January 2025 miscellaneous calligraphy pieces

These are some other calligraphy pieces that I wrote in January 2025.
 

Drafts for exhibition submissions

天阶夜色凉如水，卧看牵牛织女星

大江东去，浪淘尽，千古风流人物

 

Revisiting some pieces from the past

独臂君子神雕伴 白衣淑女侠侣行

 

 

December 2024 miscellaneous calligraphy pieces

January 2025 calligraphy "homework"

The "homework" pieces that I submitted for January 2025.

Hanshi kanji 半紙漢字: 只有敬亭山

 
Single character 一字: 碑

 
Hansetsu kanji 半切漢字: 凍野月無色夜霜風有稜

Unsubmitted pieces:

The character 只 has several meanings, and one of them is written as 隻 too, and I made the mistake of using that... 

 

December 2024 calligraphy "homework"

41st New Year Exhibition of Sankei Sho International Association 第41回産経国際書展 新春展

My last submission for 2024 was finally being exhibited at the 41st New Year Exhibition of Sankei Sho International Association 第41回産経国際書展 新春展, so I had to find time to go take a look.

I actually made time on 26 January (Sunday) to go see the exhibition... but things did not turn out as expected. First, I made my way to Ueno to Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (東京都美術館), only to not see the exhibition being listed. That was when I realised I had gone to the wrong place... the exhibition was being held at The National Art Center, Tokyo (国立新美術館). Then I found that my phone had died (it was a Google Pixel 5a and the screen has gone dead, which I subsequently found out was a motherboard problem common in this model of phones) and I had no way to easily check how to get to the correct place (in Roppongi) from Ueno. In the end, I wandered around looking at some of the other exhibitions at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum before heading home.

Good thing my work schedule was empty today, so I made my way again to Tokyo, to the correct place this time.

 

Yes, the Sankei exhibition is listed.

 

The iconic restaurants, which also appeared in Shinkai Makoto's Your Name.

It was a weekday, yet there were more people than I expected.

The exhibition is mostly for members of the Sankei Sho International Association, who get to display their works in different sizes, including very big pieces.

But to meet the art museum's criteria for public exhibitions, it also accepted submissions from the general public. These submissions are smaller and cramped together like this.

This is my work, a phrase from Sun-zu's Art of War.

其疾如風、其徐如林、侵掠如火、不動如山

which means "as swift as the wind, as quiet as the forest, as fierce as fire, as unmovable as the mountain."

 

There were other exhibitions at the art museum too, and I roamed around one of them because it did not charge anything for admission. 😅 

 

The 47th Exhibition of International Calligraphy and Ink Painting 第47回 國際書画展 had both calligraphy and ink paintings on display. The ink paintings were also not the plain black and white ones too. There were all kinds of colourful paintings.

They accept anything created using ink, whether words or paintings, as long as the size of the work is within 178 cm by 87 cm (or up to 238 cm by 56 cm for portrait orientation works).

Back to work on my submissions for 2025!

 

Welcoming the Year of the Wood Snake 乙巳

Chinese New Year is here again, and this time, we are sending off the Year of the Wood Dragon to welcome the Year of the Wood Snake.

I actually felt a bit lazy about writing couplets, but in the end, I decided to write something for this year too.

It reads 龙飞财跃 蛇来福到, which translates roughly to the riches soar with the dragon flying off, and luck comes with the arrival of the snake.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Any paper can be used for practice

Calligraphy paper is not cheap. So I try to do what I can to find cheaper sources, including auction sites and resellers. Plus using whatever is available, such as this piece of paper which was used to wrap calligraphy paper.

 

It is the same size as a sheet of 半切 hansetsu paper. Just that it didn't absorb ink as well. But I guess any paper is better than no paper.

Advanced screening of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning-

 

I haven't really watched Gundam, except for Mercury Witch, but when it was announced that Studio Khara would be working on the next Gundam series, and the voice actors for Kumiko from Sound! Euphonium and Violet from Violet Evergarden will be voicing the main characters... well, I just had to go see it. The series itself will eventually be aired on TV in Japan, but some of the episodes were re-edited to create a movie version (81 minutes) for an advanced screening.

They were also handing out some mementos.

 

When the movie started with Char, I thought I must have gotten the story of this series wrong... I thought it was something about piloting mobile suits for clan battles, but I was greeted with a story that seemed to be from the main Gundam universe with Char leading forces that were from a faction trying to gain independence. It kind of felt a bit lore-heavy to me and I felt a bit lost, since I have no idea what the actual main story of Gundam is about. (Note to self: time to watch Gundam, like I have been telling myself to...)

