Living Tradition: The Calligraphy of Chen Wei-Teh
Maurice J. Sullivan Gallery (Gallery 16) ||| February 25-June 20, 2010

The Chinese writing system is the oldest written language in continual use anywhere in the world, with origins dating back more than three thousand years. According to ancient legend, Chinese characters were invented by the great sage Cang Jie (an official in the court of the mythical Yellow Emperor) after he was inspired by bird footprints. While even in their earliest known form Chinese characters achieved a complexity far beyond mere pictographs, many Chinese words in use today still resemble the objects to which they refer; for example, “tree” shows the trunk and branches of a tree, while the modern compound for “forest” consists of two words made up of three and two trees, respectively.

The oldest surviving Chinese characters date to approximately 1300 BC, and consist of “oracle” inscriptions on bones, questions posed by the rulers of the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600- ca. 1050 BC) to their ancestors and the spirits. These were followed by inscriptions on bronzes from the Shang and Zhou (ca. 1050-256 BC) dynasties. As the method of writing changed from words engraved with a stylus or cast in bronze to those written with a brush on bamboo slips, silk, and eventually paper, the forms of characters changed, resulting in several major scripts:

• Large and small seal script (daxiao zhuanshu) was found on Zhou dynasty bronzes, yet is still used today for seal carving.
• Clerical script (lishu) was developed by scribes writing with brushes in the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220).
• Regular script (kaishu) emerged after the fall of the Han dynasty and became the standard script for official documents and the writing style still used for most Chinese texts.
• Running script (xingshu) is a semi-cursive form that appeared by the fourth century AD as an abbreviated script favored for informal writings.
• Cursive script (caoshu) developed around the same time as xingshu, and reached its peak in the Tang dynasty (618-906) as a highly personalized form most suitable for artistic expression.

Earlier scripts remained in use as newer ones multiplied, creating a rich vocabulary of different ways to write that enhanced the artistic language of successive generations of calligraphers.

One of the “Three Perfections” (poetry, calligraphy, and painting), calligraphy was a fundamental foundation of Chinese culture, establishing a link between the visual and the literary arts. Since the Chinese brush reflects even the slightest movements of the artist’s hand, and each work of calligraphy clearly reveals its entire process of creation in the “traces” left behind by the brush and ink on paper or silk, calligraphy is considered the most personal, intimate, and revealing of all Chinese art forms.

Despite its great antiquity, Chinese calligraphy remains a vital, living tradition in Chinese communities around the world. The Academy is honored to present for the first time to a U.S. audience the calligraphy of Chen Wei-Teh, one of Taiwan’s most renowned practitioners. Dr. Chen is Director of the Department of Chinese Literature at Mingdao University. An advisor to the Taiwanese Ministry of Education and former President of the Chinese Calligraphy Association, Dr. Chen is an expert in Chinese literature and Confucian philosophy. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Taiwan and throughout Asia, and is the recipient of many artistic and cultural awards. —SHAWN EICHMAN, CURATOR OF ASIAN ART