Changes of Kai Shu Characters
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Chinese Calligraphy in Kai Shu (Standard Style) 楷 書
Updated: 07/22/2008
Kai
Shu (also called Zeng Shu, 真書
)
was initiated by Wang Ts-Zhong ( 王次仲
) toward the end of the Han
Dynasty according to the legend. During the Wei
and Jin Dynasties, Zhong Yao (151-230) and Wang Hsi-Chih (303-363) initiated
a new way of writing that allowed Kai Shu and Li Shu to separate and form two
systems.
It is said Kai Shu was matured by Zhong Yao ( 鍾繇 ) in the Wei Dynasty. It’s a more standardized form of writing than Hsin Shu.
Zhong Yao’s mixture of Kai Shu and Hsin Shu
Wang Hsi-Chih learned Zhong Yao’s Kai Shu from Madame Wei ( 衛夫人 ) and his uncle Wang Yi ( 王廙 ). He also obtained the original manuscripts of Zhong Yao from his uncle Wang Dao ( 王導 ). Thus, Wang Hsi-Chih was considered the lineage holder of Zhong Yao’s Hsin and Kai Styles of calligraphy. Many of Wang Hsi-Chih’s small-scale calligraphy works like Ye Yi Luan ( 樂毅論 ) and Huang Ting Jing ( 黃庭經 ) were resembling some of the characteristics of Zhong Yao's Kai Shu.
Madame Wei’s small-scale Kai Shu
There was another lineage of Kai Shu handed down by Shu Yi-Guan ( 師宜官 ), Liang Hu ( 粱鵠 ) and Han-Dan Tsuen ( 邯鄲淳 ) to the Wei family (Wei Bo-Ru 衛伯儒, Wei Guan 衛瓘 and Wei Heng 衛恆 ) and the Tsui family (Tsui Yeh, Tsui Chian, Tsui Hong, and Tsui Hou.) Some of them were teaching calligraphy in government departments and in the upper society. Many of the tablets of the Northern Dynasties unearthed recently were believed to be from this lineage, even though most of works were anonymous. However, they share some common characteristics:
Their brush strokes retained Li Shu characteristics.
There were alternative and incorrect ways of writing some characters.
Some writings were even mixed with Zuan, Li, and Kai Styles together.
Many tablets were excellent Kai Style calligraphy works.
However, most of those tablets were buried under the ground during the Sui and Tang Dynasties and were not available for study.
During the Tang Dynasty, there were a few prominent Kai Style calligraphers like Yu Shu-Nan ( 虞世南 ), Oh-Yang Sheun ( 歐陽詢 ), Zu Sui-Liang ( 褚遂良 ) and etc. In the middle Tang era, Yen Jen-Ching ( 顏真卿 ) changed significantly the styles of the earlier calligraphy of the Tang Dynasty. His works look solemn, dignified, and majestic. Liu Gong-Chuan ( 柳公權 ) after Yen Jen-Ching created a thinner style compared to Yen’s yet still full of energy. Yen’s calligraphy was considered sinewy and Liu’s was bony.
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Basic Characteristics and Rules of Kai Shu |
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If a Chinese calligrapher either in or outside China practices Chinese
calligraphy in Simplified Chinese Characters, s/he will certainly be ridiculed
by Chinese people (including those in China.)
Kai
Shu came into use at the end of the Han Dynasty. It has been used in China for
more than 2200 years. Kai Shu is now the main Chinese writing style. The
computer fonts, newspapers, textbooks, and government documents are all written
in Kai Shu today. Except for the sake of practicing brush calligraphy, those
medias are rarely written in Zuan, Li, Tsao, and Hsin Styles.
The Chinese government on mainland China adopted a more convenient version of Simplified Chinese Characters ( 簡體字 ) while Chinese people in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and many other Asian countries and north America are still using Traditional Chinese Characters ( 繁體字 ). Both systems are Kai Shu. There are no simplified versions of Seal, Clerical, Running, and Walking Styles. The inventors of Simplified Chinese Characters borrowed some characters from the Running Style to reduce the number of strokes in many Kai Shu characters; they also coined a lot of new characters without historical and linguistic basis, thus creating confusions and misunderstanding in certain communications and severe gaps in the studies of Chinese philosophy, classics, literature, calligraphy, calligraphy inscriptions on painting, linguistics, and many other fields.
