Читать книгу Sho Japanese Calligraphy - Christopher J. Earnshaw - Страница 10

What you will need

Ideally you will be able to obtain the “Four Treasures of Calligraphy’’ bunpō shihō, namely a brush, some paper, an ink stick and an ink stone. In the Orient these are readily available, but as they are virtually unknown commodities in many places of the west, a brief explanation is required, (see appendix).

The Brush Fude

Brushes come in various sizes and qualities, but for the beginner the best quality is unnecessary.

Nevertheless there are some things to keep in mind when buying a brush. The shaft of a brush is normally made of bamboo into which bound hairs are inserted and glued. This shaft ought to be 18 to 20 cm long and the bristles 5 to 6 cm, an overall length of about 24cm. Also examine the width of the bristles where they join the handle-about 12 mm is ideal. If you happen to be in a Japanese shop ask for a chūbude (middlesized brush). The hairs of brushes are starched so that they form a point. Do not buy one that has had the starch worked out as they are very difficult to control while you are writing. Still you will notice the shop probably has both starched and loose haired versions of the same brush. Pick up the “opened” brush and look at it carefully. Pull it gently through your fingers to see if the hairs come loose, or when inverted the hairs do not either collapse to one side (too soft) or seem to be hard and springy like the bristles of a hair brush. Ask the shopkeeper for a brush made of sheep’s hair yōmō. These are the best and will tend to have white hair instead of brown or black. An expensive one is unnecessary, but one that is too cheap is really more expensive in the long run because the hairs moult, the glue may rot and from time to time the bamboo may split. An inexpensive one is quite adequate. There’s a saying that goes, “Kobo fude o erabazu”, meaning the famous calligrapher, Kobo Daishi never chose his brush, but wrote with whatever was at hand. Once a professor at the university where I was studying calligraphy, wanting to illustrate a point, had no brush within reach, so he rolled up a piece of paper and used that instead. For the beginner though I recommend using a brush.

The Paper Kami

The paper used in calligraphy is different from that generally available in the West, It is much thinner and more textured than ours, has little sheen, a markedly rough reverse side and is also absorbent. The size to use for shosha or shūji, copying works for practice, is 24cm by 34cm, but if nothing that size is available, at a push newspaper can be used. Try to get some without distracting articles all over it. Japanese paper comes In set sizes and the size you will use is called hanshi. In ancient days paper was a luxury and many people could not afford it. The Chinese Han Dynasty calligrapher, Cho Shi, always practised on fabric so he could wash it out and start again. The result was he turned the pond, in his garden where he washed his cloth, permanently black.

The Inkstick Sumi

Inksticks look like bars of black chocolate, and are sometimes decorated with motifs and gold writing. The average size is about 12 cm long, 4cm wide and 2cm thick. In poorly lit surroundings they are easily distinguishable from chocolate by their musty smell and the very Chinesey boxes they come in. Much of the best ink comes from China and has rings on the top showing the degree of blackness, five being the blackest.

Making the ink is a laborious task, but the effort is worthwhile as the end product is a good quality ink. Recently great advances have been made in the manufacture of ready made liquid ink called bokujū. Though it makes work easier, its colour and quality are inferior by far, as you will come to realise during your studies. Most calligraphy teachers will not permit the use of bokujū, for the above reasons and also for a spiritual reason. They maintain this world runs at too fast a pace and the simple act of making ink will clear the mind of extraneous worry and help calm the spirit. The feelings of a nervous, anguished or hurried person is reflected in his calligraphy.

Indian ink, poster colours, or the like cannot be used as they do not dry well enough or congeal too quickly.

The Inkstone Suzuri

The inkstick is rubbed over a shallow slate dish with a reservoir at one end. This receptacle ought to be large enough to hold sufficient ink for your work.

Amounts of ink should neither be so small that all the ink will disappear as soon as you put the brush in it nor so large that it takes all day to make sufficient amounts. An interior dimension of an actual grinding stone of about 8 cm x 14cm is just right. Stones that have been machine cut to a rectangular shape are far cheaper than those that have been carved by hand from natural stone.

Other Things

Most of the above tools are available in supermarkets and folk craft shops in the Chinatowns of large Western cities. They often come in ready made sets, but have a look inside to see what you are getting before you buy.

