Chinese Calligraphy: From Pictograph to Ideogram: The History of 214 Essential Chinese/Japanese Characters

by Edoardo Fazzioli

Overview

Written Chinese can call upon about 40,000 characters, many of which originated some 6,000 years ago as little pictures of everyday objects used by the ancients to communicate with one another. To convey more abstract ideas or concepts, the Chinese stylized and combined their pictographs. For instance, the character for “man”—a straight back above two strong legs—becomes, with the addition of a head and shoulders and arms held sternly akimbo, the character for “official.” This book, modeled after a classic compilation of the Chinese language done in the 18th century, introduces readers to the 214 root pictographs or symbols upon which this writing system, whose rich complexities hold a wealth of cultural meaning, is based. These key characters, called radicals, are all delightfully presented in this volume, with their graphic development traced stage-by-stage to the present representation, where even now (in many of them) one can easily make out what was originally pictured—with the author’s guidance. Centuries ago, when the Japanese took up writing, they also adopted these symbols, though they gave them different names in their own spoken language.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780789208705
Publisher:	Abbeville Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/01/2005
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.22(w) x 11.02(h) x 0.96(d)

About the Author

Edoardo Fazzioli was for ten years a correspondent in Hong Kong for an international agency. During that period he also studied Chinese language and culture at Hong Kong University. He is currently a member of the Italo-Chinese Institute for Economic and Cultural Exchange, for which he has edited publications and catalogs. He has also written newspaper articles and scholarly pieces on Chinese life and civilization.

Read an Excerpt

Chinese Calligraphy

From Pictograph to Ideogram: The History of 214 Essential Chinese/Japanese Characters

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By Edoardo Fazzioli

Abbeville Press

Copyright © 2005 Edoardo Fazzioli
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7892-0870-5

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SHI: Family. The pictograph resembles a plant bobbing up and down on the water: one that grows and multiplies like the countless water lilies found in China. These start with a floating seed and grow surprisingly fast once they have found somewhere to put down roots. They bring to mind those nomadic groups that wander across the land trying to find a suitable place in which to settle, thus giving rise to the clan or family. In modern usage this character has lost its original meaning and acquired the role of a patronymic, as has happened with many other radicals. In classical language it was also used in the sense of development or multiplication.

LI: Village. A small group of houses, each of which-- in accordance with ancient law--occupied an eighth of the land, as it indicated in the upper part of the radical, albeit in reduced form. At the center was the common land occupied by the well. Apart from the meaning "village," this radical also signifies a measure of length, the li, equivalent to about 500 meters (c. 540 yards). The Great Wall in Chinese is the "Long Wall of the 10,000 li." Today it means "internal." In this sense of "internal," this character, joined to the one for "sea," means "Caspian Sea," the lake bounded by Russia and Iran. It also forms part of the Chinese word for the Italian unit of currency, the lira, but only as a phonetic transliteration, with no logical significance. A more precise and inspired derivation occurs in the word formed by this radical, in its sense of "internal," joined to the one for "spine": "fillet," the cut of meat that lies within the lumbar muscles next to the spine. Written next to the character for "hand," it indicates the part of the road to the left of a person driving a left-hand-drive vehicle: i.e. the middle of the road.
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Chinese Calligraphy by Edoardo Fazzioli. Copyright © 2005 Edoardo Fazzioli. Excerpted by permission of Abbeville Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

A Living Language, Six Thousand Years Old

Man

Body

To Journey

Village

Paintbrush

Dragon

Jade

Yellow

Index

Editorial Reviews

"If you are interested in the history of the development of Chinese characters this book is for you. The evolution of the characters is valuable for the language student as well as the artist. Understanding the development of the Chinese characters is a great help also to the student of Japanese. This is a wonderful book for the linguist as well as the artist." -- R. Ferris

From the Publisher