Pepe on the new, better New World Order; Frank on capitalism, Peter on the West's march to war; a hot, new outline from Billy & Ben; and Jeff waxes all about Chinese calligraphy as an artform.
China Writers' Group is your one-stop brain shop for understanding our reality behind the West's Big Lie Propaganda Machine headlines!
Pictured: like Arabic - which I had the pleasure to learn fluently, when I lived and worked in that part of the world, 1980-1990 - Chinese writing is an artform unto itself. Handwritten calligraphy is considered one the highest expressions of Chinese civilization, going back 5,000 years, as much as paintings, poetry and sculpture. Thus, it is no surprise that we see it everywhere we go: on signs, poles, doors, buses, metro, it is beautifully ubiquitous.
There are usually three parts to a calligraphy painting, 1) the main message, 2) a side note and 3) the artist’s name seal.
In the first printed painting on the right, top-to-bottom and right-to-left is,
天地赐福 龙凤呈祥
Which means,
“Heaven and Earth give a blessing, the Dragon and Phoenix (can also mean ‘man and woman’ or ‘men of wisdom’) are an auspicious sign”.
The side note will identify the artist, who can make a philosophical comment, describe their creative inspiration, say where they are from, etc. If it has been commissioned by a government or private entity, that is noted as well. These side notes are also very common on paintings, sometimes two or three different ones with the artist’s various musings.
The third part is the artist’s seal/chop, square, oblong or round. It can be their real name in 2-3 characters, a pen name and sometimes they will add both. Above, you can see the little gold square on the side comment.
Four colors dominate calligraphy: black, white, red and yellow/gold in various combinations, although modern calligraphists can go hog wild with all the colors of the rainbow.
Mao Zedong’s calligraphy style is immediately recognizable and celebrated, to the point that his font can be downloaded, called Caotanzhai (草檀斋), meaning “grass-sandalwood-abstinence/give alms”. The above calligraphy painting in his font is,
Art with a message. Or is it an artistic message? You decide!
Jeff on the streets and roads with the Chinese.