General info
Painters
Caligraphy

Activities...

Gallery
Games
Lesson Plan
Quiz

Extra...

Asia Art
good intro to Chinese brush painting

Chinese Calligraphy
excellent list of sites

China the Beautiful
excellent site with lots of examples and info

Chinese calligraphy developed from pictographs during the Shang dynasty and evolved into an elegant expression of art by the Tang dynasty. Dating back to the Neolithic age, the Chinese writing slowly changed through the centuries due to its complexity by a process of simplification that began during the Qin dynasty. It was then that li shu, also known as clerical script, was developed and allowed for speedier writing; this occurred again in the Han dynasty when cao shu, or cursive script, was established by shortening characters. Between 220 - 589 A.D. China created a writing system that is still essentially in use today called kai shu, also known as regular script. When a calligrapher wishes to write quicker they can leave out a few strokes to create what is known as xing shu, or running script.

The Chinese believe that calligraphy is an expression of a person's feelings and the beauty of it earned it high esteem. The distinguished Tang calligraphy masters influenced preceding dynasties significantly. Du Mu (803-852), an extraordinary poet-calligrapher, is well known for his poem called "Zhang Haohao shi juan", or Song of Zhang Haohao, and for his beautiful and intense calligraphy. A man by the name of Tu Meng wrote a book that described the different styles of Chinese calligraphy in which he also created a set standard for them.