Top 5 Chinese Calligraphy Masterpieces Explained

So, we've all seen Chinese calligraphy before, maybe at a restaurant or at a museum or at some rich person's house. So, is it just fancy writing, or is there something more to it that makes Chinese calligraphy special in the art world? But first, if you like what we're doing here, please like, subscribe, and consider becoming a member. It really helps us to keep this channel going. All right, folks. Let's get to it. What exactly makes Chinese calligraphy unique? I mean, we also have calligraphy in the West. How is Chinese calligraphy any different? Well, in the West, calligraphy is more of a decoration. Now, there's all sorts of fancy fonts. You've got paliscript, you've got zapino, and a bunch more. And they're very pretty to look at and artistic and all of that. But in the end, the font is there to serve the text. But for Chinese people, calligraphy is a fine art. And some would say it's the greatest of all the traditional types of art in China. Look at this. It's just one character. I meaning love. The word itself has become art. What does this work tell you? That love is messy and chaotic. That love is rich and full of meaning. Either way, the script becomes the art. And that's completely different from western calligraphy. The second difference between western and Chinese calligraphy is that in Chinese calligraphy you use a brush not a pen. So with western calligraphy when you use a pen you can be precise and also make some slight changes between thick and thin lines. Using a brush completely changes the game. You can change the thickness of your line. You can do different changes of direction. You can shift the fluidity of your motion. You can do all kinds of things that you can't very easily do with a pen. Take these two versions of the same character fu. The font is more or less the same, but one artist chooses a full but conservative style, whereas another chooses a rounded and flowing style. Using a brush gives you that kind of leeway. And not only can you do Chinese calligraphy with a pen, you can also do it with a mop. Now, you might be thinking, okay, so Chinese calligraphy is just a type of painting, then. So, let's compare it to Western oil painting, and I'll show you that Chinese calligraphy is still completely unique. Let's start with a side-by-side comparison. So, if you take a look at this portrait of Napoleon, it says something to you immediately. Napoleon's just been crowned emperor and he's got his robe and scepter and everything. Anybody passing by this painting would know the basic idea of what it's all about. Of course, there are deeper artistic interpretations. In this painting, Napoleon has the same pose as Zeus often has. So, you could say that the artist is trying to make Napoleon into a god. But you don't actually need that info to understand it on a basic level. Now, let's look at this work of cursive calligraphy by the famous calligrapher Longer. Sure, there's a text, but that's not really what it's about. We're looking for the movement of the strokes, how it flows, if the characters are harmoniously balanced both with themselves and with the rest of the characters. And your interpretation might be totally different from someone else's. Case in point, the Chinese emperor describing calligraphy as follows, which basically means his writing is so majestic and free. It's like a dragon leaping over the gates of heaven or a tiger lying on top of the Phoenix palace. Did you also see a tiger sitting on a phoenix palace when you looked at this? probably not. And that's the point. Chinese calligraphy is really a type of abstract art. You have to do a lot of work to understand it, and you're going to have a completely different interpretation than somebody else. Here's another example. This was done by an emperor named Quidon, who was a really good calligrapher. He came up with his own calligraphy style that he called slender gold. Are those the first two characters that come to your mind when you read this? Probably not. Here's the thing. Not only is Chinese calligraphy abstract art, it's also performance art. Let me explain. If you're going to do an oil painting, you can revise stuff. You can completely paint over something and redo it if you want to. Kind of like this, but hopefully better. But you can't do that with Chinese calligraphy since it looks terrible if you touch up calligraphy. You just get one shot. So when you look at a famous piece of calligraphy, it's like going to a great live show. You're getting a snapshot of someone's art at one particular moment in time. And even if the person tried to do the exact same thing later, they probably wouldn't be able to do it again. Here's an example. Let's go back to a piece that we just looked at. Maybe the most famous work of Chinese calligraphy ever called the preface to the orchid pavilion by Wanger, the guy we just mentioned. This piece is famous for great variety and passion. Some characters are conservative, others flow with abandon. The thing is, Wongjer did this when he was drunk. He had also just met some of his poet friends, so his mind was flowing with interpretation. So when he woke up the next day, he tried to do a new one sober, but it just didn't come out right. That great work of calligraphy was the result of his mind state in that moment, and he could never create anything quite like it again. So while western oil painting is great for showing the depth of your technical skill, Chinese calligraphy is great for showing a person's character or at least his state of mind. Take for instance Sudong Po, one of China's greatest poets. Sudong Po was a generally optimistic guy and a huge lover of food. Sudong Po pork is named after him. If you look at his calligraphy, what do you see? big fat happy characters. But look at this work. Same guy later time. Sudon Po had been exiled and his mother had just died. So you can see a thinness and chaos in his brush strokes. Sudon Po's inner world had changed his writing. Here's another famous work of calligraphy from an uncle devastated from the brutal death of his son in war. Without even knowing the meaning of the text, you can feel the anguish in his words. Anyway, the final reason that Chinese calligraphy is different from painting is that you can combine it with a painting. Look at this painting by the Ting Dynasty artist. So, you've got a beautiful house with some mountains and some birds flying by. A peaceful scene, but there's some calligraphy there. And what does it say? The geese take away my sorrow and a full moon appears on the steps of the mountain. So now you've got another layer of meaning. There's sadness and loneliness. And what does the style of the calligraphy tell us? Well, that's up for you to interpret. But what calligraphy does is allow us to converge painting and text into one unified work of art. That's something you almost never find anywhere else. So that's my take on why Chinese calligraphy is a type of artwork different from anything else in the world. Did I miss anything? Please let me know in the comments below. And until next time, if you enjoy the deeper meaning behind Chinese culture, folklore, legends, and strange true stories, then come explore more with me on Jared Tells Tales, where mystery, meaning, and the otherworldly still live on. Click the link to watch your first tale.