The Simplified Chinese Characters have fewer strokes suitable for casual writing in today’s business and technological environments; the Traditional Chinese Characters retain the founding principles of creating Chinese characters. Chinese brush calligraphy can only be practiced using Traditional Chinese Characters. Students, teachers, and calligraphers on mainland China don’t practice calligraphy with simplified characters. If so, the beauty and the underlying principles and theories of Chinese calligraphy will be totally twisted and destroyed.
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Traditional
Chinese Characters refer to one of two standard sets of printed Chinese
characters. The modern shapes and structures of Traditional Chinese Characters
as used today first appeared with the emergence of the Clerical Script
(i.e., Li Shu or Clerical Style) during the Han Dynasty, and have
been
more or less stable since the 5th century during the Southern and
Northern Dynasties. The term "traditional" is used to contrast
traditional characters with another standardized set — Simplified
Chinese Characters, standardized by the government of the People's
Republic of China since the 1950s.
Various ways to write “Tao (the Great Way)” in Seal Style
Various
ways to write “Tao (the Great Way)” in different styles
Since 1950s, the government of People's Republic of China adopted some characters with fewer strokes from some ancient writings and coined some characters with fewer strokes to replace some characters with more strokes yet already existed for thousands of years. Hence the term "Simplified Chinese Characters ( 簡體字 )" as opposed to Traditional Chinese Characters ( 繁體字 ). 繁 means "tedious" or "complex"; it does not mean "traditional." The purpose of adopting Simplified Chinese Characters in the PRC was meant for an easier reading (with less number of characters) and less pen-strokes in writing characters. It is the attempt of making Chinese more phonetic rather than having many words pronounced the same.
The
importance of Traditional Chinese Characters lies in the fact that each
character represents a very specific meaning or alternative meanings.
This is of extreme importance because it allows the reader to understand
a written word even without the word being in context. However,
if Traditional Chinese Characters are to be replaced totally or
partially by Simplified Chinese Characters, one would not be able to
understand immediately these texts and writings because words have lost
their meanings and they simply represent a way of pronouncing the texts.
As time progresses, this has resulted in the lost of history and culture
studies. Even in China, students of graduate schools or higher education
must learn Traditional Chinese Characters in order to study the classics
of The Book of Changes (I Jing), philosophy, calligraphy,
painting, martial arts, Chinese herbs and acupuncture, literature, and
many historical documents.
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Recent
rumors say that the Education Ministries of Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
other Asian countries are setting up conferences with China to eventually
restore to the Traditional Chinese Characters and phase out the Simplified
Chinese Characters. There have been innumerous miscommunications,
misunderstandings, and errors in business and cultural studies in the past few
decades since the simplified version was introduced and adopted.
Many calligraphy teachers agree that students may learn Chinese calligraphy from either Kai Shu, Li Shu or Zuan Shu. Most students start from Kai Shu, or to be more precise, the Kai Shu in the Tang Dynasty, Tang Kai ( 唐楷 ). (See also: www.art-virtue.com/tutorial/index.htm#4)
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1.
點
2.橫
3.豎
4.鉤
5.提
6.撇
7.短撇
8.捺
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The tablets, monuments on cliffs, images on tablets, epitaphs, and rolls of scriptures during the Northern Dynasties ( 北朝 ) added richness to the legacy of Chinese calligraphy. Except for scriptures, the writings were preserved on stones. When calligraphy on paper was transferred onto stones, the level of the art had already gone down to a certain degree. The calligraphy works of the Southern Dynasties were constantly transferred from stone to stone. The more times a calligraphy work was transferred onto stones, its artistic level and nuances went down even more. Thus, compared to the work of the Southern Dynasties, Chinese calligraphy work of the Northern Dynasties gives a more original and unmodified look. This is why the Ching Dynasty calligraphers during 1800s were focusing on tablets of the Northern Dynasties.