You will need three other small things that can be prepared at home-a paperweight, a container of water for adding to the ink, and a piece of good quality felt for an shitajiki undercloth. Normally (his cloth is in a restful colour such as green, dark blue or black and it is to be laid under the paper. The ink will often seep through the paper and as felt repels water, the ink has no chance of getting through to the table. Anything 28cm x 36cm or larger is fine.

All should be laid out in front of you (as in the example) with the work you will be copying, (he tehon, (e.g. the examples given later in the book) at your left. The ink and brush should be placed on your right. This will facilitate writing and save knocking over the indelible ink. It was easy to recognize the house of Chinese calligrapher, Chung Yu as everything from the rocks and trees in the garden to the floors and doors of his home was spattered with ink. Beware!

Things to know

before getting started

There are only two rules in calligraphy, easy to remember, but hard to carry out sometimes. Firstly the characters must be written in a certain stroke order. There are general rules on this, but like the best kept rules exceptions do exist. The stroke order has been given for the examples in the text. Secondly the characters must be written only once. That means no altering, touching up or adding to them afterwards. Unlike oil painting where mistakes may be scraped off or painted over, in calligraphy mistakes must stand as they are. This is what gives the characters “life” and movement; writing a stroke twice nijūkaki kills the feeling and burdens the character down. Occasionally the ink runs out in the middle of a character kasure. This is permissible so long as the form of the character remains discernible.

It is advisable to make lots of ink and any left over may be put, in a jam jar with the top screwed on tightly to slow evaporation. Another idea is to slip a couple of copper coins in with the mix as this will help stop the ink going off.

While making the ink study the example carefully so that you may fully understand the stroke order and what has to be done. This enables you to begin as soon as the ink is ready without interrupting the state of concentration you have built up while making your ink.

The average number of characters written on a sheet of hanshi with a middle size brush is either five or six. When writing five, space them as you would for six, but leave the last square blank as this is where one normally puts one’s name. More on this is explained in the section on katakana. An aid to laying the characters out is to fold the sheet vertically in half giving a right and left sector. If this is not helpful enough, the paper may be folded into six sections so that each character will have its own area. The only other possible method one can use is to place a grid on the shitajiki visible through the paper. This provides the best guide, but developing too much dependence on it will make for bad habits. Anyway, when you practice the examples in this text make it a custom to write six characters to a page.

Paper is, it must be remembered, expensive so even if you have made a mistake do not throw the paper away too hastily. You can still write over the same letters many times until you have them down pat. This is beneficial also because you can then concentrate on a single character or even a single stroke of a character in these moments without having to think of the entire composition. Do not expect to be able to write a good copy the first time. Only a master calligrapher can do that. Write the same example fifty or more times. Then you will understand its every twist and turn by heart and will be able to write it without even referring to the model tehon. The calligrapher Chao Meng Fu of the Yuan Dynasty was said to have worn out the sleeves of all his garments because he was so diligent in his practice of the fundamentals.

The Chinese copy their teacher’s example by several different methods. Most popular among these is to place their paper atop their teacher’s example. This is not a good idea because in time the model will become illegible and one will then end up practising one’s own mistakes. The aspiring student too, may be likened to a little fledgling learning to fly; he gains no confidence by copying directly. It is almost as if he does not jump sooner or later, he will never learn to fly. If it puts off leaving the nest forever, the initial jump only becomes all the more difficult. A youngster may distract his watchers with a lot of fluttering and unintentional aerobatics, but that is the fastest route to learning. In Japan copying the model directly is regarded as cheating and most teachers will be able to tell the difference.

In the gyōsho the characters seem to have been dashed off quickly, but that is not the case. What gives this impression is the undulation of the stroke. It is thick and thin and in places the amount of ink on the brush the ink seems to have run out kasure. The fact is, it was written that way intentionally. Writing in this style is rather like driving, go fast on the straights, but slow down on the corners! Even in the other styles of writing the speed is not the important thing; keep a constant speed, not too fast else one has no control and not too slow as either the ink floods out and drenches the paper nijimi or the shaking of your hand will be evident to the viewer.

