Calligraphy

Japanese calligraphy is called shodo (書道). Calligraphy is a huge part of Japanese culture. Calligraphy was the main form of writing long ago, and the mainstream katakana, hiragana, and kanji that are used today came from calligraphy because these characters were written over and over again. This caused the characters to evolve slowly over time, to create the written Japanese language we have today. 

For example, the hiragana "se" (せ) came from the first kanji in sewa (世話) which means "to take care of," or sekai (世界) which means "world." Many other Japanese hiragana evolved from kanji. 

There are many different important aspects of calligraphy. The ink stone holds the ink. It's called a suzuri (硯). The ink stone is very important because it holds the ink and creates a smooth base for your brush and grinding the ink. The stones can come in black, dark blue, or sometimes dark green. Many different ink stones are sold, but the best ink stones have a flat, smooth "land" area, or the flat place you mix the ink, and a rounded or rectangular "ocean" area, or the well where the ink runs down into. Ink stones should be sturdy and strong, if there are any chips or damaged areas on an ink stone you're buying, make sure the price is marked down accordingly. Another thing some shops do to try to trick customers is painting certain less sturdy stones to look like ink stones. These stones are not very good for grinding ink and will wear down over time, potentially contaminating your ink or breaking. If an ink stone breaks while you are using it, it could create quite a mess. If your ink stone is heavy, that's a good sign it's good quality.

The ink stick is one of the most important parts because you get your ink from it. In Japanese, an ink stick is called a sumi (墨) To get the ink, you grind your ink stick onto your ink stone, and ink comes off in a powder. Mix this solution with water and you get rich India ink perfect for calligraphy. A very important aspect of grinding the ink for the ink stone is making sure the ink stick is completely perpendicular or at a 90 degree angle with the "land" area of the ink stone. Usually the "land" area of the ink stone has a very slight gradiation, and it can be difficult to tell whether or not your ink stick is straight vertically or not. If you end up grinding the ink stick at an angle, it could break more easily and you'd have to replace it. The best ink sticks are between 50 and 100 years old, so to break an ink stick could be very costly. 

Another important aspect of calligraphy is the mulberry paper. It's called washi (和紙) in Japanese. This paper is special for calligraphy. It creates a feathery effect when it is saturated with ink. Mulberry paper is light and it resembles rice paper in appearance. Heavily processed mulberry paper just looks like slightly transparent printer paper. Mulberry paper that's been lightly pressed will have larger paper fragments and create a more rustic, old effect. The oldest calligraphy masters used this type of lightly pressed paper, since they didn't have the modern paper technology we did. 

A paper weight is very important to hold the paper in place as you paint. It's called a bunchin (文鎮) in Japanese. You add various pressures with the brush as you're doing calligraphy to create different effects, and it's important the paper doesn't move when you're doing these effects. 

A cloth called a shitajiki (下敷き) is placed under the mulberry paper to prevent the ink from bleeding through. 

Finally, the arguably most important part of calligraphy: the brush. In Japanese, it is called a fude (筆). There are various different types of brushes to create different effects, but the most traditional brush is wide at the bottom and comes to a fine point. Like the ink sticks and ink stones, the older brushes are better. As the brush fibers age, they apply ink more evenly to create effects similar to the ancient calligraphy techniques. These techniques are very difficult to achieve and must be practiced for hours. 

Calligraphy is a part of the curriculum in Elementary schools in Japan. In high school, students are allowed to choose calligraphy as an elective, along with music or drawing and painting classes. It's also popular in high school clubs. There is a high school club that's performance calligraphy, which is where students perform calligraphy paintings in front of an audience. Universities like Fukuoka University of Education, University of Tsukuba, and Tokyo Gakugei University have special majors and departments specifically for calligraphy. These universities have classes in the special departments that allow teachers to train students one on one in calligraphy. 


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