Different Strokes: An Insider’s Guide to Chinese Calligraphy in Tokyo (Part 2/2)

Continuing our tour of the Wen Zhengming and Artworks of the Ming Dynasty exhibition (a joint exhibition hosted concurrently by the Tokyo National Museum and the Taito City Calligraphy Museum), we headed to Ueno for a master class in the fundamentals of calligraphy appreciation. Our guide for the day, Chinese calligrapher Yuhou, previously explained how meaning is secondary, and how it’s more important to emotionally connect with the atmosphere conveyed by a calligraphic work. In this installment, we explore masterpieces on display at the Tokyo National Museum, and discuss some of the specific criteria that help inform a deeper understanding of calligraphy.

Style is key, and Wen Zhengming’s “small standard script” is king

Off to a strong start at the Taito City Calligraphy Museum, our next destination was the Tokyo National Museum, to view the second half of the Wen Zhengming exhibition, housed on the fourth floor of the Toyokan(Asian Gallery).

When appraising calligraphy, one key criterion is the style of script enlisted by the artist. Chinese calligraphy utilizes a handful of codified scripts, each tailored to a specific occasion. Official documents are written in a sharp, clear font called “kaishu” (“Standard Script”). A slightly looser variant is “xíngshu” (“Running Script”), while an even more drastically fluid hand is described as “caoshu” (“Cursive Script”). The permutations are seemingly unlimited. Standard Script itself evolved from the archaic “lìshu” (“Cerical Script”). On the far end of the spectrum, there’s a radically artistic variant of the cursive script whose sweeping brushstrokes push calligraphy to the extreme limits of legibility, earning the moniker “kuangcao,” for “crazy cursive.”

Yuhou: “I think Wen Zhengming best excelled at Standard Script. If his Running Script and Cursive Script warrant high marks, then his Standard Script would earn a perfect score. In particular, I always go back and reference his approach to the Small Standard script, which you could think of as a sort of lowercase subcategory of the Standard Script.”

Our personalized docents for the day, Jun Tomita and Katsunori Mutobe, East Asian Calligraphy specialists with the Tokyo National Museum, whisk Yuhou toward a piece titled Poems in Standard Script.

The superb work, which Mutobe describes as “the exhibition’s crown jewel,” was authored in small standard script by Wen Zhengming at the impressive old age of 83.

As Tomita admiringly explains, “It’s rare to find such vigorous brushwork from an octogenarian.”

Yuhou nods in agreement, “This is truly a crowning achievement.”

“Not many people can successfully express their own personality and stay true to their own style while writing in such a tiny script. Least of all at age 83. In Wen Zhengming’s standard script, you can detect the influence of successive generations of calligraphers, everyone from Wang Xizhi to Zhong Yao, Zhong Mengfu, Wang Xianzhi, and Huang Tingjian. He distilled their essence, and made the best aspects of each calligrapher his own.”

The uniformity and precision of his calligraphy looks as if it were a typeface, printed out from a modern-day computer.

“Perhaps Wen Zhengming’s small standard script could best be articulated with the phrase, ‘wēnróu jīng jué’”.

Meaning “exquisitely gentle,” the epithet is quite apt. Scanning the orderly grid, I begin to notice a certain warmth and tenderness emanating from each individual, miniscule character.

According to Yuhou, very few calligraphers manage to master all of the calligraphic scripts. Instead, they tend to specialize in specific styles, developing a distinctive flair along the way. One of the joys of calligraphy appreciation is identifying which calligrapher’s work resonates with you, for each respective style.

Passionate or phlegmatic: The calligrapher’s two moods

Another benchmark for evaluating calligraphy is, of course, the artist’s idiomatic style. The Tokyo National Museum’s leg of the exhibition drew on the museum’s impressive collection to contextualize Wen Zhengming through the work of his contemporaries. Yuhou lingered particularly long in front of Xu Wei’s Poem in Cursive Script.

“See how he renders these characters? He’s absolutely engrossed in the act of writing. There’s an urgency, as if he’s forgotten all else. You can feel the raw, visceral emotion. His calligraphy is the opposite of cool and composed. Xu Wei led an unbelievably tumultuous existence. He even murdered his own wife! That said, he was a consummate artist.”

In this collection of Ancient-style Poem in Seven Character Phrases, the frenetic calligraphy seems poised to leap off the page in places. Although the content is unintelligible to the untrained eye, the calligrapher’s convictions are readily apparent. There is no hesitation to be found in these brushstrokes. Admiring Xu Wei’s work, one can’t help but feel invigorated with a palpable sense of excitement.

