calligraphy

Calligraphy :Shodo is the art of drawing characters with a mem pnd india imk to express spiritual depth and bem, shodo originally came from China, but in Japan Chinese characters(kanji) were combined with the Japanese sylabary(kana), devised in Japan, to create this unique character art. With a brush soaked in India ink one can freely control, unlike with a pen, the thickness and the tone of the characters. That is how the calligraphers are able to express their spirits and ideas. Beyond the standard square style of writing(kaisho), calligraphic style can be divided into the somewhat simplified semicursive style(gyösho) and the still more simplified cursive style(sösho). Except for New Year’s cards and the like, a brush

is ordinarily not used for writing, but shodo is included in the elementary school curriculum.