Quote:
Originally Posted by Columbine
A bit belated, but I really like this one.
My friend described him as living calligraphy.
|
Nice one, Columbine.
Black robes, sounds like a Zen Buddhism monk. People like this do happen but are rare. One of them is my teacher, who is such an amazing person. Extremely knowledgeable yet insanely humble and natural. He is like a walking human fossil to me. People studying calligraphy are completely different, as showing their true feelings is their art. After 60+ years of studying, as you friend brilliantly put, he has became a calligraphy itself.
I think that is what 無方 (
muhou) stands for. It literally means "no shape" or "no direction", where unity of soul and knowledge is so advanced that the work seems to have "no form" or follows "no direction". It is the essence of form and aesthetics as well as it is a direction of its own by means of following or suggesting none. When you look at a calligraphy written by a person like that its like looking at a live organism that breathes, thinks and feels. It is because he has become one with what he or she creates. In terms of 21st century, it would be comparable to Neo becoming the Matrix itself.
I just came back from an 60th anniversary of All Japan Calligraphy Association, where many works of that scope were displayed. I will post some pictures in a while.
Going back to the enso circle or self, it is one of the most difficult strokes in calligraphy. The difficulty is not hidden in "drawing" a line that goes round the page, but writing one that depicts one's energy. Calligraphy matures with life experience therefore age, and technique is also important but in a way secondary. If one cannot write with his soul, but does it with the brush, it will never be calligraphy but merely shuuji, despite how much time he or she devotes to studying proper technique.