A blast from the past: The Democracy Wall

Rhetorical question aimed at nobody in particular: How do I write about modern calligraphy without mentioning the Democracy Wall of 1979?

The phenomenon of the 1979 Democracy Wall in Beijing now seems surreal, considering the vast social and economic changes that have taken place in China since then. But there, for a brief period, citizens gathered to read and comment upon layers of large posters painted in bold ink on all kinds of scrap and newspaper, each poster calling for civic and political reform. Within a short time Deng Xiaoping, consolidating his power as the eventual successor to Mao Zedong, suppressed the movement and the wall was moved to a distant suburb.

The short-lived Democracy Wall was the last prominent use of calligraphy as a vehicle for personal expression in the public forum, concluding a long tradition of intellectuals expressing their concerns to the seat of power in their own hand. Calligraphy—the manner of writing itself—was an essential aspect of literacy. It served as a means of displaying sincerity and erudition, with its practitioners drawing from a widely-circulated canon of masterpieces dating back as far as 1,500 years.

Unfortunately I just can't see the good people at the China Tourism and Travel Press considering that to be a healthy topic for conversation in my guidebook. I can picture the explanations now: "There was no Democracy Wall" "The Democracy Wall was not harmonious" "They were misguided people who thought democracy was superior the the Chinese system"

And with the Olympics, a still-roaring economy, and government satisfaction at heady heights, they may even be close to the truth.

Talkin' 'bout calligraphy

Since it is less than 48 hours until the opening ceremony, I thought I would talk about calligraphy, and specifically one of the most interesting of the ancient masters. This is an unedited extract from the guidebook I am writing...

Zhang Xu

Like the rigid, formal form of the characters they painted, the Four Masters of the Regular Script were all literati of high social status, who also served with distinction in government. The flipside of these rather stiff characters would be another Tang Dynasty artist, the drunken wild man of calligraphy, Zhang Xu (who is thought to have painted from 710-750).

In a fascinating 1300 year precursor to Jimi Hendrix playing the electric guitar with his teeth, Zhang Xu is famous for his orgies of drunken excess, in which he would pace about, shout, and soak his hair in ink in order to paint his timeless classics of wild cursive script.

Reading, (or more correctly, trying to read) “Crazy Zhang’s” fluid streams of alcohol-tinged calligraphy, it is quite eerie to imagine this ancient Chinese artist, who had a totally alien concept of the world, indulge in these seemingly modern-day western antics of artistic excess. In a strange kind of way, Crazy Zhang penchant for a tipple is a nice reflection of the fact that no matter where you are in time, location, or culture, people all have tendencies to behave in the same way.

However despite his counter-cultural tendencies, Zhang Xu did have his more restrained side. His wild cursive was in fact based on earlier Han examples, he just found that his talent had the greatest chance of being expressed to its fullest extent when he was ridiculously drunk. Furthermore, he was also adept at the more restrained style of Kaishu (Regular Script). Maybe, after all, he was less Jimi Hendrix and more Hunter S. Thompson.