书法 Chinese Calligraphy

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan are on an official visit to India.

During her hour-long visit to the Tagore International School, Peng interacted with a selec group of students and did some calligraphy.

Peng said: "It is important for all of us to keep learning and work hard to achieve the goal we have set in life."

Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, teaches students to use Chinese writing brush at the Tagore International School in New Delhi, India, Sept. 18, 2014.[Photo: Xinhua]

书法(shū fǎ) calligraphy is the art of writing Chinese characters and especially refers to the rules of writing with a brush. The emergence of calligraphy is closely associated with the special style of Chinese characters. When writing Chinese characters, emphasis is placed on the change in the stipples and lines as well as spacing between the characters and the lines. A beautiful composition and strong artistic sense are also important.

Calligraphy has a history of more than 3,000 years. The most renowned calligraphers include Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi, Zhang Xu and Yan Zhenqing. There are many interesting stories about these artists that are related to calligraphy, including that of father and son calligraphers Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi.

Wang Xianzhi, who was the son of Wang Xizhi, started practicing calligraphy with his father when he was only seven or eight years old. He always dreamed of surpassing his father, but his mother told him that progress came only after hard work. One day five years later, Wang Xianzhi showed the characters he wrote to his father. Dissatisfied with his son's progress, Wang Xizhi added a dot under the Chinese character 大. Wang Xianzhi took it to his mother and said, "I have practiced for five years. Could you tell the difference between my handwriting and that of my father?" His mother studied the copy and then pointed the dot Wang Xizhi put under the character 大, saying, "only this dot is like your father's handwriting." Wang Xianzhi was shocked and started practicing calligraphy even harder. His reputation later rivaled that of his father. The two were called the Two Wangs( In Chinese, Wang has another meaning of King.), a miracle in the history of calligraphy.

The Calligraphy by Wang Xizhi [Photo: baidu]

The story also tells us that just like working on anything else, practicing calligraphy requires unremitting efforts.