Teachers use an orange-red ink shuboku to correct copies of their students’ work. Corrections lead the student to realize that a copy need not be exactly the same as the model so long as the rules of writing have been respected. Here is where personal interpretation comes into play. Sometimes a character written exactly the same as the model will be corrected where it appears to con form to the model and reasons for this correction are various and intuitive. They are learned only after long experience. The most common fault is in characters that may be viewed as a pair. Individually they are good, but as a pair they are lacking in some way. When studying by oneself there is of course no teacher close at hand so it is only by writing copies many, many times and comparing them to good models that one can begin to perceive one’s weaknesses. Another good method is to turn the paper around and look at it from the back. The bad areas seem to stand out then. When you have managed to write a good copy, place it aside for a couple of days and then come back to it once more. It is certain that by looking at it afresh your sense of appreciation will have changed.

A brush usually has a life of about three years if well treated. This means washing it thoroughly after writing and taking care not to wash out all the starch. After wiping, the brush should be hung up to dry. Wash your suzuri ink slab too as the ink will dry into a solid cake if you do not.

Left handed people have to learn to write with their right hands because holding the brush in the left hand leaves the hairs pointed the wrong way and the correct pressure cannot be applied to the strokes. The same skill may be achieved, simply spend more time on the elementary steps.

Actually starting

Place your paperweight at the top of a sheet of paper and lightly place the fingers of your left hand near the bottom left of the sheet to hold the paper taut. Grasp the brush as shown.

It should not feel awkward, but in time become a living extension of your arm. Allow the power to flow down your arm on to the paper by using the brush as your conductor. The thumb locks the brush by pressure against the upper joint of the forefinger. Forefinger and middle finger exert pressure inwards and the slightly crooked ring and little fingers exert pressure to the outside. The brush should be held between a third and halfway up for most styles of calligraphy and as much as two thirds of the way up the shaft for writing semi-cursive gyōsho because the brush will require more latitude of movement. Observe the following points and you should find the brush doing just as you want.

1) Keep the palm open

2) Always keep the shaft of the brush upright

3) Keep the wrist and elbow off the surface of the table

4) Hold the brush firmly without being tense

The well known calligrapher Ogishi once crept up behind his son Okenshi to try to snatch the brush from his hand, but without success. This prompted him to remark that his son had the makings of a great calligrapher, which indeed the son did become.

Use only a third of the length of the hairs for writing. That way ink is absorbed and the springiness of the tip retained. Imagine it like a three part spring, soft at the tip, mildly stiff for the remaining length of the hairs and hard at the shaft. This is the ideal combination. If only two degrees of torque exist, the spring is lost. This “backbone” is useful at first in writing. Only at a more advanced level does the need for an “unstarched” brush arise.

When practising, place your wet copies between the pages of an old newspaper to dry or soon all your floor-space will have been used up. Reorder the point of your brush now and then on the flat of your inkstone so all the hairs of the brush come to a sharp point even when you are in the middle of writing a character. If wet circles appear around the boundaries of the characters then there is too much water for the amount of ink in the mixture. This may be true even if your ink is pitch black. Keep in mind that calligraphy is composed of two components：

Discipline- evidencing good construction in the writing of your characters, giving the lines a definite quality, training one’s eye to be able to look deeply into the models to evaluate them and developing the will to persevere in your work.

Cultivation of the art-choosing suitable styles forms, themes and medium, being aware of historical precedents and finding the necessary inspiration.

What goes into a completed work Sakuhin

The elements of a work include:

Theme shudai. The copying of a famous work rinsho of another painter will very rarely be the theme of one’s work.

Inspiration reikan is the most important thing in a piece. If inspiration is lacking even something so obvious as the character for “hot” can appear quite cold.

The structure of the character kekkōhō refers to the direction of the stroke, the lengths or lines and dots and how corners are negotiated, (see appendix).

Kūkan refers to the white space between characters and the characters in relation to the paper, and kanga the integral spacing of the lines and dots in the character.

The quality of the line sen.

The colour of the ink bokushoku.

The title dal though this may often be predetermined since if one writes a poem it will already have a title. Nothing more can be said except for the interpretation of the brush.

