Bane of my existence

FaceTime and WhatsApp are indispensable apps these days, thanks in part to the pandemic.  Regardless, these apps dissolve the physical distance between people and the audio/visual combination makes the virtual visitation experience credible.  Kudos to whoever made it possible for multiple people to connect at the same time. 

My ensemble of siblings is situated on 3 different continents and in 3 different time zones; so we usually meet at a time which would not inconvenience any one of us too much.  During a recent visit, one of my siblings started to recite a verse from some poetry.  That verse was somewhat familiar to the rest of us, yet we couldn't identify the origin readily.  Thus the source of the verse became the conversation for the next half hour.  The sibling who uttered that poem said it was from the collection of the Three Hundred Tang Poems.  

Tang Poems was a subject that each one of us in the group had to study as part of the school curriculum.  That was at least half a century ago. The amazing thing was that we were all able to produce our own copy of the Tang Poems and proudly displayed our book in front of the camera and the conversation quickly turned to a bantering of who owns the most "antique" edition of the publication, as if that really mattered.  Obviously we all considered the collection of Tang Poems a worthy addition to our library.  

Some days later, I was with another clique of overseas friends online and one of them mentioned something about how some of the Chinese hit songs borrowed verses from well known Chinese literature and turned them into part of the lyrics or part of the title.  The topic that day centered around a poetry that dealt with the historic Battle of Red Cliffs.  I won't bore you with the historical facts.  It is easy enough to find it on the internet.  I am not a total stranger to this poetry, since the author was Su Dongpo.  Su was visiting the Red Cliffs, which evoked in him a sentiment of inopportune times and not earning the respect he deserved. 

I decided to do a painting based on Su's writing of  "The Red Cliffs Nostalgia" and I would be putting calligraphy on my painting.  I will be paring down his poetry into a more manageable length, not only to save space, but to save grace.  My grace.

The bane of my existence, and there are two.  I wish I could properly play at least one musical instrument; I wish I have good brush calligraphy.

I had labored over Su Dongpo's calligraphy during my course of learning Chinese Brush.  One that I studied and emulated extensively was his Cold Food Festival writing.  Since it was learning by rote for me, I never internalized the calligraphy.  In other words, I have horrible handwriting, in the absence of the Te.  In order not to "ruin" my painting, I decided to do my calligraphy first.  I won't start my painting process until I deem my calligraphy "presentable".  That is how much I dread my own calligraphy.

I started my practicing routine.

The gist of the pared down writing is:

"The incessant waves urge the river eastward, taking with them all the accomplished people.  Such picturesque landscape, how much history have you witnessed.  Perhaps I am being too sentimental, reminiscing the days gone by.  Life is but a dream; allow me to scatter my wine, ode to the river and the moon."

I finally took a deep breath, threw my hands up and settled on this edition:

I find such resonance in these words, hence the motivation for my new painting.

Pie Jesu - A Song and Dance

I've arrived at a point that I am out of whims.  Something tells me to stop.  I am referring to my dancer painting from the last post.

Now what?

How do I botch this up ?

I am looking for a vehicle to coalesce these figures and give them a theme, a message.  I am looking for a road map to exploit.

Then I chanced up a music score for Pie Jesu.  I am a huge fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber and his musicals and I am absolutely infatuated with Sarah Brightman.  The score had parts for string instruments like violins, violas and cellos.  When I saw the notations on how to play the music, I thought of the similarities between music and calligraphy.  In this particular case, between music and my dancing figures.

The individual notes in music is akin to the individual strokes in Chinese writing.  The strokes could be horizontal, vertical or dots and occupied a framework in space.  The notes occupied positions designated by the staff, building a tune.  Tempo of the music is similar to the speed at which the various brushstrokes are laid down in calligraphy, whereas a scherzo and largo might be loosely exemplified by the grass script and the seal script.

So in the Pie Jesu score I saw notation for the bow, i.e. up bow or down bow and I made the association to how the brushstrokes starts and ends.  There was legato ( notes slurred together ) for individual, adjacent notes and that is totally similar to how the brushstrokes were treated in Chinese calligraphy.  Some brushstrokes need to be assimilated as one in order to build the structure.  Phrasing and rhythm are not unique to music, but is evident and required in Chinese calligraphy by how the brush is wielded.  I saw notations for tenuto ( holding notes to their full values, sustained ) even when the music is pianissimo.  So a common mistake for someone using the Chinese round brush for calligraphy is that when one comes to a thin line one tends to skim over that and not give it the full energy, resulting in what I would characterize as a wilted beansprout.  There was notation for pizzicato ( plucking the string ) and arco (playing with the bow) instructing how the musician should sound the notes.

