Brushed Voices: Calligraphy in Contemporary China

By Yiguo Zhang

Represented in this exhibition catalog are 21 leading contemporary Chinese calligraphers and their works. The exhibition, curated by the author, sampled various modern styles ranging from oracle bone, seal, bamboo, clerical, standard, and cursive scripts to noncharacter calligraphy. Each calligrapher's work is accompanied by commentary and illustrations. The book opens with information on major exhibitions, competitions, publications, organizations, education, and auction houses, and ends with an interview with Brice Marden, a contemporary American painter whose art is influenced by Chinese calligraphy. Recommended for both large public and academic libraries as one of the best on this subject.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1884919065
• ISBN13: 9781884919060
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Wallach Art Gallery
• Length: 178 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.0" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Calligraphy - a Vital Art Form in China Today

"Brushed Voices" is the beautifully-printed catalog of an exhibition of calligraphy at Columbia University by some two dozen living Chinese artists. The author, a calligrapher and scholar of art himself, selected works of art that demonstrate important trends in calligraphy, such as "non-character calligraphy," where calligraphers make up non-existent characters, which they write as elegantly and seriously as real characters, as a kind of comment on the difficult and sometimes nonsensical nature of traditional Chinese learning, and "pictorial calligraphy," where artists make calligraphy by "painting" characters in splashy, washy strokes that are composed like the elements of a picture. The catalog contains insightful discussions of the artists' ideas and use of the brush, as well as biographical information about each artist. This is the only book in English to open a window onto the flourishing world of calligraphy in China today.