Japanese calligraphy is an essential part of the country’s culture. Children in Japan learn calligraphy in school, and apply it on numerous occasions in everyday life. In the beginning, Japanese calligraphy styles were mostly adopted from China. However, over time calligraphy masters developed their own unique style of beautiful writing, which is used in Japan to this day. Unlike its Chinese counterpart, Japanese calligraphy places the biggest emphasis on the order of strokes that compose the characters.
History of Japanese Calligraphy Styles
The first style, commonly used between the 2nd and the 10th century, originated from China. It is known as seal script or tensho. Extravagant and complex, today seal script is usually used for book titles. Seal script was replaced with a clerical script also known as reisho, a very striking style that also originated from China. It is marked with very exaggerated strokes on the beginning and the end of the characters. Because of its extravagance, the script is mostly used for signs, large text, plaques etc…
Apart from seal and clerical script, in today’s Japan, there are three prevalent…
