Delight in One Thousand Characters by Kazuaki Tanahashi

Delight in One Thousand Characters by Kazuaki Tanahashi

A beautifully curated presentation of the Thousand Character Essay, a masterpiece of Chinese calligraphy that has served as the art form's classic manual for over 1,400 years.

Sung to infants as a lullaby, used to teach reading and writing, and employed as library index codes, the Thousand Character Essay is China's most widely used and beloved calligraphy textbook. Composed by the literary giant Zhou Xingsi and handwritten by sixth-century Buddhist monk Zhiyong, this masterful work has endured for centuries as the standard guide for brush writing both in formal and cursive scripts.

Delight in One Thousand Characters brings this sublime body of art-as-text to English-speaking readers through its translation and explanation by calligraphers and artists Kazuaki Tanahashi and Susan O'Leary. Preserving the renowned beauty of monk Zhiyong's only extant handwriting, the book visually depicts the traditional script through extensive imagery, including a full, one-hundred-strip edition of Zhiyong's calligraphy. All images also have corresponding commentary explaining the meaning of each character.

Essays and appendices by Tanahashi and O'Leary detail the fascinating history, geographic range, and aesthetic nuance of the essay and of Zhiyong's rendering--essential material to be familiar with the history, thought, literature, and art of East Asian civilization. For calligraphers, Delight in One Thousand Characters can serve as an advanced primer for practicing both formal and cursive Chinese calligraphy.

Ryokan (1758-1831) is, along with Dogen and Hakuin, one of the three giants of Zen in Japan. But unlike his two renowned colleagues, Ryokan was a societal dropout, living mostly as a hermit and a beggar. He is now regarded as one of the greatest poets of the Edo Period, along with Basho, Buson, and Issa. He was also a master artist-calligrapher with a very distinctive style, due mostly to his unique and irrepressible spirit.

Kazuaki Tanahashi, a Japanese-trained calligrapher, is the pioneer of the genre of one stroke painting as well as the creator of multicolor enso (Zen circles). His brushwork has been shown in solo exhibitions in galleries, museums, and universities all over the world. Tanahashi has edited several books of Dogen's writings and is also the author of Brush Mind.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781611808735
ISBN 10	1611808731
Title	Delight in One Thousand Characters
Author	Kazuaki Tanahashi
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Shambhala Publications Inc
Year published	2022-09-13
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.