The Chinese writing between harmony and balance: eight fundamental traits to reach perfection
Knowing the history and identity of a place means taking an extraordinary journey through the meanders of its soul, empathizing with precious traditions that are rooted in the suggestions of a distant past. But the charm of a territory also passes through an in-depth knowledge of the language of its inhabitants, which represents one of the key points from which to start discovering and appreciating the infinite potential of a culture. With China, everything is amplified by the immense and fascinating historical significance that writing brings with it, assuming over the centuries the special contours of a true form of art. As an aesthetic expression of a vision of the world based on harmony and balance, Chinese writing is a mirror of its millenary culture, from which it draws energy and vital essence to express the sensitivity of a people so tied to their history. And so, each character, - called hanzi - is a combination of meditation and beauty, each trait symbolizes a poetic relationship between evolution and memory of a cultural heritage with a high evocative power.
Born as a pictographic form realized vertically and based on the graphic representation of what it wanted to be represented, Chinese writing has changed overtime and transformed its styles and modes of representation. The first traces date back to the times of the Shang Dynasty, between the 14th and 11th centuries BC, when examples of writing were made on bones and tortoise shells, especially in the form of short divinatory texts, or through inscriptions engraved on bronze vessels. Soon, however, we realized that a faithful graphic reproduction required long realization times and that, above all, not all the elements of the language could be easily represented in pictorial form, thus bringing out the need to simplify and rationalize the structure of the characters to meet the growing needs of use within an increasingly complex society.
The real revolution was accomplished centuries later during the Qin Dynasty when, following the unification of the Chinese territory, Prime Minister Li Si promoted the creation of a single writing system, to be used throughout the Empire, consisting of two different shapes. The first, standard and more complex, was called Zhuànshū, "style of the seal", borrowing the name from its widespread use on seals, while the second, popular and simpler, was known as Lìshū, or "writing of the scribes", thanks to its particular use in administrative acts. Since then, Chinese calligraphy, Shūfǎ, became a true form of elevation of the spirit, thanks also to the spread of other particular styles, born as a pure expression of communication and elegance: the regular style, Kǎishū, technical and precise, the style current, Xíngshū, rapid and daily, and finally, the creative style of grass, Cǎoshū, in which the touches of the brush were tied together in a continuous flow.
And the brush was just one of the "four treasures of the studio", that is the work tools that a good Chinese calligrapher had to master to compose his work. The touch of the brush, in fact, had to be made with an ability to give balance and vitality to the writing. The other fundamental elements were the black ink, obtained by drying oil or pine ash mixed with glue in a stick, the abrasive stone, necessary as a support to mix the ink harmoniously with the right amount of water, and the paper, commonly known as "rice paper", obtained from the bark of a plant mixed with rice stalks. Harmony and balance, therefore to be sought also in the lines that made up the characters, that is in the lines that could be drawn without removing the brush from the paper. Eight were the fundamental traits to be used, and not by chance, since, according to an ancient legend, counting up to eight meant reaching the stage of completeness and perfection.
Each line also had to be traced according to a specific succession order, both to respect aesthetic standards and above all to allow the calligrapher to correctly memorize the number of traits and their position in order to avoid errors and misunderstandings caused by the high number of possible characters. In fact, given the objective complexity of learning and memorizing a writing system that is so vast and complex, the number of known hanzi has always been an indication of a person's culture and social status. For example, in imperial times, knowing the writing represented one of the tests to overcome to become a good court official! During the twentieth century, thanks also to the opening of China towards the West, it was decided to proceed with a simplification of traditional characters in order to make writing easier and faster and to increase literacy.
It is believed that a person of average culture should know at least 3000-4000 characters ... better start immediately!