Hence the arms of the ballerinas might dictate long and speedy brushstrokes to distill expression extending to the fingers, not unlike employing thee whole bow to play certain notes to give them character.  Whereas the note might be played with only the middle section, or the tip, or the bottom of  the bow for different effects, various parts of the brush result in different results too. Thus a turned ankle is done differently from a turned head, a difference between using center tip or side tip technique.

Let us examine the two inserts from above.  They show the same word 寒 in both instances.  They are from my calligraphy studies of Su Dongpo's Cold Food Festival Te.

The red circled bend on the left insert shows a smooth round turn.  Compare that to the red circled area from the right insert, where the bend is a very distinct, angular shoulder.  So I would characterize the left insert as an example of legato in brush works, whereas the right insert is an example of pizzicato.

Now the blue circled area from the left insert shows a distinct loop joining the left stroke with the right stroke.  An obvious example of a legato, connecting two distinct strokes, heading two different directions, into a single expression.  The blue circled example from the right insert does not show the overt loop, but does give a suggestion of the brush turning backwards, as evidenced by the little hump.  Whereas this is also a legato, I would also add tenuto ( sustain ) to it to make sure the artist does not lift the brush and maintains the energy throughout the brush travel.

It is very typical for Chinese calligraphers doing the walking or grass style calligraphy to write the same word in varied nuances  In other words one never dresses the same words in identical attires.  This is a way for the calligrapher to bring his/her hubris and boasts his/her command of the brush.  Thus the expression "to read a painting", meaning to appreciate the nuances of the brush through close examination.   In a way this is not that different from the variations of a theme in western music, or seeing the theme being employed and developed again and again throughout a musical piece.

Obviously in Chinese calligraphy, or in using the Chinese brush, there are none of these notations.
The knowledge hence rests in a solid Ji Ben Gong (the fundamentals ) and rote learning.  The point is, such notations are just as necessary and vital, only that they are not explicitly written down in the arena of Chinese brush calligraphy or painting.  I suppose that makes the Chinese brush a tad esoteric.  My intent therefore is to demystify the myths and hypes surrounding the Chinese brush art form and relate it to something tangible and equivalent from the western world.

Enough soliloquy, time to roll up my sleeves again.

Once I was tuned in to the resonance between music and calligraphy, I decided to prop my silhouettes of dancers against the  background of music score from Pie Jesu.

Laying down the staff was the first task.  I thought I had pretty good command of the brush but it was a humiliating experience putting the lines down with a fine brush.

I was trying to be fancy by making my own quill out of a bamboo branch.  That too was kind of disastrous.  The extemporaneously made bamboo quill had no means of holding ink in a controlled manner.  Thus it was all or nothing, resulting in deposit of puddles of ink that I had to blot off in a hurry.  I also suspected the abrasive bamboo tip scratched the surface of my Xuan into a more fibrous state, causing the ink to bleed haphazardly upon contact.  Fortunately I used a light ink for the purpose of writing down the music score.  It didn't take my long to pitch my quill and embraced my round brush again.

It is interesting in hindsight to see how my painting is constructed, borrowing from and finding inspiration from different disciplines, and different cultures.  Here my focus isn't so much on the accuracy of anatomical proportions but rather on the expressiveness of the forms.  This is not unlike Chinese calligraphy.

Just like the horse hairs on a bow caressing the strings in a fine mist of rosin, my brush too is able to course through the Xuan, seeping ink into the fibers to manifest forms; in both instances, expressing something deeper than what is superficial.

Lost

I've been avoiding the brush; avoiding most everything for that matter.  I still can't accept the fact that she's gone; the person who gave me life.  Not when it was so sudden.   I am desperately trying to find a way to unclog my head.  There are too many cross talks.  I just don't know how to organize my thoughts.
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I'm not trying to fill a void, it's just like there's less meaning to all the things I do now.  It's difficult to imagine a grown man was still motivated by the thought of the "NEED" to hand in "Home Works".   I suppose the simple act of turning in some piece of work suggested not some sort of  an accomplishment, but it was a way to show the I was doing fine, and nothing in my life had altered my routine.

To help me get back on the horse I decided to go back to calligraphy, to a piece that I had studied in the past.  The beauty of revisiting this study is that it is familiar and I just need to follow and emulate the Te, and the circumstance of this piece of work is meaningful.

I am referring to the work of Han Shi Te by Su Dongbo.

Han Shi ( Cold Food Festival ) is a festival that falls around the time of Qingming Festival ( Tomb Sweeping Day).  Qingming ( April 4th or 5th) is a day to show respect to ancestors, thus tidying up the tomb site  and offerings of food and drinks and incinerating paper money (currency of the underworld ) are traditional practice.