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Historical
Background During the Southern & Northern Dynasties After the royal family of the Jin Dynasty immigrated to south of the Long River, China became two independent countries, south and north. Both the south and the north countries were divided into several dynasties. This was the longest time of split and chaos in Chinese history from 420 to 589 AD. Calligraphy achieved a high level despite of the political unrest. Two calligraphy schools were formed during this time: the Te School ( 帖學 ) and the Bei School ( 碑學 ). 帖 usually means writings or works on paper; 碑 means works engraved on monuments or tablets. The Bei School was generally considered as styles with more strength and energy. The Southern Dynasties inherited the tradition of the Jin Dynasty. Tablets and monuments were forbidden since the Jin Dynasty and so there were more new styles of calligraphy. In contrast, the Northern Dynasties did not forbid the erections of tablets.
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Northern Tablets ( 北碑 ) comprehensively refer to calligraphy written on tablets, monuments on cliffs, images on tablets, and epitaphs. Most of the famous tablets were erected during the Wei Dynasty and were referred as Wei Bei ( 魏碑 ) or Tablets of Wei Dynasty.
According
to Kang You-Wei ( 康有為
) and Yang So-Jing
(
楊守敬
) in the Ching Dynasty, the calligraphy work of Wei Bei inherited
the spirits and tradition of the Han and Wei Dynasties better than the Te
School, the calligraphy preserved on paper.
Since the Tang Dynasty, some calligraphers began to write each character squarely and neatly in grids. This was very opposite to the calligraphers in the previous dynasties who wrote freely without confinement. Thus Tang Kai ( 唐楷 ) looked neat and aligned. But they were not any more “natural” – they were more man-made and less inspired from Nature and the artists' mind. Thus the spiritual beauty and simplicity of human nature were confined in man-made rules and grids. Tang Kai did reach a very high level and look very beautiful and elegant; but only few calligraphers in the early Tang Dynasty had inherited the spiritual beauty and strength of the previous Northern and Southern Dynasties. Calligraphers like Oh-Yang Sheun, Zu Sui-Liang, and Yu Shu-Nan were born before the Tang Dynasty was established. They were born in previous dynasties and had learned calligraphy as it was then. At least they inherited or instilled the legacy in creating their personal styles. But what happened to most calligraphers after them who were born in the Tang Dynasty and had never learned the calligraphy of the previous dynasties? And what happened to those students who only stick to Tang Kai in their lifetime and never explore the intrinsic beauty in previous dynasties? Inevitable deterioration! (according to the proponents of the Bei School) Generally speaking, the calligraphy before the Tang Dynasty look more organic and natural while most calligraphy after the Tang Dynasty look more geometric, mechanical, and confined.
Later,
it was until Zhang Shui, Yen Jen-Ching, Huai Su, and some other calligraphers
who inherited the legacy from previous calligraphers and had their own unique
achievement. Most of the other calligraphers were just following the inevitable
path of being confined, as opposed to the natural beauty embodied in the Bei
School or Wei Bei.
During the Ching Dynasty, the study and practice of Chinese calligraphy were divided into the Te School and the Bei School. Generally speaking, before 1820 it was the Te School era and after 1820 it became the Bei School era. Since the Sung and Yuan Dynasties, the Te School that focused on the calligraphy of the Two Wangs (Wang Hsi-Chih and his son Wang Hsian-Chih) was declining and the Bei School that studied Zuan and Li Styles before the Han and Wei Dynasties was growing. This was an undeniable fact.
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In
the early Ching Dynasty, Emperor Kun Shi ( 康熙
) favored Dong Chi-Tsun's
(
董其昌
) calligraphy and
many people studied Dong's work. At the same time, there
were people against Dong’s style because of his lack of masculine
strength. Soon more people
realized that Dong's
calligraphy was not in the top level and deep in spirits. They could
never become great calligraphers even if they achieved the same level as
Dong
did. Later, they switched to Zhao Meng-Fu ( 趙孟頫 ) who was renowned in the Yuan Dynasty but was disliked by
some serious calligraphers. However, the early Ching Dynasty’s
calligraphy environment was deeply influenced by Zhao Meng-Fu, Dong
Chi-Tsun, Su Shu, and Huang Ting-Jian.
