Wrote this yesterday, in solidarity

Abeceda (‘Alphabet’) designed by Karel Teige, poems by Vitĕzslav Nezval.

Abeceda (‘Alphabet’) was a book designed in 1926 by Czech artist Karel Teige (1900-1951) inspired by a series of poems dedicated to the alphabet written in 1922 by the Czech poet Vitĕzslav Nezval (1900-1958). It was published in Prague by Nákl. J. Otto. Both Teige and Nezval were founding members of Devětsil (‘Nine Forces’), a...

13th UKAPCE Chinese Calligraphy Competition 2020

The UK Association for the Promotion of Chinese Education is working in partnership with the Poem, Calligraphy and Paint Institute, Kut-O Association Chinese School, Singtao Daily, Phoenix TV and Warwick University to organise its annual Chinese calligraphy competition. The deadline is 15th June 2020. Categories: Children (below 9); Youth 1 (10-14); Youth 2 (15-19); Adult...

Xu Wei (徐渭) calligraphy

In the interests of scholarship and to provide a concise resource for interested parties, I am posting some examples of Xu Wei's cursive calligraphy, scanned from a book I bought in China. The texts are mostly poems written by Xu Wei himself, but there is also a poem by Du Fu (712 – 770) and...

Daoist text: Dao ke dao fei chang dao

I have finally finished a mixed calligraphy piece I have been working up to for a while now. The large 道 (dao) in clerical script was written in China, while the cursive Chinese calligraphy and the uncials were written in the UK. It's my largest ever calligraphy work at about 2 meters long.   I...

Recent copy of Huai Su 懷素 Autobiography 自叙帖

In an effort to improve my cursive calligraphy I have been copying Huai Su's (懷素) (737–799) famous Autobiography (自叙帖). I first copied this while at the LanTing Academy of Calligraphy earlier this year, but thought I would have another attempt. The Autobiography is considered one of the greatest pieces of cursive calligraphy (草書). The original (or...

‘Critical Moss’ – book publication

Press Release: December 2019 edizioni FoscoFornio today announces publication of Critical Moss- Art outside the Bubble The book's title plays on the proverb “a rolling stone gathers no moss”, to suggest making art in a rural context might be impeded by the lack of a critical mass of fellow artists. The book identifies decisive responses...

IRCC at the ‘Words Weekend’ Festival, Sage Gateshead

On Sunday 8th December 2019 members of the International Research Centre for Calligraphy (IRCC) from the University of Sunderland participated in the Words Weekend Festival at the Sage Gateshead. We demonstrated Arabic, Chinese and Western calligraphy, introduced and explained the different scripts and writing materials, and allowed festival goers the opportunity to write themselves. The...

A formal analysis of Xu Wei’s (徐渭) running-cursive style.

During my time at the LanTing Academy of Calligraphy I made a special study of the writer, painter and calligrapher Xu Wei, 徐渭 (1521–1593). He lived in ShaoXing – called ShanYin during the Ming Dynasty – at the ‘Green Vine Studio’ (青藤書屋), which is now a small museum dedicated to his art (fig. 2). He...

Work made at the LanTing Academy of Calligraphy.

My three month visit to ShaoXing is now over; I learnt a huge amount about Chinese calligraphy through practicing it myself, observing others, and from interviewing expert practitioners. I had classes on cursive scripts, calligraphy creation and on the relation of Chinese painting to calligraphy. As well as learning cursive calligraphy I also wrote some...