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Apollo
Art Diary

20 Dances: Japanese Calligraphy Then and Now

24 July 2020

While some museums remain shuttered due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Apollo’s usual weekly pick of exhibitions will include shows at institutions that are now reopening as well as digital projects providing virtual access to art and culture.

For some 1,500 years, calligraphy has been understood in East Asia as the highest form of art. The many thousands of characters in Chinese and Japanese writing allow for a huge variety of personal expression, with each script varying in style and rhythm. This exhibition (1 August–21 March 2021) reveals the development of the art form since 300 BC, ranging from clerical script (reisho) – the first stylised script – to the popular running script (gyosho) that became the standard form of handwriting. Find out more from the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s website. 

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here

Qin and Calligraphy–100 Delights (mid 18th century), Yanagisawa Kien

Qin and Calligraphy–100 Delights (mid 18th century), Yanagisawa Kien

Words Concerned with Existence (1984), Suda Kokuta

Words Concerned with Existence (1984), Suda Kokuta

Du Fu's ‘Over the Blue River‘ (mid 17th–early 18th century), Sasaki Shōgen

Du Fu’s Over the Blue River (mid 17th–early 18th century), Sasaki Shōgen

Song Zhiwen's Layered Peaks (mid 18th century), Ike Taiga

Song Zhiwen’s Layered Peaks (mid 18th century), Ike Taiga

Bring the Qin (early 17th century), Nakai Tōjū