“Xu Wei’s work defies the facile metrics of ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Instead, his work is underpinned by a searing passion. Art can be broadly divided into two categories: the passionate, and the phlegmatic. Whereas Xu Wei is an example of the former, Wen Zhengming epitomizes the latter. At least in the calligraphy world, there is no middle ground. All master calligraphers can be categorized in either camp.”

Another “must-see” work recommended by Yuhou was the Quatrain in Five-character Phrases in Running Script by Dong Qichang, an artist synonymous with the late Ming dynasty. 

“Gentle yet strong, with sophistication and grace. The ‘passionate’ subset encompasses a wide variety of calligraphers, and Dong Qichang was an unmistakable romanticist. See how light his ink runs? His lines are faint and fragile, yet they radiate warmth. He was among the last of the wenren (scholar-artists), who expressed their own emotions while still respecting the classics.”

“Dong Qichan’s rendering of Chinese characters is somehow reminiscent of the Japanese kana syllabary.”

In Yuhou’s retelling, the Ming dynasty marked a final hurrah for the cultured literati class. Following dynasty’s end, the best calligraphy from the period made its way into collections overseas. This was especially true in Japan, where Chinese Ming dynasty pieces were sought out by Japanese Edo period (1603-1868) collectors.

As Tomita estimates, “Between the Tokyo National Museum and the Taito City Calligraphy Museum, I think this exhibition succeeded in assembling nearly all the work by Wen Zhengming currently held in Japan.” Spanning centuries and a sea, the exhibition also proved a symbolic, if not slightly circuitous, venue to intersect with Yuhou. There is a degree of irony in a Chinese calligrapher, active in both Japan and China, viewing work from Wen Zhengming in Ueno, Tokyo. It would seem that we have come full circle, in an era of unparalleled interconnectivity. 

And yet, Chinese characters – whether known as hanzi in China or kanji in Japan – have linked the languages, and therefore people, of both countries since the literal dawn of recorded history in the region. As Yuhou counsels, “Calligraphy is about more than mere technique alone. To become a true calligrapher, you must also study the human heart.” When approaching a piece of calligraphy, it’s important to not only bask in the visual effect created by the written word, but also to try and discern the artist’s emotional impetus. At least, this journalist gained a newfound appreciation of calligraphy when she approached the work not as paper and ink, but as figurative windows into each artist’s soul. As I parted ways with Yuhou and stepped out into the Tokyo evening, I felt an extra skip in my step, and a realization that the Wen Zhengming exhibition had brought me a little bit closer to unlocking the myriad mysteries that await in the world of Chinese calligraphy.

Text: Maika Mori　Photos: Kuniko Hirano
Note: Photos denoted with an asterisk (*) provided courtesy of the Tokyo National Museum.

Yuhou
Calligrapher. Representative Director of the Japan-China Calligraphy Association.
Born 1965, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Having begun his study of calligraphy at age three, upon graduation from middle school Yuhou was selected to continue his training at the elite Children’s Palace, where he received specialized, extracurricular instruction. A longtime admirer of the work of calligrapher Yukei Teshima (1901-1987), Yuhou relocated to Japan in 1999. He entered the Nihon Shodo Senmon Gakko (Japanese Calligraphy Technical School), where he studied calligraphy in the Japanese kana syllabary. An avid lecturer, Yuhou has taught at several Chinese universities, including Nanchang University, Beijing Normal University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. In addition to conducting calligraphy courses in Japan, Youhou has also exhibited prolifically as an artist himself, conducting numerous international solo exhibitions. In 2019, Yuhou appeared on the NHK BS program Kiseki no Lesson Shodo-hen (Miracle Lessons: Calligraphy Edition), where his unique and straightforward approach to instruction was met with resounding acclaim.

Commemorating the 550th Anniversary of the Birth of Wen Zhengming and Artworks of the Ming Dynasty

■Tokyo National Museum
Exhibition Venue: Toyokan（Asian Gallery） 4th Floor, Room 8
Dates: Thursday, January 2nd through Sunday, March 1st, 2020
Hours:
Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday: 9:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Last entry at 4:30 p.m.)
Friday and Saturday: 9:30 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. (Last entry at 8:30 p.m.)
Museum Closed: Mondays
Museum website: www.tnm.jp

Note: Information in this article current as of February 2020.