Re: fengxing (was Re: Familynames (was [OT] Re: Conlangea Dreaming)

On Sat, 14 Oct 2000, Adam Walker wrote:

> This question is sorta in between conlang and conculture, but how do your
> cultures treat the written word?  In the west calligraphy is seen as an
> craft.  In China it is an art.  Thursday night at the nightmarket, I bought
> this beautiful four-color painting of my Chinese name.  The artist did them
> while you watched.  She made a beautiful tropical painting of birds and
> sunsets and bamboos and fish and shrimps and flowers, etc.  Do your confolk
> treat their writing as art?
Yes.  :-)  Thank goodness the alphabet looks halfway pretty now instead
of the horrible mess it was before.  (The previous version looked fine
when you wrote it left-to-right, but I decided top-down made more sense
and kept the original symbols.  Arranged top-down, though, those symbols
looked absolutely yucky.)

I know my grandfather has done somewhat of calligraphy Korean-style.
It's a gift I don't have.  I signed up for a Chinese brush-painting
course this semester and in the 2 sessions I actually attended, the
instructor (who apparently learned from Chinese calligraphers and does
this, among other things, for a living) demonstrated both brush-painting
and calligraphy.  I've done some amateur Western-style calligraphy, and
it's lovely too, but there's something more spiritual and wild (to me)
about Chinese (or Korean?) style calligraphy.  The latter is
theoretically what my confolk are closer to, though I'm not very good
with a brush myself and haven't tried to render anything
calligraphically.  I'm still getting used to my conscript.  :-)

I love looking at Arabic calligraphy as well but I can never figure out
how all the squiggles actually become words even after looking at the
Arabic alphabet.  I came across some website that has Arabic
calligraphers taking commissions...if I could figure out how my name
would render in Arabic (if at all) I'd be really tempted to get my name done!

I don't, unfortunately, have time to finish the course (though I probably
can next semester)--I'm just too worn down by Friday.  But I do have two
rather expensive imported Chinese brushes and some watercolors I mean to
practice with if time ever presents itself.

YHL, who loves calligraphy