Appreciation of Chinese Calligraphy

Calligraphy means "artistic writing." Writing involves written language and a written language involves a writing system. Of the world's existing writing systems, there are basically three different types: phonetic, as in English; syllabic, as in Japanese kana; and logographic. The Chinese writing system is unique and is the only one that is logographic. Logographs involve meaning. Meaning is always complicated. So logographs in writing have to be numerous. Nobody knows when Chinese writing started. In 1985 and 1986, near the city of Xi'an, China, ancient characters carved on bones were found. These bone objects have been dated to 2500 B.C. Already at that time the forms of the characters were quite sophisticated. How many characters are there in the Chinese writing system? The largest dictionary contains more than one hundred thousand characters. The contemporary daily-used characters number over three thousand. In English, there are printed forms and handwritten forms. In Chinese, because of the long history of writing, the handwritten forms have evolved inta at least seven general categories: 1. In 1899, at the Shang dynasty capital Yin, near the city of Anyang in Henan province, a large cache of bones and turtle shells was unearthed. The bones and shells with writings carved on them were used for divination in about the 13th century B.C. Over four thousand different characters were found. These characters have been called "oracle bone form." 2. Before the Qin dynasty (221-207 B.C.), characters cast in bronze or carved on stone have been preserved. These character forms were called "Great Seal form." 3. In the year 221 B.C., following the unification of China, the emperor Shihuangdi tried to unify the forms of the characters. The resulting characters were called "Small Seal forms" and show rounded corners as their distinctive feature.