Comparison between Expert and Beginner on Calligraphy Letter's Characteristic

Abstract

Kanji was born in China and has the history of 4,000 years. During the long evolution of history, Kanji played an important social role of ideas’ exchange and cultural heritage; On the other hand, it also formed a kind of unique plastic art accompanying with writing brushes, ink sticks, paper and inkstones’ emergence. Calligraphy is the written style of character (Kanji), it is not only a cultural treasure of the Chinese nation, but also become the world's cultural treasure. Traditionally calligraphy technique is handed down mainly through oral teaching. However, the calligraphy technique is reliant on apperceiving heavily, which is one of main reasons that only few people can achieve greater successes even if long-lasting training. Without apperception, it cannot be learnt no matter how hard you study, which was considered as the special tacit knowledge. It is also difficult for some experienced calligraphy to effectively pass on their knowledge to the students. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate expert and beginner's calligraphy work characteristic difference. In this study, two Chinese calligraphers with more than 40 years writing experience were employed as expert, who was required to write calligraphy letter as reference. Correspondingly, two university students were employed as beginners to copy their work. Finally, characteristic of their final works were compared in proposed analysis program by computer. The detail element of character feature and relationship between writing gesture and calligraphy letter's pattern was also clarified.