The Calligraphy of Liu Fang Yuan 流芳園
The Huntington
INTRODUCTION
Words are everywhere in Liu Fang Yuan, The Huntington’s Chinese Garden. Names adorn rocks and buildings; poetic couplets frame entryways and vistas. Since 2007 The Huntington has commissioned more than 30 contemporary artists to create the original works of calligraphy—artful brush writings in ink on paper—that served as the models for these inscriptions. The artists include professional calligraphers and avid amateurs, scholars and physicians, a Chinese painter living in New York and a New York photographer residing in China.
This webpage provides a brief overview of the art of calligraphy and introduces some of the highlights of the 95 inscriptions found in Liu Fang Yuan. At the bottom of the page, you will find a map that shows where each work appears in the garden itself. Interact with the map to see photographs of the inscriptions and to learn more about their content and creators.
Throughout the Chinese Garden, calligraphy serves to record the names of landmarks and to transcribe poetic couplets. These inscriptions are read according to historical convention: Horizontal placards are traced from right to left; vertical writings, from top to bottom; couplets, from the right column to the left.
Calligraphy is created with only three basic materials: an animal-hair brush, some soot-based ink, and a sheet of paper or silk. In combination, these materials can create an almost infinite variety of visual effects. Before a work is considered complete, the artist signs their name in ink and impresses a seal (a block of stone, metal, or ceramic inscribed with their name or sobriquet) that has been dipped in a red paste.
Five basic types of calligraphic scripts are generally recognized today. Calligraphers typically begin with the study of regular script, the most formal (and legible) form of writing. After mastering its precise brush movements, they may turn to the dynamic abbreviation of running or cursive scripts, or they may study the archaic forms of seal and clerical scripts. Fusing their study of various script types and of earlier calligraphers’ works, they develop their own personal style.
Calligrapher Tang Qingnian
Calligraphy is perhaps most easily appreciated as a dance-like art of line. Imagine the brush as a dancer that rises and falls, twists and turns in space, leaving lines of ink on the paper as indexes of its motion.
HIGHLIGHTS
Garden of Flowing Fragrance 流芳園 (Liú Fāng Yuán)
Wan-go H.C. Weng 翁萬戈 (born 1918, Shanghai; active United States)
2007
Clerical script 隸書
The heavy forms of Wan-go Weng’s characters paradoxically seem ready to take flight. On the one hand, Weng emphasizes the solidness of each character: their every stroke begins with an oversized head; their horizontal and vertical lines are minimally modulated; and the joints between strokes, as in the upper and lower right corners of the character at left (yuan 園, “garden”), are almost exaggerated in their sturdiness. On the other hand, the dramatic flourishes with which the strokes end—thrusting upward to left or right to reveal the individual hairs of the brush tip, a visual effect known as “flying white”—fill the inscription with an alluring lightness. Weng thus creates a dynamic balance between weight and levity.
Love for the Lotus Pavilion 愛蓮榭 (Ài Lían Xiè)
Wang Shixiang 王世襄 (1914–2009, born Beijing; active China)
2007
Running-regular script 行楷書
This bold inscription, with its resolute verticals and slight variations in character size and structure, was brushed by Wang Shixiang at the age of ninety-three, only two years before his death. To a greater degree than other script types, each stroke in regular script begins and ends with clearly articulated motions. For example, note that the right-hand vertical of the leftmost character (xie 榭, “pavilion”) emerges from a triangular head formed through individual motions of the brush. Holding his brush upright, the calligrapher then traced the unwavering vertical, ending in a slight leftward hook. The left-facing point was added by pushing the brush in a final display of calligraphic force.
Listening to the Pines 聽松 (Tīng Sōng)
Lo Ch’ing [Lo Ch’ing-che] 羅青［羅青哲］ (born 1948, Qingdao, Shandong Province, China; active Taiwan)
2007
Seal script 篆書
Textually invoking the sound of wind blowing through pine needles, Lo Ch’ing’s characters visually evoke the trees’ moss-covered limbs. The artist has chosen to write on thin paper composed of long, loosely aggregated fibers that quickly absorb and disperse ink. Further, he has diluted the liquid to encourage it to spread even more chaotically. Consequently, the simple brushstrokes of his characters are partially obscured, creating the impression of trunks and branches covered in organic accretions. Ultimately, the characters partially lose their status as linguistic signs, appearing instead as images produced through the almost miraculous interaction of ink, paper, and water.
