Semi-cursive script

One of the most notable calligraphers who used this style was Wang Xizhi (303–361). Wang is known for the Lantingji Xu ('Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection'), a work published in 353 which remains highly influential to calligraphers throughout the Sinosphere. Semi-cursive script is prominent in modern Chinese society despite the lack of official education for it, a status aided by the introduction of fountain pens.

History

The Chinese writing system has been borrowed and used in East Asian countries, including Japan, Korea and Vietnam for thousands of years due to China's extensive influence, technology and large territory. As a result, the culture of calligraphy and its various styles spread across the region, including semi-cursive script.

China

The semi-cursive style was developed in the Han dynasty. Script in this style is written in a more curvaceous style than the regular script, however not as illegible as the cursive script.

One of the most notable calligraphers to produce work using the semi-cursive style is Wang Xizhi, where his work Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection was written in 353 AD. The work included the character 之, a possessive particle, twenty-one times all in different forms. The difference in form was generated by Wang under the influence of having alcohol with his acquaintances. He had wanted to reproduce the work again since it was in his liking, but to no avail. Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection is still included in some of the world's most notable calligraphy works and remains highly influential in the calligraphy world.

The semi-cursive style was also the basis of the techniques used to write with the fountain pen when Western influence was heavy in China, in the early 20th century. Although it is not officially taught to students, the style has proceeded to become the most popular Chinese script in modern times. In the digital age, it has been proposed to encode Chinese characters using the "track and point set" method, which allows users to make their own personalized semi-cursive fonts.

Japan

Calligraphy culture from China was introduced to Japan in around AD 600 and has been practiced up to the modern day. Although Japan originally used Chinese characters (called kanji in Japanese) to represent words of the spoken language, there were still parts of the spoken language that could not be written using Chinese characters. The phonetic writing systems, hiragana and katakana, were developed as a result of the semi-cursive and cursive styles. During the Heian period, a large number of calligraphy works were written in the semi-cursive style because the roundedness of the style allowed for a natural flow between kanji and hiragana. In the Edo period, general trends have been noticed where semi-cursive was used with hiragana in mixed script for "native" literature and books translated for commoners, while regular script kanji was used alongside katakana for Classical Chinese works meant to be read by scholars.

Korea

Chinese calligraphy appeared in Korea at around 2nd or 3rd century AD. Korea also used Chinese characters (called hanja in Korean) until the invention of the Korean alphabet, hangul, in 1443. Even then, many calligraphers did not choose to use the newly created hangul writing system and continued to write calligraphy and its various styles using Chinese characters. In this environment, semi cursive script started seeing use in Korea during the Joseon dynasty.