Legend has it that a four-eyed man named Tsangh-hsieh was the first to engage in the practice of character drawing, in the Third Millennium B.C. It is said that he was inspired by tracks left by passing animals. More scholarly sources place the origins of the written Chinese language during the Shang period (Second Millennium B.C), as evidenced by engravings found on tortoise shells dating back to that era. The tortoise shell had long been used as a prognosticator’s device, in part as a result of the intriguing patterns which generally adorn them.

Whatever the source of early Chinese characters, it is clear that unlike their western counterparts, their creation was heavily based on pictographs and ideographs. Each represented a particular image or concept, and they were often juxtaposed with one another to create compound symbols.

This system of writing kanji (lit. Chinese characters) was imported by the Japanese around the Fifth Century A.D., and later modified to create the additional alphabets of katakana (stylized portions of existing characters primarily used to render foreign words) and hiragana (more cursive simplifications of existing characters, often used alongside kanji for grammatical purposes).

All of these types of script can be rendered in a number of different styles, from the authoritative block style of kaisho, to the whimsical cursive of sosho, as well as seal script (tensho), clerical script (reisho) and semi-cursive script (gyōsho).

While Japanese language courses stress the correct stroke order and minute detail of each character with sometimes annoying precision, a mere technical appreciation of the characters fails to address the ineffable subtlety of shodō.

Like any Japanese art, there are strict rules which must be mastered, including the proper placement, use and care of the utensils. The arrangement of tehon to the left, fude and fudeoki to the right and suiteki and suzuri even further to right, well out of harm’s way, is both aesthetically pleasing and practically utilitarian. Such details as the stability afforded by the bunchin, and the gentle give of the shitajiki all contribute to the end product.

Similarly, proper posture and breathing as well as the free flowing motion of the brush, held vertically and directed with arm rather than wrist motions, are essential to the execution of correct strokes. Even the acts of grinding sumi in the suzuiri to the correct consistency before writing, and rinsing and drying the fude just enough afterwards, assist the shodōka in arriving at and departing from the appropriate state of mind.

With any luck, the resulting characters will display the smooth, angular lines of a sword stroke, neatly cropped with symmetrical, forty-five degree tails, and the varying widths and consistencies which betoken a sensitivity to slight changes in pressure required at different stages.

After a time, the unending intricacy and nuance implicit in shodō become apparent, and the practitioner begins to realize the wisdom of the ancient expression: “bun bu ichi.”

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