Ming Chip Fung
While learning the art of calligraphy through replication of old masterpieces, I realized that in today’s world it is impossible to compete with the times in which the old masters used their brush as an everyday writing implement. I therefore transposed my thinking.
Creating calligraphy is not just about how to write. More importantly, it is about how to see and how to treat the art of calligraphy.
What is the art of Chinese calligraphy?
Before creating calligraphy, a writer must choose what to write and the verses or prose must be clear in his mind so that the flow of his brush will not falter as he thinks of what to write next and he can focus on the spaces between the strokes. As the first stroke of the first character drops onto the paper, a space relationship between the stroke and the paper emerges. As the second stroke is completed, the space inside the character and the space outside the character reflect each other. When an abundance of characters are arranged together in prose or verse, a relationship between the characters emerges, as does a relationship between the strokes. No matter how the spaces inside the characters echo each other, the strokes converse with each other, and the spaces inside and outside the characters are selected and altered, and how the strokes are treated, no Chinese calligraphy can exist free from this relationship.
When the calligrapher writes his heartfelt words on the paper, we can see that this process is time. Any process of creation involves time. What is interesting, is that in the process of appreciating the art of calligraphy, no matter which character first falls into the line of vision, a reading sequence emerges because of the literary content and habitual recognition of the stroke order of the calligraphy. This process is also time. This time process in which the writer and appreciator echo each other is a very special feature of calligraphic art.
As I exerted so much effort, I saw something very simple which people who have studied just a smattering of calligraphy will know. I saw the true face of calligraphic art.
Since it is difficult for us to compete with the fineness of the strokes in the age when the old masters used brushes as everyday writing implements, why not place the significance of the strokes below space and time and use the two elements of space and time as the focal point of calligraphy creation?
And thus I embarked on a wonderful journey.