Chinese characters have assumed a position of supreme cultural power and authority within traditional Chinese society since their creation more than five thousand years ago, and calligraphy, the art of writing characters, is among the most ancient, venerated, and lasting Chinese art forms. Today, every child in China practices calligraphy in public schools or with private tutors. In public parks, retirees dip giant brushes (sometimes even mops) into water and write calligraphy on the ground as a means of physical exercise as well as art practice. Bookstores feature a large selection of guidebooks on calligraphy, most of them reproductions of famous ancient pieces as models for students to copy from. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that calligraphy is China’s most accessible and widely practiced art form. In contrast, however, it is among the least familiar to audiences outside the country. For many, calligraphy is unapproachable at the least, or even intimidating to some degree, because its quintessential component—the Chinese character—is incomprehensible. This language barrier has unfortunately pushed calligraphy to a marginal status in the study of Chinese art in America. As pointed out by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the organizing institution of Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy, the last major exhibition on Chinese calligraphy in North America took place more than a decade ago.

Curated by the Asian Art Museum’s Senior Curator of Chinese Art, Michael Knight, and Senior Research Fellow, Joseph Z. Chang, with research conducted by a team of international scholars, Out of Character, in an educational and connoisseurial methodology, provides answers to two fundamental questions regarding the appreciation of Chinese calligraphy: How does one approach a piece of Chinese calligraphy? What distinguishes a piece of great calligraphy from a mediocre one? The first gallery introduces some basic vocabulary, including material, format, and script, and sets up the ground for further exploration. Writing tools, including paper, brush, ink, seal, and seal paste, are on display to provide a tangible entry to the unfamiliar art form. Chinese calligraphy is always written in one of the five scripts: seal, clerical, standard, semi-cursive, and cursive. A video demonstrates the different set of skills needed for each script—structure of characters, movement of strokes, and turn of corners and hooks. All five scripts are presented with examples dated between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. They also introduce the four basic formats of calligraphy—hanging scroll, handscroll, album, and fan. Equipped with such basic knowledge and vocabulary, one encounters the crown jewel of the exhibition, a long handscroll of Lotus Sutra written in standard script by Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322). A pivotal figure in the history of Chinese art, Zhao was not only admired as a calligrapher, but also painter, writer, and musician. Copying the Buddhist sutra for his spiritual master, each stroke is written evenly and solidly, and each character is composed and stable. The handscroll, opened almost to its full length of more than fifteen feet, displays balance and order. The calligrapher’s choice of standard script was not merely following the convention for sutra writing, but also appropriate for the religious purpose of meditation and merit accumulation.

The second gallery explores topics such as the training process of a calligrapher, the connection between content and form as seen through poetry written in calligraphy, and the multi-layered social relationships among teachers, students, peers, and friends. Occupying a large wall is Wen Peng’s (1498–1573) Thousand-Character Classic in clerical script, with the entirety of eighty-five album leaves spread open and mounted one next to each other. Thousand-Character Classic is an ancient poem composed of a thousand characters, a favorite subject for calligraphic practice since not a single character among the thousand is repeated. By the sixteenth century when Wen brushed the album, a set of rules and conventions had already developed to govern the writing of clerical script, which is popularly believed to have been invented by clerics for fast and smooth note taking and document copying. While following conventions such as rectilinear structure and the exaggerated beginning and ending of each stroke, Wen also incorporated seal script into the album, testifying to his reputation as a skilled seal carver. Repetitive study of ancient pieces by faithfully copying existing models is the most elementary and basic stage of calligraphic training. Only after completely immersing oneself in the existing tradition can a calligrapher develop a personal style. Thousand-Character Classic is among the texts that for centuries have been diligently copied in all formats and scripts. Yet each copy is different from the other, demonstrating the writer’s own creative style. Just like Wen Peng, reaching a balance between convention and creativity is the major pursuit of all Chinese calligraphers. Many other examples in the exhibition, including a couplet by Yi Bingshou (1754–1815) and a poem in album format by Jin Nong (1687–1773), demonstrate the infinite possibility of creative self-expression after having mastered tradition and convention.

