Initializing The Discussion On Appearance And Spirit Of Chinese Calligraphy

When appearance and spirit of any Chinese calligraphy art piece are concerned, it always ended up with pointing at the two ends, i.e. it could either be knowable, predictable or not knowable, unpredictable. Both eastern and western cultures uses their own styles to describe "can", and explore the "cannot"In Western tradition, spirit is not knowable or unknown, but matters of rational nature are knowable. Appearance can be seen but sense organs or eyes cannot be trusted. Civilization goes on with entanglements of "can" and "cannot". In Chinese culture:Lao Tze said:"The path of practice that could be verbally described is actually not a real or ultimate path of practice." Confucius said:"there is no certainty of can or cannot."[1] From the beginning until the end, things are just uncertain and unpredictable, yet very surprisingly those "seeds" of cultures are preserved.Each culture has its specific way of thinking. At the mean time it also has to egoistically find ways to get a balanced point so that it is sustainable and possible to survive continuously. Thinking and enquiring on culture has been used as the guiding theme for this thesis.Now let us continue to discuss on the appearance as seen calligraphically and the spiritual confluence that brought out the spirits of a Chinese calligraphy, it would also bring about the eventual enquiries on "can" or "cannot".This is because Chinese calligraphy started to root and grow in the soil of Chinese culture, each of its genetic chains/link contains the primitive information of Chinese culture. The appearance of Chinese calligraphy is not only a matter of Chinese words that appeared in sight, that can be analyzed, that can be fully gauged; but as a whole, it also includes the art of writing the strokes, as well as the structure of the words.The appearance of a word does not remain stagnant, it keeps on transforming. In order to regain its natural liveliness, while observing the appearance of the word and to link that calligraphy appearance with its pictorial view; then return to observe its "tendons, bones, blood and flesh"(figuratively, it means the little joining strokes between main strokes, the structure of each word, the amount of ink and the broadness of the strokes in each word), from the main appearance of the word; its evolution from the past could be traced, changing and adapting are inevitable, to feel its appearance in terms of Yin and Yang (whether it is masculine or feminine in nature) It can also make use of qi and strength from the grey areas of the written calligraphy to further reveal and explain its appearance.The spirit of calligraphy is always:in a consolidated and appealing state, it always let those who appreciate it to feel elated and get excited, from the minor probability of being unpredictable; it becomes something that lingers into the spiritual part of calligraphy. To summarize, when yin and yang are complimenting each other, they could open up the compact appearance and could also venture into the unpredictable spiritual territory.Such spiritual experience led us to arrive at various wonderful doors in the areas between "can" and "cannot", the dialogue between "appearance" and the "spirit" of a calligraphy must go through a series of interaction between "I","the ink" and "the ancient calligraphy book" numerous times, and the most sincere mutual feeling of complementing the Chinese calligrapher, only then that spiritual experience depicting the merge of appearance and spirit could possibly materialize.As the saying goes "appearance and spirit are the same";"a calligrapher and his calligraphy book (of reference) are both maturing simultaneously" is an all-round condition achieved through continuous interactions and feelings, it is not a matter that is to be solved through a series of questions and answers. By dealing with questions and answers means there are still distinguished as "here and there" at the opposite side of the river banks/shores, it is still a describable matter.When Chinese calligraphy flows continuously from the source of "yin and yang" that interacts mutually to complement each other, it is an experience between the describable and indescribable. To cling on to any end means one would straight away miss out the confluence of appearance and spirit in Chinese calligraphy.