How to Learn Japanese Calligraphy

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How to learn Japanese calligraphy

For serious calligraphy learners, the first step is practicing major masterpiece classics to learn basic skills. We study both Chinese and Japanese classics. Historically, Japanese calligraphy's main influence was Chinese calligraphy. Japanese calligraphy continued to develop into an original combination of kanji, hiragana and katakana for creating beautiful components.

The basic practice is to imitate shapes, brush strokes and other components from classics. Through the iteration of copying, we learn a variety of brushstroke skills, manner of characters, spatial sense, so forth.

Japanese and Japanese calligraphy - Shuji

Most Japanese experience Japanese calligraphy in elementary school. This is often called Shu-ji (習字、the practice of studying Japanese characters and basic kanji). But their basic Shuji education doesn’t prioritize or include artistic expression. It focuses on writing correct Japanese beautifully as well as learning peaceful behavior through certain rules in the class. Because of these rules, many students tend to become to dislike Japanese calligraphy as they find the rules tedious.