Legend has it that Han Shi (Cold Food Festival) was ordered by an ancient Emperor as a redemption for his horrific mistake.  The Emperor was seeking the service of his friend, who did not aspire to fame nor glory, and avoided the Emperor by vanishing into the woods with his aging mother and entertained a life of simplicity.   In his infinite wisdom the Emperor decided to force his friend to reveal himself by setting fire to the woods,  subsequently causing the death of his friend and his mother.  In his remorse, the Emperor decreed that no fire or burning was allowed for 3 days.  Thus there was no way to cook and food had to be consumed cold, hence the Han Shi Festival .

Su Dongbo (Su Shi)  (1037-1101)  was a famous calligrapher, poet, foodie and a statesman of the Song dynasty.   He somehow angered his Emperor and was banished to a remote place.  During his exile he held a post in name only but received no stipend, thus was living in poverty.  One could only imagine the smorgasbord of emotions that he had to endure.   Shrouded in the shadow of injustice he wrote the Han Shi poem, where he referenced the Han Shi Festival as a means of noting the seasons.  His calligraphy Han Shi Te  hence became one of the gold standard for studying the walking style of brush calligraphy.

He wrote about the incessant cold rain and the dilapidated hut he dwelt in was like a boat in a rising torrent .  He was trying to cook on a broken stove with wet hay and only sensed  it was time of the Han Shi Festival by noticing that birds were carrying incinerated paper in their beaks.  He was far removed from the central administration despite his continued desire to serve and he couldn't even fulfill his duties by observing the Qingming Festival.  He talked about how all the blooms had wilted  and fallen overnight, perhaps drawing a parallel of his own fate.

What made this poem famous was the picture it portrayed of the desolate bleakness of his emotional state.  What made this piece of calligraphy astounding was the air it exuded, of the author's anguish, frustration and longing, by means of the irregular font size and spacing and the different ink tones.  His was not your typical calligraphy piece.  It was a testament to his circumstances.

I reacquainted myself with this piece by performing the usual ritual of shadow writing; following the brushstroke in my head and analyzing how each stroke was shaped and delivered.  My first job was trying to emulate his brushstrokes.  I started to copy his writing.

My next goal was to emulate the whole piece as a complete organism.   I would try to gauge the spacing, the ink tone and the rhythm in the script.  I tried to find the punctuation, the phrasing of written passage.  I needed to sense where the fermata is, which words were pizzicato and which words should be treated like legato; to borrow a few musical terms.  Perhaps I was over-analyzing or was being pedantic, I found myself hesitating with my brush edge and pressure.  I found myself  already arriving at the end of the brushstroke and I still wasn't able to form the correct shape.    This was like a novice horn player having difficulty with finding the correct embouchure, causing  the notes to come in late or drag on for longer than intended.

I devised a method to combat that.  I thought I would write in light ink first and my emphasis would not be on the quality of my brushstrokes, but rather on the placement and the relative size of the words.  I could thus start the emulation with less pressure, by dealing with the more graphic aspect of the project.  My intention was to re-trace my light ink with the proper brushstrokes, done to the specifications of Su Dongpo.  I was eager to see if this plot would work.

To help ease my trepidation with this emulation, I chose an old brush that somehow survived 18 years of abuse and really was not fit for calligraphy.  I figured that would help me to not place too much emphasis on the quality of the brush edge and pressure etc. but to seek out the spacing and the form of the whole piece.  I was treating this work as a painting or sorts.  I spotted the position of the columns of  characters by creasing the paper along those lines.

Somehow I mis-calculated the numbers of columns I needed and the words did not fit into the original places.   I tried another piece, and still managed to omit the last column ( where Su titled his work).   Is there hope for me?!

To be frank, I wasn't disappointed with my efforts, so far.  The brush strokes actually were not that bad.  They were free and energetic.   I think the fact that I was using an old brush and all that gave me an excuse to fail, thus taking off a lot of pressure from me.  Such was my psyche.   I wished perfection right off the bat, and I had to will myself to be not so demanding.  I was my own worst enemy!   I was always so uptight about everything that I just couldn't relax.  I recall that I used to bowl a little bit and my scores were always hovering around 100.  After a couple of beers I could come near 150.  The score would fall back to 100 as alcohol left my system.  My bowling score was an uncanny indicator of how much beer I had to drink!

Anyways my next step would be to use a good brush and attempt to do "real" calligraphy by tracing my light ink.  Hopefully I could now be paying more attention to the brush edges and pressure, and not so much in the form and spacing.  That is my intention anyways.