In today’s modern world, the practice of writing by hand has given way to texting and typing. However, a practice still exists that celebrates the art of handwriting for its ability to communicate the spiritual world of the artist. Meaning beautiful writing, the practice of calligraphy is an art form that conveys the emotions, integrity, aesthetic feelings and culture of the artist to its readers. In this practice, the medium of the artist and how it is wielded is as important as what is put on paper.
It is necessary to choose the right tool to create these beautiful characters and the bamboo brush is that tool.
Considered one of the Four Treasures of China, the bamboo brush (pen) is sturdy but light enough to let the artist achieve the quick, forceful strokes needed to hit the paper properly. Writing brushes themselves are highly valued and are often seen as a symbol of the spirit unique to the Chinese people. The tip of the writing brush is often made of hair of different animals. The calligrapher dips the tip in ink, and wielding the shaft with different hand movements, produces characters on the paper. The writing technique revolves around the ways to hold and use the brush to write characters. The Chinese term gi bi means to begin your stroke and the term shou bi means to end your stroke. In writing, both strokes include these, the essential steps that determine the form of your stroke. You cannot make indecisive strokes and must know how you are going to write the strokes and where they are leading to. Forceful strokes must be distinguishable from light strokes. Your characters will be like withered trees, formless and styleless if you are unfocused.
Along with the bamboo brush, another reason for the emergence of calligraphy as an art form was the Chinese language itself. As opposed to a phonetic language that was created to express sound and has relatively few letters, the Chinese language is an ideographic language that expresses emotion and has many symbols. While phonetic languages have endured because they are easier to memorize and thus use, the ideographic language of Chinese with its abundance of characters has opened a wide vista for calligraphy to develop into a legitimate art. From the huge stock of Chinese characters, an artist can write one word in many different ways. Some inscriptions found on bones and tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty almost 3000 years ago or so had vocabularies of 5000 symbols.
The practice of calligraphy is an intense discipline to be studied and is an important part of Chinese culture. It entails the evolution of writing styles and the development of rules and techniques.
Even before gi bi, the calligrapher must adhere to the traditional way of practicing handwriting by following the three basic steps of mo, Lin and xie. Mo involves tracing while practicing holding the brush. While practicing, the main areas of focus should be stroke, structure and style of calligraphy. The next step, Lin, involves having a model to copy and beginning to take a conscious approach to understand the characters themselves. After a few months of detailed study comes lin xie, during which the first copy of stroke is made on paper after studying the specimen and memorizing the strokes.
The origin of Chinese Calligraphy is not very precise. The Oracle Bone Inscription “Gia Gu Wen, or Jia Gu Wen” was considered one of the earliest kinds of Chinese characters to be discovered. While the inscriptions were not a fully mature written form, the brush strokes and structural beauty of Gia Gu Wen set the foundational standards for the art of Chinese Calligraphy. But according to a tale in ancient Chinese history, calligraphy originated during the reign of the Yellow Emperor approximately 4000 years ago. Calligraphy was revered as an independent visual art form and was highly regarded over painting and sculpture. It truly developed into an art form during the Qin Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty saw the emergence of great calligraphers including Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi.
No matter its origins, calligraphy remains an enduring art form in this modern age. Because of its reliance on its medium to produce the characters in the strong but flowing manner needed, some say that calligraphy is the art of the brush. And the bamboo brush is the medium that will keep this beautiful art flowing.
For more on the influence of bamboo on world cultures, visit Green Earth News section on Bamboo’s Worldwide Impact.
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Mad Hatter
Bamboo Leaf Tea is a South Korean tea made from the leaves of young bamboo plants. The process to make them into tea involves roasting, steam boiling and scenting. Bamboo Leaf Tea is rich in fiber and protein and unlike some other teas, it is caffeine-free. With a light golden color and faint bamboo aroma, this is a very smooth tea. While it resembles a green tea in appearance, its taste is distinctively bamboo. And it’s an efficient tea leaf with the ability to re-steep at least two times without getting bitter. 