Idly strolling in springtime, we leave the painted halls; among the plums and willows, I cannot bear the fragrance! 春望逍遙出畫堂 間梅遮柳不勝芳
Terry Yuan [Yuan Zhizhong] 袁志鍾 (born 1954, Shanghai; active United States)
2013
Running script 行書
The visual form of Terry Yuan’s couplet perfectly embodies its content: his characters seem to float lightly on the paper, as though they are “idly strolling in springtime.” Yuan achieves this effect by carefully choreographing multiple forms of visual variation. For example, in the next-to-last character of the right-hand scroll (hua 畫, “painted”), none of the nine horizontal strokes is written in exactly the same manner—or even at the same angle. Further, he introduces a subtle bend to the vertical axis of the character, creating the impression that it is twirling in midair. Ultimately, he weaves a wavy line among all of the characters in the scroll, reinforcing the overall impression of carefree leisure.
Poetry is like the spring wind, embracing all things; prose is like the autumn water, unsullied by dust 春風大雅能容物 秋水文章不染塵
Lui Tai 吕媞 (born 1926, Wuzhou, Guangxi Province, China; active Hong Kong and United States)
1982
Clerical script 隸書
Lui Tai’s couplet possesses an alluring visual tension. Her characters’ wide, horizontal forms; balanced, symmetrical structure; emphatically parallel horizontal strokes; and dramatically flared diagonals are all hallmarks of classical clerical script, which reached its mature form by the second century CE. However, Lui also imbues her clerical script with an elegant wiriness. She dramatically modulates the exterior contours of many strokes; for example, her diagonals begin with hair-thin lines but expand into trumpetlike flourishes. Further, she boldly varies the wetness and dryness of her ink: many strokes almost appear imposing in their rich saturation, while others are so dry that they seem to have been clawed into the paper.
Court of Assembled Worthies 集賢院 (Jí Xián Yuàn)
Fu Shen 傅申 (born 1937, Shanghai; active Taiwan, United States, and China)
2018
Running script 行書
On a sunny August afternoon in 2018, the 81-year-old Fu Shen visited The Huntington to execute this inscription in a spontaneous display of calligraphic bravura. Despite—or perhaps to spite—his failing constitution and tremulous limbs, Fu held his brush with unshaking confidence and manipulated it with absolute precision. Thanks to his incorporation of the dramatic, scratchy brushstrokes known as “flying white” strokes, his characters palpably pulse with internal energy. Fu draws inspiration for the structure of his characters and the drama of their strokes from the works of Huang Tingjian (1045–1105), a renowned poet and calligrapher who was the subject of Fu’s doctoral dissertation.
Studio for Lodging the Mind 寓意齋 (Yù Yì Zhāi)
Bai Qianshen 白謙慎 (born 1955, Tianjin, China; active China and United States)
2018
Running-regular script 行楷書
Brushed on paper flecked with gold and silver foil, Bai Qianshen’s characters seem to lilt through space. Bai writes with a saturated brush whose wet ink bleeds slightly into the paper, obscuring harsh lines while still conveying a sense of dance-like motion. Further, Bai rounds the heads and tails of his strokes to imbue his characters with a sense of pleasing softness. Within the aesthetic unity of his brushwork, however, Bai pursues subtle variation, filling the inscription with liveliness. For example, each of the inscription’s seventeen dots has a unique form—and each one seems to be endowed with its own personality.
World in a Wine Pot 壺天 (Hú Tiān)
Zhu Chengjun 朱稱俊 born 1946, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, China; active China and United States)
2018
Seal script 篆書
Zhu Chengjun’s “wine pot” (hu 壺) cannot help but make one smile. Zhu derives the structure of his character from early seal script, but he dramatically transforms its wiry, symmetrical form into a playful embodiment of the spirit of the vessel. His lines quiver as though inebriated of their own substance. His central circle barely meets in the middle, like a belt straining around a beer-filled belly. And, similar to a drunkard’s mismatched socks, the two halves of Zhu’s upper horizontals are rendered in contrasting sizes and degrees of saturation. His “world” (tian 天), on the other hand, stands in comparative stability, soberly anchoring its wine-soaked companion.
