 |
 |
 |
Calligrapher scripts success with Arabic style
SPECIAL TO
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
By Erling Hoh
A BEIJING — In
this age of colliding cultures, Chen Jinhui melds two of the more
ancient ones simply by using a wolf-hair brush and some finely
ground Tie Zhai Ong ink.
 He is a Chinese calligrapher writing Arabic script, which in his
sanguine, rotund person brings together two of the world's greatest
traditions of beautiful writing.
Chinese as well as Islamic culture may revere calligraphy as the
highest form of art, but in many ways, the similarity ends there.
Where Chinese calligraphy is spontaneous and intuitive, Arabic
calligraphy appears intellectual and infinitely premeditated.
While Chinese calligraphy can strike the eye with the liberating
effect of a tempest, Arabic calligraphy exudes the cool elegance of
an intricate mathematical equation. To fuse them is no mean feat,
and by having done so for the past 40 years, Mr. Chen is sparking
new synapses and garnering accolades all the way from Beijing to
Istanbul.
Seated in his spartan office at the Institute of Islamic Theology in
the southern part of Beijing, Mr. Chen, the institute's retired
librarian, is not one to dwell on aesthetic dialectics of Chinese
and Arabic calligraphy. He will, however, relate the story of his
hero, the famous Arabic calligrapher Ibn Mukla, a vizier in Baghdad
during the Abbasid dynasty, which ruled from A.D. 750 to 1258.
"His influence was greater than the caliph's, because of his
calligraphy," Mr. Chen said. Out of jealousy, Mr. Chen said, the
caliph persecuted the Arabic calligrapher. But when the ruler
ordered that the artist's hand be cut off, he simply tied the pen to
the remaining stump and continued writing.
"That is why they consider him a god. He was attacked so many times,
but he never forgot his calligraphy," Mr. Chen said.
When Islam spread to China 1,000 years ago, Chinese Muslims began
using the traditional brush and ink to copy the Koran. The oldest
handwritten copy of the Koran in China dates to 1318. In time, an
original form of Arabic calligraphy with distinct Chinese
characteristics, known as Sini, evolved.
Following in the footstep of such famous Chinese Arabic
calligraphers as Huababa, a Qing dynasty scholar from the province
of Henan, Mr. Chen took up Arabic calligraphy as a student at
Institute of Islamic Theology in the 1950s.
During Mao Tse-tung's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,
however, Islam was virtually forbidden and Arabic calligraphy was
denounced as part of the "four olds."
After China reopened its doors in the late 1970s, the country's
Muslims were allowed to practice their religion and re-establish
ties with the Islamic world. Mr. Chen made his first hajj to Mecca
in 1989.
A year earlier, he had received an honorable mention at the first
Iraqi International Festival of Arabic Calligraphy and Islamic
Decorative Art, and in 1995, he was placed ninth in Kufic script at
the Third International Arabic Calligraphy Competition in Turkey.
His biggest triumph came when he won first prize at the Second
International Calligraphy Competition in Pakistan in 1999.
In a selection of his works, published last year by China's
Nationalities Photographic Art Publishing House, Mr. Chen
demonstrated his mastery of all the major Arabic styles — Thulethi,
Kufic, Persian, Diwani, Diwani-jili, as well as the Sinicized Arabic
script.
With his success in international competitions, his calligraphy has
been attracting patrons from around the Islamic world.
"They didn't know anything about Chinese Muslims. 'You can read the
Koran too,' they exclaimed. They were very surprised," Mr. Chen said
about his trips to various competitions in the Middle East.
A major difference between Chinese and Arabic calligraphy is that
when the art form began to evolve on the Arabian Peninsula in the
sixth and seventh centuries, calligraphers there had to make do with
goat skin, bark and cloth. The roughness and low absorbency of these
materials might have channeled Arabic calligraphers into developing
an aesthetic centered on pattern and intricacy.
In China, where paper was invented in A.D. 105, calligraphers
focused their search for beauty on the rich expressive possibilities
of the brush-ink-paper medium: texture and immediateness.
In A.D. 751, Arab and Chinese armies clashed in a battle on the
Talas River in present-day Kyrgyzstan. The Chinese were defeated,
and among the prisoners taken by the Arabs were Chinese paper
makers. Having learned the art of paper making from Chinese, the
Arabs transmitted the craft to Europe several centuries later.
Chen Jinhui is now busy investigating a cultural diffusion in the
other direction: the history of Arabic calligraphy in China.
"It is very difficult research. I want to fill in all the blanks,"
Mr. Chen said. For encouragement, he has only to recall a saying of
the prophet Muhammad:
"Seek wisdom, even if it be in China."
|
 |
 |
|
