Art is not a thing, it is a way. — Elbert Hubbard
The character for “do”
Yoshiyasu Fujii
The practice of writing fine calligraphy is known as Shodo. The “do” means the “way” or the “path”—a suffix that defines the way traditional forms are taught and learned in Japan. In Chinese, this same character (道 tao or dao) represents the philosophy of Daoism, the way of living in harmony with nature, regarded as the guiding principle that unifies all things in the universe. In art as in life, it is the consciously chosen path through the day-to-day struggle that leads to an enlightened existence. Like a garden path, the journey itself is the destination.
The Way of Tea (Chado), the Way of Flowers (Kado), the Way of Incense (Kodo), the Way of Harmonious Spirit (Aikido)—each of these disciplines is pursued not only as a way of learning an art form or a skill, but of learning to live in harmony with nature and with respect for others. The path to achieving these goals is one of lifelong commitment and self-discipline.
The practice of writing kanji (Chinese characters) with brush and ink teaches the committed student that patience, humility, respect and perseverance are the path to refining not only the hand and the eye, but the spirit itself. Japanese children are encouraged to take up the brush when they are very young, not only with the purpose of learning to write, but in order to learn the ideals that have informed their culture for centuries. Through the practice of writing, they also learn the sense of delicate, asymmetrical proportion and balance that is at the heart of all Japanese visual arts, including that of garden design.
There are many parallels between the way of the brush and the world of the Japanese garden. Along the paths of the Portland Japanese Garden, note the different levels of formality in the sharply formal shin style of hard-edged stone pavers, the less rigidly shaped and configured gyo style, and the informal natural stepping stones of the so style. These same three levels of formality pervade all the traditional Japanese art forms. Nowhere more clearly than in calligraphy, where students are taught kaisho (block style), gyosho (cursive style) and sosho (running grass style), each expressing different levels of formality.
Traditional training in garden construction as well as in carpentry bears much in common with the practice of the more formal traditional arts. To become a respected master gardener in Japan requires the same commitment of time—ten years to a lifetime—to achieve true proficiency, and the same amount of patience, perseverance and humility as does the formal training in the art of brush and ink.
Tags: calligraphy, shodo