinese calligraphy is primarily a visual art, focused on the appearance of strokes, characters and rows of characters.

The goal here is sometimes to look ‘nice’ or ‘beautiful’. Other times, it’s to purposefully grand, ‘bland’ (平淡) or even ‘strange’ (怪).

The choice of script (or mixes of script) is often a crucial aesthetic element, but how it’s reproduced matters, too.

Calligraphers often aimed to imbue past masters’ or lineage’s styles whilst simultaneously reflecting their own variation of it.

Content

Calligraphy pieces can range from formal proclamations that are etched into stelae (stone posts) to personal notes written on scrolls.

Many famous pieces are also original pieces of poetry or prose. But others are presentations of other authors’ famous writings.

There is often a relationship between the content and the aesthetics.

For example, Buddhists and Daoists often copied religious texts in standard script largely as a devotional exercise. And literati used running script to write personal letters to one another.

Context

Context is often more important in calligraphy than in visual arts because of its relationship to content.

Take, for example, the three most famous running script masterpieces.

The text to Wang Xizhi’s Preface to the Orchid Pavillion (353 AD) is explicitly about the moment that inspired its inception – a gathering of literati in a garden.

(This piece is also the most famous piece in Chinese calligraphy – as close to the Mona Lisa’s status in Western art as you can find.)

The joyful contemplation expressed in the text seems to infuse the elegant and characters and brushstrokes with energy.

Two centuries later, Yan Zhenqing‘s wrote his eulogy, Requiem for My Nephew (758 AD), during the catastrophic An Lushan Rebellion (755 – 763 AD).

Yan’s sense of personal loss amidst a wider tragedy is made even clearer because the piece is clearly a draft.

So, the blotted out characters and changing discipline of the brush almost seem to mirror his emotions as he wrote it.

Another three centuries later, Su Shi (1037 – 1101 AD) wrote the Cold Food Observance (1082 AD).

In the pieces two poems, Su describes his bleak surroundings and references his being unable to return to ‘the Palace’.

The text alone and without context doesn’t explain why he is where he is or the wider reasons behind his sadness.

Viewers need to understand the reasons for his exile in order to fully appreciate the significance of this words and style.

Meanwhile, the pieces’s characters start out relatively plain and upright. A few lines into the first poem (up until the words ‘two months of consecutive autumn-like cold’), the characters grow larger, thicker, and more densely placed.

Near the end of the second poem, the character for paper (纸) is mentioned as Su realises what day it is (the Cold Food Observance Festival).

It stretches out the length of about three characters, almost as if he has lost his composure momentarily before continuing on.

Chinese characters

Chinese characters’ forms are an essential part of why calligraphy became so important in China.

Early forms (such as oracle bone script) were engraved onto various materials (animal bones, turtle shells, etc.) around 3,000 years ago.

Paper was invented during the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 CE). This meant calligraphy brush strokes became more flexible writing.

Scripts

New scripts emerged during the Han early dynasty, such as seal script (often forged onto Chinese bronzes) and clerical script.

Then, the most commonly used forms (from the Han until today) emerged:

• Standard script (also known as regular script): The standard for writing formal documents.
• Running script (or semi-cursive): Often used for informal documents and particularly flexible for calligraphy.
• Cursive script (or grass script): A highly stylised, almost abstract form used primarily for artistic purposes.

Characters evolved. Some of them emerged from original pictographic forms. But many were (and still are) concise, abstract representations of a word.

A brief history of Chinese calligraphy 

Qin dynasty (221 – 206 BC)

The Qin dynasty was the first unified Chinese empire. It only lasted briefly, but it set the foundation for unification of Chinese writing.

The Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 CE)

The Han dynasty continued on the Qin dynasty’s project of unifying China as an empire, politically and culturally.

All of the major scripts still commonly used today appeared during this time.

However, calligraphy’s main use appears to have been for engraving stele (stone pillars) with official commemorations or proclamations.

The Northern and Southern dynasties (420 – 589 AD)

This period saw China divided into smaller states that began to diverge culturally in some areas.

One of these the Eastern Jin (317–420 AD) dynasty, based in the south of China (its capital was today’s Nanjing).

It was here that calligraphy as an art (practiced outside of official government sponsored engravings) fully flourished for the first time.

It was an important part of the culture of the Northern aristocratic elite that ruled the Eastern Jin.

From this class, the most important and influential calligrapher in history emerged: Wang Xizhi (303 – 361 AD).

His son, Wang Xianzhi (344 – 386 AD) was also a leading calligrapher. The work of ‘the Two Wangs’, as they are known, appears to have been a distinct evolution from what came before it.

Sui dynasty (581 – 618 AD)

The Sui dynasty lasted for less than four decades.

But it is significant to Chinese – and Chinese calligraphy’s – history because of it laid many foundations for the following centuries’ glory, including:

• Unifying the Chinese empire (separate for centuries since the fall of the Han dynasty)
• Instituting the imperial examinations
• Beginning work on the grand canal.

Very little of its calligraphy survives. But some of the early Tang’s most important calligraphers served briefly during it.

The calligrapher most associated with this period is the monk and descendant of Wang Xi Zhi, Zhiyong (6th Century AD).

The Tang dynasty (618 – 907 AD)

The Tang dynasty was the largest unified Chinese empire to date.

(It would be surpassed in size by the Yuan dynasty four nearly centuries later, and the Qing dynasty over seven centuries later, but neither of these was ruled by ethnic Chinese leaders).

Tang dynasty calligraphy was profoundly innovative and rich. Many consider it the golden age for the art. All major scripts largely reached the height of their development. 

Thereafter, most innovations did not profoundly change the structures and dimensions of Chinese characters to the same extent.