These six elements are governed overall by two vital factors, harmony chōwa, a term encompassing a large area, but including control of ink and its colour, rhythmic qualities produced by the fluctuation in size and weight of characters and a balancing of all the factors above plus emotion jō, an abstract quality difficult to explain in words, but one I have tried to demonstrate with a few lines below.

A work should never be dull. Rather it should be refreshing, invigorating, exciting, stirring, proud or strong and, however you may express your feelings, always meaningful.

Presently three types of work are generally acceptable at exhibitions in Japan: calligraphy sho, carved seals tenkoku and carved calligraphy kokuji.

Further Elements

Above I spoke of calligraphy sho and it must be realized that by this the Japanese mean anything that is written with a brush based on characters, but not necessarily just characters. The work may be in any style, but should not be a mixture of styles unless the characters are to be written separately to stand side by side as contrasting forms. The text goku of the piece of prose or poetry must be written from right to left. Calligraphy may be divided into two main categories, not to be confused with styles: kanji, Chinese characters, and kana, the Japanese syllabary. In kanji the theme is generally a Chinese poem or prose, whereas kana will concentrate on poems of exclusively Japanese origins like the Manyōshū, (see appendix).

Placing the Seal Inkan

Seals are carved with one’s name or appropriate characters and used as a signature. That dot of red is the touch that finishes off the work and gives it a feeling of artistic completion. How many different seals to use and where to place them on the work are personal decisions. The latter of these two choices Is the more difficult of the problems. The trick is to look at other works and compare your own solutions. There are no hard and fast rules, but a badly placed seal can make a work seem heavy or appear unbalanced. Works will always have a seal even if the formal signature is absent. In the case of long written works jōfuku however, the majority will have both. Furthermore they will often have a few lines at the end rakkan commemorating when and where the work was written, (see appendix)

Once finished, a work should be equipped with a backing hyōgu to give it support and remove wrinkles from the paper before framing. The choice of materials to be used is quite important as are the type and colour of the ink sumi and paper. In certain abstract works the ink will be predetermined, though it is not a rule, and light coloured inks such as shōenboku that spread into a cloud around the character will often be used. Apart from paper, silk and gold are regularly used. One must possess great confidence and a mastery of subject to attempt using silk because of its prohibitive cost. Once written on, it cannot be used again. Gold, however, despite its reputation, is not as expensive as one might think (cf. kokuji). To write on gold, squares of gold foil are placed side by side on a smooth surface so that they overlap just a bit. If these are placed on a byōbu folding screen and hung on display the effect is outstanding. When writing on gold it is well to bear in mind the fact that the ink contrasts only weakly with the foil. In fact it is better to write with very thick nōboku ink as the surface of gold, shiny as it is, will often repel thin ink. The brilliance of gold may furthermore overpower intended subtleties in the work. The factor that makes such work relatively inexpensive is knowledge that mistakes can always be wiped off gold.

Tenkoku Carving Seals

If a seal is to be exhibited as a work in itself rather than as part of a larger work, it will normally be centered near the top of a piece of paper of A4 dimensions (210mm x 300mm although other paper kami can be used) or thereabouts. The contents of the characters on the seal will be written below the seal so viewers can understand it. Such works will usually be carved in old calligraphic styles such as antique kobun, seal tensho or occasionally the scribe’s reisho. Other exotic scripts meant particularly for seal carving are called generically zattaisho and include scripts of varying form, include “flying white” hihaku, “steel wire” and “fence” scripts. Finally either the name of the person who wrote the poem or the name of the artist who carved the seal or both are included.

Kokuji Carved calligraphy

To me a piece of carved calligraphy is the hardest to execute because it is really three works in one. Not only must the written characters be first class, but carving techniques must also be well developed. On top of this one must create a work that is appealing to the eye. A seal and a dedication are also often Included at the written stage and carved together with the other elements of the work.

General Remarks

Never expect to manage a perfect work on the first attempt. Ogishi only began to experience satisfaction with his work at the age of fifty and that after a life of relentless practice. Many calligraphers will write the same piece fifty to a hundred or more times using the best of materials, rare inks and expensive papers each time. Small wonder works of calligraphy are so expensive to buy. Do not be defeated though. After a good many earnest attempts there will be one that stands out from among the rest, good not only from a technical standpoint, but one that also brims with the feeling you had hoped to express.

