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Originally Posted by ryuurui
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.
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That would make sense. He got on at Shijo and got off at Tofukuji, so we assumed he had business at the temple there. I've met a few people like that so far in my life. They don't so much have charisma, as ~atmosphere~. I can't describe it, but it's like discovering a really huge ancient tree suddenly on your front lawn, which is awe-inspiring enough, but then it also talks. An air of gravitas, maybe, without being too solemn.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryuurui
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.
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I like to think of it like when you start, you start out like the source of a little stream, and the more you flow along, the wider and deeper you get, until you finally emerge not ~into~ a sea, but AS one. And of course seas flow in all directions and yet none, and are not so much an end point, as a change in form; becoming rain and by becoming rain, becoming all other water too. So at the end of it all, you are no longer that river, but 'water' at it's simplest concept.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryuurui
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.
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Sounds brilliant. Can't wait to see them!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ryuurui
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.
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It's very true. We had a book of examples done by masters to look at when we first tried it, and even though my friend got quite close to managing one that was ~technically~ correct, there was still a very tangible difference between our efforts and the ones in the book. I guess we didn't have enough soul!
I always found it fascinating how our class could study the same technique, paint the same copy of the same example picture and yet the pictures all turn out so vastly and completely different. Just those little differences in how you sit, apply ink to the brush, the size of your hand and your mood at the time you paint leaves it's mark on the artwork. It's quite revealing really.
"This one always tries to correct her mistakes, this one's very flexible, this one anxious or frustrated, this one care-free and fluid..."