Calligraphy in Japan is one of the most ancient and widespread art styles in the East. Born in ancient China, the way of Sedo (the way of calligraphy), as it is commonly called, has developed high calligraphic abilities and has become one of the tools for career advancement. In this article we will briefly tell you about Japanese calligraphy, which we teach students in our club "Ten-Chi" dojo and may interest you in this direction.

Tools for calligraphy

There are four basic calligraphy tools you can probably guess about:

Ink
Inkwell
Paper
Brush
However masters of calligraphy, already not the first year its practitioners use much more instruments for Japanese calligraphy letters:

Black Mat, called Shitajiki
Metal for pressing paper in time of writing-Riot
Special thin Japanese paper for calligraphy classes – Vasi
Fude-brush for writing calligraphic texts
Ink – suzuri
Ink for writing, or Suzumi

Important components of Japanese calligraphy in the process of its study are:

Learning Japanese
Study of calligraphy writing in Japanese calligraphy technique

The history of the emergence of Japanese calligraphy

The basics of Japanese calligraphy were borrowed from Chinese calligraphy in the 5th century ad.

First the Japanese must be mounted adhere to the Chinese style of hieroglyphic writing, artists were called "the three best brushes" - Tampico (only in Japan at the time was exactly three best masters of calligraphy).

A little later, the best students of the "three brushes" continued the work of their calligraphy mentors. Ono-no-Tofu, Fujiwara no Yukinari, and Fujiwara but-but Sukemasa called it as "Three-track brushes" - Sanseki.

A little later, Chinese masters Eisai and Dogen arrived in Japan from China, which largely determined the development of Japanese calligraphy, familiarizing Japanese calligraphers with variations of the Chinese song style.

Later in the history of Japanese calligraphy other outstanding masters left their mark. Among them was the master, Yoshitsune, sen no Rikyu and Ryuseki Morimoto. Masters not only composed poems, fixing them on paper in the form of calligraphy, but also began to introduce new styles and directions.

So, for example, in the Edo Era (1600-1868) there were new decorative styles Kabuki-moji and dzeruri-moji, which were used to design theater posters Kabuki and Dzeruri.

Contemporary Japanese calligraphy

Keeping the traditions of all times, the direction of Japanese calligraphy is constantly expanding its borders. Today, Japanese calligraphy is constantly penetrated by new techniques and decorative motifs that make calligraphy an even more striking art form. Abstractions and avant-garde techniques are beginning to be present in calligraphy to a large extent.

Japanese calligraphy finds its expression in the component of interiors made in Oriental style. Also very popular Souvenirs and items, stylized Japanese style and decorated with Japanese calligraphy characters.

Learning Japanese calligraphy

Is it worth it to learn Japanese calligraphy?

Definitely worth it if you want to not only learn the great art of calligraphy, but also to better understand and experience Japanese culture.

Calligraphy develops concentration and attention, trains hands and at the same time frees the head, it is not for nothing that calligraphy is one of the ways of meditation. Doing Japanese calligraphy is truly relaxing-light smooth lines, strokes, dots on suzumi... in Your hands, the centuries-old art comes to life, and Japanese philosophy becomes closer and clearer, as well as the entire culture of the East.

Do you want to try Japanese calligraphy? We are glad to invite You to our classes to master this direction!

With love,

Your Aikido club "Ten-Chi" dojo.