This effect may be more difficult to manage in seal carving since if one makes a mistake or becomes dissatisfied with this work for some reason or other, the scone must be cut down, sanded smooth and started again. In carved calligraphy this obstacle can be avoided to some extent by writing the original on less expensive paper at the outset or making slight amendments in the tracing. The expense will be incurred in the wood and other materials.

Jō Emotion

It is difficult to express enough the importance of blending an emotional state and calligraphy together in a work. A Chinese proverb puts it succinctly: “If the heart is right, the handwriting will be correct.” A work without feeling may as well be a street sign. Sign painters do not necessarily make the best calligraphers and that is why shops with a reputation to maintain will often commission a famous calligrapher to write their shop sign.

In the hurried, full of pressures world we live in it is often a problem to adjust the feelings of the moment to match the content of our calligraphy. For this I find music invaluable. To engender a sad, lonely feeling I play Sibelius’ Valse Triste. To reproduce a powerful, majestic feeling there is Bruckner’s 9th Symphony. Dixieland Jazz played loudly goes far toward giving me a happy, joyful feeling. You no doubt have musical pieces of your own of which you are particularly fond that will produce differing emotional states in yourself. I would not, however, recommend using a radio because commentary tends to divert the attention and succeeds only in distracting one from the task at hand. Music will win over your heart and your calligraphy will improve by leaps and bounds. As for myself, when planning a work I look for a poem that is one, the right length for the composition I am planning, two, has a content I find enjoyable and three, has characters of a sort that will either make for an attractive work or be challenging. Then I look for the piece of music that I think has similar qualities: the spiritual tone (sadness, happiness, loneliness) that I hope to instill in the work. If you do the same, first put your music on to create the state of mind you require and only then approach your paper. Emotion will flow from your soul, down your arm, through your brush and on to the paper. By now you will have had much practice at making the brush an extension of your arm.

Actual Realities of

Planning Your Work

First of all decide upon the poem, select your materials and style of character and then try a few lines on hanshi paper to determine whether a vertical or horizontal layout suits the size and shape of the work and Just how the characters might best be arranged. Then try your composition on paper the same size as your projected work, but of a cheaper quality. Give some thought too as to whether there will be a rakkan dedication or not and where seals might be placed. Position of the seal will normally be symbolized by drawing a little square on the paper. Once the plan is set, get on with the writing of your work.

Hyōgu Backing

The tools: 1) A smooth surfaced, solid table

2) A drying board of either smooth plywood or veneer

3) A long ruler

4) A piece of backing paper the same quality as your work, but slightly thicker and larger in area

5) Another piece like (4)

6) A brush for glue, noribake

7) A soft, clean brush for water, mizubake

8) A brush with hard bristles, shirobake

9) Glue, a thin cow gum or any water based glue is good. Specialists use a glue called shōfu. Boiled wheatflour is sometimes used as well.

10) Several old sheets of newsprint.

The method:

Firstly if the work is not your own, it is important to know whether the work to be backed was written using a proper inkstick sumi or with prepared ink bokujū. Sumi is made of soot and a natural glue called either nikawa or funori. Japanese make this glue from cows’ or horses’ bones and the Chinese from whale bone. Japanese ink sets more firmly than Chinese which means it is less likely to bleed when dampened. Bokujū has improved so much recently that better brands run hardly at all. Nevertheless here is a note of the chances of their running: Ordinary prepared inks, 50%; special or very thick bokujū, 10%; Chinese inksticks, 5-10% and Japanese inksticks, less than 5%, If you have a work done by a specialist, he will warn you of the possibility of its running and may even go so far as to taste the sumi with the tip of his tongue to ascertain its origin.

Avoid using Western paper and Oriental papers together as Western paper is much less absorbent. Prepare sufficient sheets of thin backing paper before starting. If the work is large or is made of several pieces of paper, backing papers must be joined ahead of time into a suitable length (see illustration), Take piece A and draw a line with the ruler and water brush as shown. Then gently pull off the piece marked “X”. The tear will be straight, but some fibres of the paper will be left sticking out. These the Japanese call teashi, limbs. Now do the same for piece B. Join pieces of newsprint and place them on your working surface. They ought to extend to an area larger than the size of your work.

