Nine Common Forms of Chinese Calligraphy (Part 2)

Following the previous blog post, I will continue to share other forms of Chinese calligraphy. 

3.The nave is a style in which the Chinese paintings mount in the vertical frame, named after hanging on the middle wall of the hall. The floor slabs of old-style houses in China are very high. 

People often hang enormous calligraphy and painting on the middle wall of the living room (main room), called the nave painting. It is a rectangular work written in vertical lines. The content is mostly a four-foot full sheet of large characters with auspicious meanings such as blessing, longevity, dragon, and tiger, with "couplets" on the left and right. There are also calligraphic inscriptions on ancestral mottos, sayings, famous sentences, or portraits of ancestors, landscapes, and tigers. The size is generally a piece of whole rice paper (four feet, five feet, six feet, eight feet, etc.).

Because the size is relatively large, the creator needs to have proficient techniques and the ability to grasp the overall layout of the work. When creating, we must pay attention to the primary and secondary relationship between the main text and the inscription and make the primary and secondary differences between them correspondingly bright. Don't overwhelm the host when signing. The signature can write below the bottom line of the text, and there should be room for a layout. The bottom of the paragraph is generally not flush with the body to avoid rigid form. It can also occupy another line or several lines at the end of the text, and the top and bottom should not be flush with the article. The seal should be smaller than the typeface, and the stamp must generally leave more than one word, placed under the typeface, or on the left side of the typeface.

4. DouFang: Cut rice paper into a style of about eight kai (about 1 square foot), called DouFang.

Dongfang is one of the mounting styles of Chinese painting and calligraphy. It means a page of calligraphy, calligraphy, or poem one or two square meters. The scale is small, generally referring to drawings and calligraphy works of 25-50 cm square. In folk New Year pictures, arts of this size and form are also called "Doufang." There is also a fighting style in the current paintings. The small Doufang that is one-foot square is also called "Doufang Xiaoping" or "Xiaopin Doufang."

The written content of Doufang is generally four to six lines. Because of the large number of rows and columns, the layout of the chapter should emphasize the size, opening, and closing, echoing, and rhythm changes. When creating, pay attention to the primary and secondary relationship between the main text and the inscription. The characters are generally smaller than the main text and should be natural and vivid. The signature can write below the bottom line of the article, and there should be room for a layout. The bottom of the paragraph is generally not flush with the body to avoid rigid form. It can also occupy another line or two lines after the text, and the top and bottom cannot be flush with the article. The seal must be smaller than the word, and it must leave more than one character.

5. Plaque: also known as a horizontal drape, horizontal banners are framed or carved on wooden boards and hung on the wall.

The plaque is generally hung above the door and under the eaves. When the building has gates on all sides, plaques can hang on all sides, but the front doors must have plaques, such as royal gardens, palaces, and some famous residences. Many dragons and phoenixes, flowers, and patterns will carve on the borders of many plaques. Some inlaid pearls and jade are gorgeous.

6. Bar screen: Write a group of works based on the length of the poem and essay on paper of the same size as the nave and banner.

The separately hung ones call "banners," and the ones hung together are called "tang screens" or "strip screens," such as "four screens, eight screens, twelve, sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty-six screens.