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As
the popularity of seal carving grew in the Ching Dynasty, Zuan Shu, Li Shu, and
the study of ancient characters
were gaining importance. Chinese calligraphy revitalized and people began to search for higher
levels of beauty from the earlier calligraphy of the Han, Wei, and Jin Dynasties.
Ruen
Yen ( 阮元 ), Bao Shu-Cheng ( 包世臣
), and Kang You-Wei (
康有為
) even published theories and
books to demean the Te School and to promote the Bei School. Many Zuan Shu and Li
Shu specialists as well as linguists were focusing on tablets from the Chin and Han
Dynasties to the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
Wei Bei is the summation of all calligraphy on tablets of the North Wei Dynasty (386-534). As the famous calligraphy theorist in the Ching Dynasty, Kang You-Wei ( 康有為 ) summarized, there are ten beauties and thirteen schools of Wei Bei.
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The Ten Beauties of Wei Bei “魏碑十美” |
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1.
Bold, resolute, and majestic 2.
Solemn and respectful in atmosphere 3.
Jumping and springing brush motion 4.
Strokes were precipitous and thick 5.
Consciousness and posture were surprising and graceful 6.
Spirit was flying 7.
Interest and mood were merry, lively, solid and sound 8.
Rules of bones were understood thoroughly 9.
Structures were natural 10.
Blood and muscles were lush
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Selected
Masterpieces
of Wei Bei |
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The
Zhong Yao (151-230) 鍾繇 |
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Madame Wei (272-349) 衛夫人 |
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Wang
Hsi-Chih (303-361) 王羲之 |
Wang Hsi-Chih's small scale Kai Shu Ye Yi Luan ( 樂毅論 )
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Wang
Hsian-Chih (344-386)
王獻之 |
Wang Hsian-Chih's small scale Kai Shu 玉版十三行
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(A work attributed to Zu Sui-Liang)
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One of Liu's most celebrated work is an essay about a pagoda: The Buddhist Pagoda of Xuan Mi ( 玄秘塔碑 ).
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Colophon of Ou-Yang Shuen's Kai Shu Tablet Hwa Du Si Bei |
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乾隆皇帝酷愛書法，對書法家要求嚴謹規範，獨寵“館閣體”，扼殺了書法藝術的個性，使其趨于退步。然而清朝書法家中，金石書家翁方綱、貌豐骨勁味厚神藏風格的劉墉、書風古樸多姿的成親王、鐵保合稱“翁”、“劉”、“成”、“鐵”四家，與稍後受漢學影響，追蹤漢魏六朝，突破“館閣體”束縛呈現新貌的金農、鄭燮等相應，起承前啟後作用。
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PLEASE CHECK BACK LATER.
Most
calligraphers agree that Kai Shu is the best choice to start learning Chinese
calligraphy. The reason is that Kai Shu is easier to start and it’s the current
standard style of writing and the current printing fonts used in textbooks,
computers, and public medias. Students may choose a model from the Tang Dynasty
tablets and (or) from Wei Bei tablets for a deeper foundation in techniques and
theories.
If
the student is serious enough and has studied the benefits and theories of Wei
Bei, s/he will realize not to end up in Tang Kai only because
many serious theorists consider Tang Kai as a
“deteriorating form” in structure, nature, and spirit. For a non-native
Chinese, why are those "beautiful" Tang Dynasty Kai Shu works
considered "deteriorating" by serious theorists? There are many aesthetical,
philosophical, and historical issues
to be discussed. Even though Kai Shu
calligraphers in the Tang Dynasty achieved a very high level, we may never reach
their level by practicing Tang Kai only. Almost all the Tang Kai calligraphers
learned or were influenced by the previous dynasties’ work. So cross training
or learning is very important as to broaden one's artistic views.
Guan Ge Ti ( 館閣體 )
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