Dry newsprint is a must because if the ink on the sheets is still fresh, it will transfer to the backing on your work. Cover the backing paper with a thin coat of glue, about the same consistency as thin cream. If the work to be backed is quite large, place the backing on a single sheet at a time and then add glue to them.

Get the first sheet in place and then proceed to the second. Lift the pieces with the ruler (see illustration). See that the teashi hang downwards and be very careful to join the ends of the papers together in a way that they interlock, not overlap.

Brush all the wrinkles flat, but avoid brushing around the join itself. This spot is best pressed flat with the ruler. Make sure that both pieces of paper are either rough side up or down, not one of each. Dampen the work from behind slightly so that wrinkles are removed and place it on the prepared backing sheets.

Go over the front of the work with a soft, dry brush working out from the center to ensure even contact with the backing and removal of any air pockets. The midway point in the process is pictured at right. Now be certain there is sufficient glue around the border at Z of a slightly thicker mixture.

Lift corners at D and E and transfer everything to the drying board which will have been propped earlier against a wall. Brush the entire picture with the hard bristled brush, remove the newspaper and brush out from the center once more. Any stubborn air pockets still remaining may be removed by pricking them with a pin, A trick of the trade is to lift up the edge of the heragami backing up carefully at this point and blow a little air in between the work and the drying board. This helps it dry quicker. The best quality backings are done with very fine backing paper before repeating the entire process using thicker paper or perhaps silk as in the case of jōfuku. Leave this to dry for a day or two and then remove carefully from the board. Never cut the paper as this will mar the drying board, but slip the blade of a knife under the edge of the paper instead and lift it off. One further tip.

If you are doing the backing yourself, do not press your seal to the work until backing is complete. This is because the ink for the seal is oil based and handling it without smudging is a very difficult procedure for an amateur. Ignore anyone who says it cannot be done because the paper will then be embossed. If the seal is pressed on a fairly hard surface, it makes no difference. The paper is only a millimeter thick.

Points to be careful about:

1) Take care to brush from the center and keep your brush away from the glue at the border because it may be transferred to your work. If you do get a little dab on it it will not harm it, but is just faintly visible,

2) Use only the best brushes as any other will tend to leave stray hairs on the work which do not become evident until later, when it is too late to make corrections. It is possible to remove them carefully with a pin, but a slip may result in a puncture in the work.

3) Holes in a picture. More vigorous calligraphers will occasionally tear the paper they work on either because they have begun with too much ink or have applied too much pressure at a point where several strokes coincide. You will notice that the paper that has been torn from the hole has been crumpled up at the edge of the hole. This can be smoothed back over the hole to restore the completeness of the paper. If the paper was torn away with the sweep of the brush, an attempt may be made to replace the fragment, but that is nothing to worry too much about. This is often evident in pictures at exhibitions. It can also be seen in my work “kuri” If you look closely. If the middle of the hole is missing fashion a simple patch for it so the ends will not tuck under. The thinnest possible paper is best. Cut it so that it is just a fraction larger than the hole, and fray the edges of the patch so no ridge builds up. Then open out the hole from the reverse side, dampen, align the grains of the paper, apply the patch, paste and lay flat before continuing with the process.

4) In a large of work of several pieces of paper inevitably there are slight overlaps. Try nevertheless to avoid any similar overlapping on the backing paper since it will simply make the join all the more evident.

The term hyōgu refers to the same process used to make the hanging scroll works called kakejiku, but the process for this sort of a work is exceedingly difficult and will require a professional. The process described above is a simple hyōgu described by the Japanese as urauchi, lining.

Framing and Exhibiting

Sho Calligraphic Works

Many works are often of a standard size, for instance the shikishi 24cm x 27cm, and attractive frames of dark blue or burgundy mountings with natural or black lacquer frames are available in Japan for these. As shikishi are already on a stiffened board, they can be slipped in and out of the frame and changed according to season. Generally calligraphy is done on thin paper however, and this must be backed in the way explained above to give it strength and remove wrinkles.

Several types of frame are available including steel and wood in various shapes, colours and lacquered hues. Simple black or brown wood or plain steel frames less any embellishment are preferable. The interior of the frame may be lined with silk or perhaps a material that has proper substance or with an attractive weave like hemp or jute. Colours ought to be positive like light blues, burgundies, russets, navy and so on. Avoid busy patterns like tweeds or checks-anything that will detract from the subject.

