Chinese calligraphy
By admin on 2014-12-29

Chinese calligraphy, which once enjoyed immense prosperity in ancient times, is seeking a revival as a range of initiatives are being put into place to rescue the declining art form.

Several new calligraphy academies and calligraphy-themed parks will open their doors after Spring Festival to promote the art form, encourage cooperation between calligraphers and attractingnewcomers to the field.

"Boosting theoretic research on calligraphy and promoting its innovation as well as international communications will be our main tasks," explained Wang Liang, director of the newly-established Beijing Calligraphy Academy, during the institution's inaugural meeting early last month.

Funds will be raised to help provide financial aid for the publication of academic research, holding exhibitions of high-quality calligraphy works and rewarding Beijing-born calligraphers with their achievements in the art, Wang said.

Handan Calligraphy Institute in Hebei Province opened its doors last month and construction work of a calligraphy-themed park will begin later this year in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. An open calligraphy-themed park will also be built in Beijing to enable residents to enjoy calligraphy works while relaxing and to serve as an ideal space for exhibitions.

"It will undoubtedly be helpful in terms of encouraging the public to get close to calligraphy," commented calligrapher Xiao Wenfei, saying that although calligraphy once enjoyed a high status in China, in modern times calligraphy is far from common Chinese people.

"Nowadays more and more people are taking time out to enjoy fine art like oil painting and traditional Chinese painting as the main aspect of their art lives," Xiao said. "But few are showing interest in Chinese calligraphy works."

With a history of more than 3,000 years, traditional Chinese calligraphy has a strong reputation in the international art world and was prominent in China from the Jin Dynasty (265-420) until the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when it was closely associated with the educated elite's social and cultural life.

Calligraphy was the main medium in which poetry and prose were documented during ancient times and expressed and held Buddhist scriptures. It was also usual to see a traditional Chinese landscape painting matched with a poem in the corner, written in calligraphy.

Chinese calligraphy was included as one of the world's intangible cultural heritages by UNESCO in September, which served as an encouraging sign for calligraphers lovers in China.

However despite its recent recognition, many art experts and critics in China are still concerned about Chinese cal-ligraphy's future, due to the dwindling numbers of people interested in the art form and the removal of calligraphy from many school's curriculums.

As a traditional Chinese art, calligraphy is losing its vitality both in terms of artistic innovation and its popularity among the public, commented Wang Yong, director of the Chinese Calligraphy Institute at the Chinese National Academy of Arts.

Wang said that Chinese calligraphy needs to be promoted and popularized at a public level, especially among Chinese youth, as a majority of calligraphy lovers are elderly and only a small number of young people interested in this form of art.

He explained that in many secondary schools across the country calligraphy classes have been eliminated, adding that the move was a loss in terms of fostering young people's abilities to appreci-ate calligraphy as well as educating calligraphers for the future.

"For any form of art, if it loses the young, it loses everything," Wang said. "The problem should be taken into serious consideration."

Many blame the convenience of the computer as one of the main reasons for calligraphy's dilemma, as few are willing to practice handwriting and modern technology is taking the place of pencils and brushes as the main writing tool.

"How would a high school student get interested in calligraphy when he can type very fast in Chinese characters of different fonts with a simple screen and a keyboard?" asked calligrapher Xiao.

Lack of funding for the development of the art for is another problem facing Chinese calligraphy at present, according to a report conducted by the Chinese Calligraphy Institute at the Chinese National Academy of Arts.

Released late last month, the 2009 Annual Report of Chinese Calligraphy revealed that almost all calligraphy associations around China are facing funding shortages when holding exhibitions or other related activities, which to a large extent is restricting calligraphy's development.

The report highlighted that many exhibitions originally scheduled to be large-scale shows were forced to downsize due to a lack of funds and their social influence lessened accordingly. The report also stated that several international projects failed to get off the ground.