UNIT 9

1	When I began my art collection, I started with calligraphy.  Of course I loved it, but this was not the only reason: more than anything, calligraphy was cheap!  For example, an ink painting by Edo artists Ikeno Taiga or Buson ran to tens of thousands of dollars, while calligraphy by the same artists could be bought for a tenth of this.  Even calligraphy by an internationally known figure like Sen no Rikyu, founder of the tea ceremony, was available until recently for about $20,000.  This compares with the price of some of the more famous prints by Hokusai.  But only a few dozen genuine works by Rikyu survive, whereas Hokusai prints were produced by the thousands.  The low cost of calligraphy reflects its lack of popularity today among the Japanese.
2	This was not always so.  Traditionally, calligraphy was the highest of the arts.  The most valued possessions of Zen temples are the calligraphy works of the temple abbots.  The kuge nobles also treasured calligraphy above all other kinds of art.  Calligraphy held the highest rank because it was believed to capture the soul of the writer.  There is an ancient Chinese saying, gCalligraphy is a portrait of the heart.h  Even ordinary handwriting can be a gportrait of the heart.h  In the stateroom of my former employer Trammell Crowfs yacht there hung a pair of love letters written by Napoleon and Josephine.  No painting could have captured their intimacy better than these autographs.  But more than any pen, the brush subtly reflects every slight variation in pressure and direction, thus expressing vividly the artistfs state of mind.  Calligraphy provides a direct link between one mind and another.
3	I have never met a court noble of old, and no amount of reading can convey a clear idea of what the life of the kuge was really like.  But the hair-thin lines of almost impossibly elegant script which they wrote at their poem festivals cause the kuge world to spring clearly into view.  On reading the poems and essays of the legendary fifteenth-century Zen master Ikkyu, you find nothing but complicated Zen theorizing; only a scholar could possibly figure out what he is trying to say.  But visit Shinju-an temple in Kyoto, where two of Ikkyufs scrolls hang in the Founderfs Hall, and in an instant the wit of this eccentric old abbot jumps out at you.  The calligraphy reads, gDonft do evil, do only good!h  This refers to an old Chinese story in which someone asked a master to define the essence of Buddhism.  The reply was, gDonft do evil, do only good,h to which the questioner asked, gWhat is so special about that?  Even a child knows that.h  gWell then,h said the master, gif even a child knows that, why canft you do it?h  Ikkyu wrote these lines in a rough hand, at what seems to have been a lightning pace.  On first sight, the characters give you quite a surprise \\ Ikkyu is mocking us, scratching at us, shocking us.