Brush Writing: Calligraphy Techniques for Beginners

By Ryokushu Kuiseko

Book Overview

For many a deep and lasting interest in Japanese culture, its people and its language, begins with a fascination for beautifully drawn characters produced by a master calligrapher. Compared with the squarish, regular representation of Chinese characters reproduced in books, newspapers, and magazines by modern printing techniques, the appealing brush strokes of a handwritten Japanese scroll, letter, or menu is often considered a work of art, and associated with the aesthetic and mystical. Brush Writing is dedicated to such enthusiasts of Japanese calligraphy who have searched for a basic and introductory guide in English to this traditional and challenging Eastern art.

Any learner of Japanese will almost certainly find this book an invaluable aid to writing kanji, a subject that is rarely dealt with adequately in language textbooks, as well as providing fundamental clues to decipher handwritten Japanese. Through nearly fifty model characters, Brush Writing teaches the basic techniques of writing almost any kanji. For each character, we have clearly shown the correct stroke order, major readings in romanized Japanese, and meanings in English. Advice on balance and other practical tips on writing kanji have also been included. Equally important to all non-native learners of Japanese, this book explains the secret of writing attractive hiragana, the key, in fact, to ensuring that handwritten Japanese is clearly legible and leaving the impression that it was penned by an adult Japanese hand.

But it does not end there. Brush Writing is more than a kanji guide for students of the Japanese language. After working through the systematic instructions carefully explained in this volume, anyone, with an appreciation of the beauty and art of quality brush work, should find little difficulty in creating fine calligraphy of their very own, even if the meanings of the shapes themselves remain a mystery. This volume begins with a comprehensive, but brief introduction to the history of Chinese and Japanese characters to satisfy the curiosity of the enthusiast. For novice calligraphers, not only have we explained how to use the necessary materials and equipment, such as brushes, paper, and sumi ink, but we have also appended a list of stores selling calligraphic supplies throughout the United States.

For Japanese language students and aspiring calligraphers alike, Brush Writing is the perfect introduction to the art and technique of shodo, Japanese calligraphy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870118625
• ISBN13: 9780870118623
• Release Date: August 1988
• Publisher: Kodansha
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.2" x 11.6"

Customer Reviews

Good book, but may not be "for begginers"

This book is really useful to learn techniques of oriental calligraphy. However, since it teaches the regular style (kaisho), it may not be suitable to people who hasn't learnt easier styles (like tensho), as the regular style is the most difficult to understand and learn. Nevertheless, the explanations are quite comprehensible and there are enough examples to achieve a good level of brush writing.

Good buy for beginners

Like the title promises, this is a good book for beginners. It has useful suggestions on how to begin and end the main strokes found in Shodo, as well as suggested kanji with how to write them and what they mean. I found it very helpful.

Great for beginning students

This is a good book for beginning students learning to write Kanji and Hiragana. The large format makes it easy to see how to form the character correctly. The instructions are excellent, showing you step-by-step, how to write each symbol in detail. Though cursive script is shown, it is smaller and detailed instructions for writing it are not given.Each character's reading and meaning are shown as well. However, since less than 75 words are covered, it is not intended to teach you to read Japanese. The book also covers materials, techniques, & a brief history of Asian calligraphy. There is a beautiful calligraphy appreciation section in the back. It shows some of the characters reflecting their meaning.

Good beginning brush technique book. Beautiful examples.

This is a good beginning book for learning brush technique for Japanese calligraphy of the pictographs that are based on the Chinese characters. She goes through everything from basic setup and rubbing ink through a couple dozen characters, so if you already know stroke order and have some idea of the characters you want to do, this book focuses on how to make the brush strokes for plain 'block' characters work, with some hint as to the possibilities with script characters and more artistic forms. There is a single page for how to form the phonetic characters as well.The sample characters are big, bold, and easy to learn from and have the easier posture of a native calligrapher, rather than the squared-off posture of most American renderings.It's a very good starting place for someone wishing to make characters with more personality than can be done with a normal pen or pencil. But is only a beginner's book if you already have some experience with a brush and ink.