Shodō (書道) is a traditional Japanese art of calligraphy written with brush, ink, and a kind of paper called “rice paper” specially designed for revealing the beauty of the ink and the spontaneity of the calligrapher’s movements. What makes shodō significant is the fact that the aesthetic and expressive qualities are actually independent of the verbal meaning of the written words (which include kanji, hiragana, and katakana). It is the brushstrokes of the calligrapher that truly matter. Thus, people from all around the world with different native languages and cultural backgrounds can certainly appreciate the beauty and understand the aesthetics of shodō without any perquisite knowledge of the Japanese language. It is important to note that shodō calligraphers pay attention on the process rather than on the result. While viewing a piece of shodō work, the viewer is able to trace the movements of the calligrapher by following the stroke order, capturing the emotions and sentiments of the calligrapher when he was executing the work. As a result, the viewer becomes connected spiritually with the calligrapher, despite the fact that the calligrapher may be a person born in the sixth century, on a metaphysical level, blurring the boundaries between the past and the present, and deconstructing the common cognition of the ideas of space and time. In this sense, one can say that the art of shodō stresses continuity but not completion, providing the contemporary people with a platform to engage in a dialogue with the long-gone past.
Indeed, Japanese shodō is not merely a form of art, but a way of life consisted of its own set of philosophical thoughts and spiritual practices. Besides building a bridge that links up the past and the present, shodō also manifests the consciousness of the calligrapher. In a refined work done with great mastery, the viewer can actually sense the ki (気) – or the circulation of the cosmos’ force – and the reunion between nature and human (thus, in this case, the calligrapher himself) through the recorded brushstrokes. As William Reed has noted, the brush “accurately mirrors [the calligrapher’s] mental and physical attitude. Rigid thinking produces rigid brush strokes… When mind and body are unified, the eyes are calm and clear, the muscles quick and responsive. This quality is transmitted to the brush, and becomes visible in the brush strokes.” [1] Therefore, the brushstrokes recorded on the rice paper reveals not only the mastery but also the personality and spiritual refinement of the calligrapher. As Robert Gunn has suggested, a piece of shodō work is “not only a fingerprint”; instead, it is “a snapshot expression of the mind at that moment, reflecting the degree of focus or distraction, the presence of sadness or joy, the strength or weakness at hand, the intensity of ki” of the calligrapher. [2] Every single movement as well as the control of force are evident in the brushworks. In this sense, a piece of shodō work is not a “completed work” done a long time ago that is static and silent, but a “continuous process” that is alive and vivid. The ki is still living in the work, or in other words, the circulation of the cosmos’ force is still circulating and present in each brush stroke. The work itself is alive.
To conclude, one may have realised that the viewing of a piece of shodō work is, indeed, not merely about looking at some ink splashed on a piece of paper. Instead, it is, on a spiritual level, a timeless conversation between the viewer and the calligrapher in which the viewer is able to follow the vivid movements of the calligrapher and thus free himself from the mundane matters, joining the calligrapher in his action and re-experiencing what the calligrapher experienced during the execution – the numinous and metaphysical re-union with the universe.
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Reference:
[1] William Reed, Shodo: The Art of Coordinating Mind, Body and Brush (New York: Japan Publications, 1989), 24.
[2] Robert W. Gunn, “Intimacy, Psyche, and Spirit in the Experience of Chinese and Japanese Calligraphy,” Journal of Religion and Health Vol. 40 No. 1 (2001): 157.