Try to contemplate the clouds and mists beyond the three peaks; all are in the palm of a numinous immortal 試觀烟雲三峰外 都在靈仙一掌間
Michael Cherney 秋麥 (born 1969, New York; active China)
2018
Cursive script 草書
By playing with the saturation of his ink and the abstraction of his characters, Michael Cherney has created an inscription that visually evokes the dreamlike content of its text. Each line of his couplet begins with a character written with a brush heavily laden with ink; the liquid has so saturated the paper that an aqueous halo appears around each character. Moving downward, Cherney’s brush began to dry, and the hairs of its tip began to fray. Despite lightly reinking midline, his brush ultimately exhausted its ink, devolving into near abstraction. This movement from saturation to exsiccation, from legibility to graphic play, creates a visual drama evocative of the imaginative transformations suggested in the couplet.
Verdant Microcosm 翠玲瓏 (Cuì Líng Lóng)
Tang Qingnian 唐慶年 (born 1956, Beijing; active United States)
2018
Bird-and-worm script 鳥蟲書
The sinuous forms of Tang Qingnian’s characters writhe with life. Their smooth, even lines are produced with an upright brush whose tip is “hidden,” remaining perfectly centered in every stroke. Tang draws inspiration for these baroque characters from “bird-and-worm script,” a 2,500-year-old form of writing that was occasionally employed on later seals. The script was named for its resemblance to the tracks left by birds and worms; some calligraphers even adorned their characters with schematic drawings of birds’ heads and feathers. Tang, however, is not content with merely revitalizing a past model. Instead, in his characters’ playful linearity, one senses his interest in contemporary graphic design.
Seeing the Large in the Small 小中見大 (Xiăo Zhōng Jiàn Dà)
Grace Chu [Chu Chang-fang] 朱彰芳 (born 1959, Taipei, Taiwan; active United States)
2018
Seal script 篆書
Brushed in dry ink on smooth, foil-flecked paper, the unmodulated lines of Grace Chu’s characters manifest a remarkable range of visual and textural effects. Each of Chu’s brushstrokes transitions from inky saturation to chalky dryness. Certain passages—such as the right side of the second character (zhong 中, “in”), whose thin, mottled ink struggles to adhere to the paper—even suggest granitic veneers. Such effects depend on Chu’s careful control of her brush, whose tip remains perfectly centered in every stroke. Such precision is clearly visible in the rounded ends of her strokes, where she has twisted her drying brush hairs in a final flourish, creating an effect of charcoal-like granularity.
Treading the Void 凌虛 (Líng Xū)
Wang Mansheng 王滿晟 (born 1962, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China; active United States)
2018
Seal-clerical script 漢簡書
Wang Mansheng’s inscription could only have been written in the late 20th or 21st century. The unadorned, archaic form of his characters derives from the styles of writing employed in documents brushed on strips of wood or bamboo (common materials used for inscriptions prior to the advent of paper) in the last centuries BCE, which have been excavated in ever-increasing numbers since the 1970s. Neither fully seal nor fully clerical, such inscriptions combine the relatively smooth, even lines of “lesser” seal script with the simplified character structure (as well as the occasional flared strokes) of clerical script. Having extensively studied such writings, Wang has internalized their forms and now introduces them as ancient calligraphic models for the future.
MAP
Click on any of the dots on the map to find out more about the inscription, including who created it and what inspired its content. You will also find photographs of both the original work of calligraphy and the inscription in the garden. (If you are viewing the map while walking through the garden, enable “location tracking” on your smartphone to trace your steps on the map and to learn about the inscriptions that you see immediately around you.)
Photography courtesy of Michelle Bailey, Martha Benedict, Phillip E. Bloom, Manuel Flores, Bob Maronde, Jamie Pham, John Sullivan, and Tang Qingnian.
The Calligraphy of Liu Fang Yuan 流芳園