During the Early Tang period (618 – 713 AD), calligraphy was heavily influenced by the second Tang emperor, Taizong (r. 626 – 649 AD).

He enthusiastically collected and promoted Wang Xizhi’s work, partly to build soft power and legitimacy across the empire.

Calligraphers with styles similar to Wang could gained Taizong’s patronage. One early example was Ouyang Xun (557 – 641 AD), a former Sui dynasty minister.

Ouyang used broad stokes with upturned and contracted endings within balanced character structures.

His standard script, the script most associated with the Tang dynasty, was highly influential and imitated.

Yu Shinan (558 – 638 AD) was a contemporary of Ouyang Xun who had also served in the Sui dynasty.

He had absorbed the essence of Wang Xizhi’s style and developed it in new ways, too. This had helped him secure patronage and praise from Taizong, who called him a man of ‘Five Principles’.

This comment added to the growing connection between Confucianism and calligraphy that would continue for centuries.

As with poetry, calligraphy’s greatest period came during what is today known as the High Tang period (approx. 713 – 755 AD). This period was cut short by the An Lushan Rebellion (755 – 763 AD). 

The great calligrapher Yan Zhenqing (709 – 785 AD) created a new, controlled and highly-integrated style of standard script during this time. And Zhang Xu (ca. 675 – 759 AD) innovated in wild cursive script.

Great calligraphy continued to appear over the following century and a half. 

However, as the empire waned in size and centralisation, the art became more disparate and less prominent.

The great poet Du Mu (803 – 852 AD) exhibited the highly personal, free style associated with the Late Tang period.

The Five dynasties period (906 – 960 AD)

The Five Dynasties period (also known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period) saw several states fight for control over the former unified Chinese empire.

Despite the violence and instability this brought, calligraphers and painters could still find work in the courts of these kingdoms.

(Five dynasties landscape painting even developed and brought the art of painting forward enormously.)

Later critics dismissed much of the work of this half century. However, many agree that the work of some calligraphers did still stand out.

The most popular was Yang Ningshi (873 – 954), who Su Shi later wrote was ‘not extinguished by his times.’

The Song dynasty (960 – 1279 AD)

Song dynasty calligraphy ranks amongst the finest in the art’s history. 

Like their Tang predecessors, Song emperors often used calligraphy to project ‘and set high cultural standards ‘soft power’ via imperial collections, patronage, and personal mastery.

For example, in 992 AD, the emperor commissioned an anthology of ink rubbings (essentially traced copies), Model Calligraphies from the Imperial Archives of the Chunhua Era.

It contained many known copies of Wang Xizhi’s work, greatly influencing what calligraphers could study.

By the late 11th century, scholar-officials known as the literati, emerged as an influential source of calligraphy creation and trends.

Su Shi is often held up as the central figure from this period. His circle included other great literati calligraphers such as Huang Tingjian (1045 – 1105 AD) and Mi Fu (1051 – 1107 AD).

Much of their work was focused on personal and natural styles.

It was outside of official patronage and proclamations associated the court. And they favoured informal letters and notes, prioritising a work’s “spirit-resonance” over rigid requirements set by court commissions.

The literati studied ancient masters’ styles in order to develop their own unique styles by imbuing the same principles (as opposed to techniques) of earlier works.

Their writings greatly helped build up the art theory aspect of calligraphy.

Overall, the Song period is most famous for its fluid running script, though it also produced highly valued small-regular script.

Due to advances in printing, knowledge of ancient seal script also flourished. 

Despite its diverse range of styles, Song calligraphy is generally more slender and elongated than the squat, square styles of the Tang.

The Huizong (r. 1100 – 1126) even developed his own unique variation of standard script: ‘slender gold’ script.

The Northern Song period (960 – 1127) came to an end when the Jurchen Jin dynasty invaded and captured the northern half of the empire.

Its calligraphy trends carried over into Southern Song period (1127 – 1279 AD). However, new innovative calligraphers eventually emerged and developed their own distinct styles.

The ‘peak southern Song’ period for calligraphy came during the late 12th century, when a succession of great calligraphers emerged, including:

• Lu You (1125 – 1210)
• Fan Chengda (1126 – 1193)
• Zhu Xi (1130 – 1200)
• Zhang Xiaoxiang (1132 – 1170)

The Yuan dynasty (1279 – 1368 AD)

The Mongol-ruled Yuan dynasty lasted less than a century. 

However, it was enormously influential on subsequent dynasties in many political and cultural ways. 

Yuan dynasty calligraphy was essentially a unified Chinese calligraphy. 

After all, the Song dynasty had been split in half for its last century and a half. 

It also brought the art closer to landscape painting. Literati painters began using calligraphic brushwork within their art and adding inscriptions directly onto their paintings. 

Because of increased travel and printing, artists could easily study ancient works and spread new styles across the empire. 

The Yuan calligraphers moved away from the the Southern Song focus on personal, idiosyncratic styles.

Instead, many returned to the classical foundations of the Jin (266–420 AD) and Tang dynasties to find inspiration.

The trend-setter in this regard was the dynasty’s greatest calligrapher (and painter), Zhao Mengfu (1254 – 1322). 

His (controversial) role as an official gave him direct access to calligraphy collected by the Mongols from across the empire.

The Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644)

The Ming dynasty was founded by the Han Chinese rebel Zhu Yuanzhang, who would be its first emperor Hongwu (r. 1368 – 1398).

Any Chinese who expected an enlightened, open atmosphere after Mongol rule were soon disappointed.

In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang’s tyranny began before he ruled the whole of China. 

He violently purged tens of thousands of subjects during the period he ruled a rebel base from today’s Nanjing.

One was the late Yuan cursive script master Rao Jie (ca. 1300 – 1367 AD), executed – presumably – for his connections to Zhu Yuanzhang’s rebel predecessor.