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Recent Acquisitions Releases Press Release Archive |
Brush of Dreams: The Art of Calligraphy February 28–June 16, 2002 Brush of Dreams: The Art of Calligraphy featuring the art of Toboku Sugiyama opens Thursday, February 28 and continues through Sunday, June 16 at the Tyler Museum of Art. The exhibition is being curated by Kentaro Tomio. Calligraphy was introduced to Japan, along with Buddhism, from China and Korea in the sixth century. Unlike in the West, calligraphy has a venerable tradition in East Asia that originated in ancient China. There it was regarded as one of the three highest art forms alongside poetry and painting, and in the countries that were under the sway of the ancient Chinese civilization, it shared the privileged status of being high art along with painting until at least the end of the nineteenth century. Before the introduction of a Chinese writing system, Japanese people had no way to write their own language. Japanese calligraphy began with the written form of the Chinese language. This meant that to be literate, early Japanese had to learn thousands of distinct forms from the total of more than fifty thousand Chinese characters. The Japanese gradually evolved their own written language from the Chinese forms, devising a system in which Chinese characters were used for basic sentence elements, but simplified characters called kana were devised for phonetic elements such as word endings. Thus, Japanese as a written language came to be composed of both the complex Chinese characters and simpler kana syllable forms. This produced a pleasingly asymmetrical mixture of complex and simpler shapes, leading to a new Japanese aesthetic in calligraphy. Calligraphy has enormous impact on some viewers, but it is all too easily dismissed by others. Some people feel that it is too complicated to enjoy, or they are put off by being unable to read it. Yet it has a direct visual dynamism that can be immensely enjoyable to those who give it a chance. More than reading the words, it is experiencing the dance of lines and forms that creates the beauty of calligraphy. Toboku Sugiyama is a contemporary artist who is also a maverick calligrapher. Born in Japan in 1951, he started calligraphy at the age of thirty-five. After two and a half years of apprenticeship, he decided to strike out on his own. In another two and a half years, he began his activity as a calligrapher. He was forty then, self-taught and confident about his art. It is not that he was unacquainted with other calligraphers and their work, but he has distanced himself from the various schools of the calligraphy establishment in Japan perhaps because of the way he spent his formative years. His course of action in those years was, no doubt, guided by his goals and ideals of practicing calligraphy as an art form in the late twentieth century. As a calligrapher, Toboku's artistic origin is found in the distant Chinese tradition, but he also subscribes to the modern tradition of calligraphy formed in twentieth century Japan, not to mention its postwar transformations. Toboku feels strongly that the calligraphic forms need to be easily read and their meanings immediately comprehended by the average viewer. This is a moot point for Western viewers who cannot read Japanese writing, but one begins to get a glimpse of the artist's ideals and goals hidden behind the forms. Toboku likes to use the Japanese term fude asobi, which captures the gestural quality of his work. It literally translates as "brush play", meaning the enjoyment of using a brush as much as the freedom with which the brush leaves traces of ink on paper. These forms are highly disciplined, yet at the same time spontaneously free. This is accomplished by means of applying ink on paper with a brush in a single stroke. The ink the artist uses is basically of three different types: the shoenboku, which is made with the soot from rosin, and the vuenboku, which is made with the soot from rapeseed oil. Depending on the absorption properties of the paper, the rosin ink takes on a hue ranging from brown to blue on its basic black. The rapeseed oil ink, however, remains a constant black regardless of the paper's absorption property. The artist also uses a product called Metallic Calligraphy Liquid to produce a metallic hue of different color. This product is made from liquid ink with a metallic powder of a different color mixed in. Calligraphy brushes come in many styles and materials. For this exhibit, Toboku has used three kinds of brushes. One of the brushes has feathers of the gamecock bundled together, another has weasel fur which is made into a long tip, and the third has a blend of different animal hair on a slender stem. The disciplined freedom of the forms on display in this exhibit is a result of carefully selected inks, papers, and brushes combined with Toboku Sugiyama's consummate skill as an artist. There will be a reception with remarks by the artist on Friday, March 8 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Museum. There will also be a calligraphy demonstration by Toboku Sugiyama on Sunday, March 10 at 2:00 p.m. in Room 1109 in Jenkins Hall on the Tyler Junior College campus. Door prizes and examples of Toboku's art will be given away at both events. The exhibition, reception, and demonstration are all free and open to the public. A voluntary admission fee of $3.50 for adults, $1.50 for seniors and children is appreciated and helps fund Museum programs and exhibitions. The Tyler Museum of Art is supported by its members, the City of Tyler, and Tyler Junior College. Additional funding for exhibitions is provided by the Rogers Foundation and the Watson W. Wise Foundation. The Tyler Museum of Art is located on the east side of the Tyler Junior College campus at 1300 South Mahon. Museum hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Sunday. The Museum is closed Mondays and major holidays. |