Halfway through the movie, there was a time jump and we finally got into the part about clan battles. Here, the pace of setting the background was more beginner-friendly, and I could get an idea of what was going on. At the same time, this part felt like a very big jump in story, music, and overall feel from the first half. The music reminded me of the Evangelion rebuilds. It manages to introduce the three main characters, Amate (Machu), Nyaan, and Shunji, and ends at a nice point in their story for me to want to watch the series when it starts airing on TV, probably in July (my guess; The Apothecary Diaries is currently airing in the prime anime slot of Nippon TV, and it looks to be a 2-cour season, which means January to June if they are airing back to back, so the next available season for a major series like Gundam would have to be July at the earliest).

 

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of watching this movie at a cinema. The action, framing/direction, sound, and music made it worth paying for the experience. It is not some "let's just take the anime series and cut and paste something into a movie" type of compilation; rather, looking at the credits, which showed the involvement of several other animation studios, I think they actually did some work on top of what they did for the upcoming TV series to create this movie.

 

Now to wait for the official announcement of its TV air date.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX official website

Welcoming 2024 新春燦爛

Welcoming the new year, may it be a brilliant one!

新春燦爛

Version 1

Version 2

Actually wrote quite a few, most of them felt the same so I just randomly chose two of them.

The four levels of learning calligraphy

I came across this video, which talked about the four levels of learning calligraphy as:

取法于上 (上 = above, higher, up)

取法于众 (众 = the masses)

取法于今 (今 = now)

取法于道 (道 = way)

 

学习书法的四个境界

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYoRJm3no1M

 

I think it is a really good way to summarise the important things in learning calligraphy (or any art form, for that matter), the "method" (法), and thought I would try to consolidate my own thoughts based on the video's content.

 

First, the video talks about what art needs. Art needs two elements: individual uniqueness and universal commonality. Individual uniqueness sets your work apart from others, but no one will be able to appreciate your work if there is no universal commonality in it. How to acquire both of these is what the video is about, as it goes on to talk about the four levels of learning calligraphy, or the four levels of learning individual uniqueness and universal commonality.

 

取法于上 Learning from the masters (of old)

The obvious reason for learning from the masters is that we improve by learning from those better than us. But that is only one part of the story. There is a reason why the masters of old continue to be revered today: they have some kind of universal commonality in their works that continues to be relevant today. The masters of old have both individual uniqueness and universal commonality, and that is why their works survived the test of time.

取法于众 Learning from the masses

On first look, learning from the masses may seem like trying to find universal commonality, but that is actually the opposite. By looking at the works of many many people, you get to appreciate the individual uniqueness of each person. In turn, this may help you to find your own individual uniqueness that will set you apart from them.

 

取法于今 Learning from contemporaries

Your works can be unique and have commonality, but it will not be recognised unless it is relevant to your times. This is why learning from contemporaries comes in. Looking at the works of your peers allow you to discern the trend of the times. In a way, I think this means it will help you to determine the field that you will be playing on, the field upon which you will exercise your individual uniqueness while striving to maintain an element of universal commonality.

 

取法于道 Learning from the Way

What is the Way? This is found from the masses and contemporaries; it is the commonality that is found in the different works by different people stemming from their different backgrounds and different understanding. It manifests in the form of rhythm and layout/composition. This is what brings your work together.

While the video breaks it down to four levels of learning, in a way, they kind of blend into each other with no distinct boundary. I think what is more important is to recognise that there are these aspects to learning, rather than to specifically set out to fulfill each level separately.

When we first start learning calligraphy, we usually end up with learning from the masters of old, copying their works to learn how to write in their styles. This was the same for me. I practised by trying to imitate characters as closely as I can to those written by my teacher as well as those of past masters.

Recently, however, I have been expanding my practice to cover works written by other people. They include other members of the calligraphy society that I belong to, as well as contemporary calligraphy masters who have published books with their works as examples. I visit calligraphy exhibitions to see what others are writing and how they are writing them. For a while, I have also been watching YouTube videos by other calligraphy teachers to see what I can learn from them in terms of style and technique. In this way, I am learning from the masses and my contemporaries, and hopefully, through them, find the Way.

Hopefully, this learning approach bears fruit and I become better. I guess only time will tell.