Sometimes not all of the interior of the frame will be lined and the middle simply cut out for economy. Edges of the work should then be trimmed with a large paper cutter instead of scissors and then glued lightly in place. Use perspex instead of glass if you can. It may be more expensive, but it is lighter and will not break even if it does scratch. There should be a slight gap of a centimeter or two between the glass or perspex and the work.

It is possible to hire frames, but it should be remembered that each time a picture is put into and removed from a frame the backing gets a little thinner at the edges and there is a danger the picture might be ripped. Transfers can only be done twice or so before a permanent frame must be found. In extreme cases backing can be done once more, but this is risky work. See illustration for several examples of mounting.

Notice that the boundaries at the top and bottom are in many cases elongated. Smaller works, seal carving for example, are often raised within a deep frame.

It is possible to obtain “reusable” hanging scrolls. The borders are already made up and one has but to attach his work. The disadvantage here, however, is that since it is cheap, it looks cheap and half done so it can be a detriment to a good work. I have often been asked why there are two strips of material hanging down from the top of these hanging scrolls and the story is this. These attachments date from days in old China when people were fond of holding parties outdoors in the summer. They would sing songs, recite poems and perhaps practise a bit of calligraphy-to commemorate the occasion much like we might take a photograph nowadays. To keep birds away they hung ribbons in the trees and the ribbons on the scrolls originated from that custom, Japanese call them “tsubame odokashi”, scarecrows. The work is mounted on material donsu brocade which has been backed with paper. The material may have a Chinesey pattern and if gold is interwoven in it it will be called Kinran donsu. Just at the top and bottom of the work there are often strips of material in a contrasting colour ichimonji “the figure one” the top will be slightly wider than the bottom at a ratio of 3:2.

Two fūchin weights are suspended from the bar at the bottom of these scrolls. Works that have been stored rolled up for a long time tend to remain curled so these weights straighten them out and also prevent their moving about in draughts as doors are opened and closed. The traditional place to hang a scrool is in the alcove tokonoma in the main room of Japanese homes. Here one’s most treasured possessions are shown off. Lastly nearly all old forms of calligraphy come in a scroll form known as makimono or kakejiku and they come in boxes that are signed at the outside by the artist. Most Japanese collectors will not accept a piece of calligraphy at its apparent value without the original box.

Modern styles of mounting do away with side borders altogether. Of course works may also be just mounted on a board, but they get soiled in time by repeated handling and dust clings to the fibres in the paper. Still another attractive means of presenting one’s work is as a folding screen, byōbu. This may be two or three panels, but always use one already made as they are not as easy to construct as they look. They are particularly effective covered in gold foil.

Carved Calligraphy

This sort of work obviously need not be framed as framing tends to be expensive and will often detract from an elaborate work. Still, saying that, I think the pros may outweigh the cons for these reasons: Kokuji, carved calligraphy, is so detailed it is difficult to keep clean. Once framed, a work will often appear more finished and complete and smaller works will be given a proper bearing. In large exhibitions there may be a couple of hundred entrants in the carved calligraphy category alone and works are usually stacked against a wall someplace and shifted from place to place by students, so the risk to your work is considerable if you expect to sell it at the end of the exhibition. Dents in gold leaf or the wood, chips, scratches and knocked off bits are inevitable with even the most care, so a frame will protect the work. Works in excess of 70cm x 140cm need not be framed as they look and are too bulky.

The lining in these frames can be of coarser materials than for written calligraphy sho without any cheapening effect. Be certain the wood and the colour of the lining contrast -light wood and a light lining look lost. Frames must furthermore be deeper set than otherwise might be necessary to accommodate three centimeters or more of wood. Some have resorted to the clever use of frames just for exhibitions and then switching the contents, but judging by recent exhibitions the life span of a frame is only a couple of years. A double frame will often set a work off well especially if the work is on thinner materials of a centimeter or less.

Exhibitions

In most group exhibitions one has no say as to where his work will be displayed and it may occasionally be someplace among three tiers as much as three to four meters above ground.

A work by Kusakabe Meikaku in the author’s collection.