A social network was also established and developed among scholars and calligraphers, who exchanged ideas and rhymed each other’s poems through writing. The flexibility of handscroll and album, where additional pieces of paper could be added through the process of mounting, provides room for such exchange. The handscroll Pieces on a Houseboat includes poems and prose passages by thirteen high-ranking officials of the late fifteenth–early sixteenth century, all written for a medical doctor. A careful reading of the thirteen pieces reveals each calligrapher’s relationship with the patron as well as their interconnections. All of the dedications are written in semi-cursive script, the favorite among scholars of the period for informal writing, because the continuous and swift brushwork between strokes afforded more freedom than standard script, while at the same time clear breaks between characters could ensure legibility when compared with cursive script. Although each is written in the same semi-cursive script, the thirteen texts demonstrate a wide range of styles that are unique to each calligrapher. Since ancient times the Chinese have regarded calligraphic style as a direct reflection of personality and character, which is believed to be transmitted from the mind, through the hand, and onto paper. The accord between mind and hand is particularly evident in cursive script, no doubt the most difficult to decipher among all scripts due to frequent abbreviation of strokes and running-on of characters. Representing cursive script in the exhibition is a poem the scholar Wang Duo (1592–1652) dedicated to a friend. Wang’s writing is so rapid and fluid that it is possible to trace not only the swift movements of the brush stroke by stroke, but also follow the rhythm of writing by detecting the color and tonal changes in the ink, i.e., when the brush was dipped into ink and put onto paper (when the ink was the darkest) and when it was lifted from the paper (when the ink soaked on the brush ran out and the stroke became light and dry).

The last gallery relates calligraphy to painting. Calligraphy and painting are created with the same tools and material, and much has been written on the relation between the two. Demonstrating this intrinsic connection is a long handscroll by Gao Fenghan (1683–after 1749) that has both calligraphy and painting. On the handscroll, rock formations are interspersed and surrounded by calligraphy. Traditionally, calligraphers, who by definition were Confucian scholars, were members of a small echelon of society. Not only was the practice of calligraphy limited to this group of the cultural elite, viewing calligraphy was also a highly selective activity that usually took place in the intimate setting of private gardens and studios. There, a handscroll would only be opened to the width of a viewer’s shoulders and could be enjoyed by no more than the invited few. In San Francisco, the Gao Fenghan handscroll is opened almost to its entire length. Only today when artworks are displayed in public museums does the opportunity exist to enjoy works such as Gao’s handscroll, Zhao Mengfu’s Lotus Sutra, and Wen Peng’s Thousand-Character Classic in their entirety.

Also included in the last gallery are three large oil paintings by U.S. artists Franz Kline, Mark Tobey, and Brice Marden, borrowed from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art next door. Perhaps the expressive brushworks of the paintings can open a door to an appreciation by museum goers of the formal beauty of Chinese calligraphy. However, their connection to Chinese calligraphy is so elusive that one wonders whether they in fact undermine the curators’ effort to provide an authentic Chinese context for the appreciation of Chinese calligraphy, which they’ve otherwise done so carefully by introducing appropriate tools and vocabulary, by explaining conventions and rules, and by stressing the inseparable relationship between content and form. The uneasiness here is perhaps not unique to this exhibition devoted to an unfamiliar topic; in general, museums seem to struggle to achieve a balance between scholarly rigor and popular appeal.

All forty pieces in the exhibition are on loan from the private collection of Jerry Yang. In the exhibition catalogue, Yang fondly recalls growing up in Taiwan and carrying a case of writing tools on the bus to take calligraphy classes. Although Yang did not start to collect calligraphy until establishing a successful career in America, the early exposure to the art form no doubt planted in him a seed of interest and fascination. In less than a decade, he has assembled one of the best private collections of Chinese calligraphy in the West. The study of Chinese art history in the English-speaking world has been largely shaped by the passion and generosity of individual collectors who have had the financial means to collect masterpieces available on the market and the vision to share their collections with the public. The previously mentioned last major calligraphy exhibition from over a decade ago was drawn from the John B. Elliott collection of calligraphy at Princeton University. Its exhibition catalogue continues to be an important work of reference for anyone interested in Chinese calligraphy (Robert E. Harrist, Jr. and Wen. C. Fong, The Embodied Image: Chinese Calligraphy from the John B. Elliott Collection, Princeton: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1999). Thus, Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco cannot be more timely and needed. One hopes that both the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue will not only introduce the art of Chinese calligraphy to the public, but also encourage a new generation of students to take an interest in this popular and esteemed Chinese art form.