Genji, shodō (書道), life

Calligraphy by Taki Kodaira

I leave the radiant morning and plunge into a cavernous pub. Early birds or night-shift workers are sinking pints. I order toast and marmalade - carbohydrate-loading before Taki Kodaira's calligraphy class.

I'm reading The Tale of Genji, the sprawling eleventh-century Japanese classic of prose, poetry and romantic intrigue:

'Or let us look at calligraphy. A man without any great skill can stretch out this line and that in the cursive style and give an appearance of boldness and distinction. The man who has mastered the principles and writes with concentration may, on the other hand, have none of the eye-catching tricks; but when you take the trouble to compare the two the real thing is the real thing.'

This week's struggle for the real thing involves writing out 'letters...like...this...person', i.e. 'your handwriting exposes your character'. Indeed. My better-natured left-handed Dr Jekyll has to be suppressed for this activity, thanks to ancient Japanese cultural norms. My evil right-(wrong)-handed inner Mr Hyde is exposed.

After class, you see calligraphy everywhere. These lines on Baker Street say: 'If your vehicle is involved in a contravention on the red route, you'll be sent a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) for £130. You need to pay this within 28 days. If you pay this within 14 or 21 days (it will say on the PCN), the amount will be reduced to £65.' 

 

Yet the bureaucratic diktat - 'don't you dare appeal' - is subverted by uneven junctions and fluke absences. Such flaws are cherished by artistic calligraphers. Here they suggest silent rebellion.

This evening it's life class, where every mark you make displays your character; it's not the model who's exposed. To make tonight's flawless model more interesting to draw, I use my wrong hand.

More shodō, tensho and wrong-hand drawing

Helvetica Medium in Letraset - remember that?

'Tensho,' muses my friend Pete as we walk up Baker Street to our shodō class, 'is the Helvetica of Japanese calligraphy.'

A functional administrative script introduced to Japan from China, tensho was inscribed into stone, wood, bone or tortoise-shell, and carved into seals, before brush and ink took over. Its no-nonsense sans-serif uniformity has none of those characterful flicky bits or drying-out strokes you get with brushes. In the same spirit, Helvetica is an efficient Swiss mid-twentieth century design meant for neutral public uses.

'Bird' in tensho by Taki Kodaira

Eventually the kaisho style evolved, allowing more expression of the soul. I'd twin it with Perpetua, developed in the 1920s by Eric Gill: this font shows his roots in stone-carving but has a classic beauty and is used for poetry by Faber & Faber.

'Home' in kaisho by Taki Kodaira

Monotype Perpetua

I won't show my own efforts which reveal the backwardness of my right (wrong) hand in calligraphy, which is nothing like drawing. Writing is learned. Drawing is autobiographical. I have pens I can draw but not write with. I am puzzled by the simplest writing brush stroke which reminds me of the years it took me to learn how to tie a bow - the breakthrough came when I realised that the grown-ups did it wrongly.

In life class that evening I'm asked if I've changed my name as I'm initialling everything R.H. It stands for right hand. The body of a calligraphic character is harder for me to read than the body of the model.

More shodō (書道) with Taki Kodaira

For shodō (書道), Japanese calligraphy with brush and ink, one has to be poised and calm. Not trying to disassemble the Daiwa Foundation's multi-leaved dining table so that the class can fit around it. Star pupil Peter makes pleasingly calligraphic shapes with his legs:

 

Janick, joining us for one lesson before his next cycling tour (Alaska), produces photos of his trips to China and Japan. As a left-hander I'm struggling with having to achieve serenity right-handed, so I'm a bit jealous to see a southpaw in one of Janick's pictures.












I can't bear to show you my stuff so here is some more beautiful calligraphy from our teacher, Taki Kodaira. On 1 May, when Crown Prince Naruhito ascends the Chrysanthemum Throne following the abdication of  his father Emperor Akihito, Japan will replace the Heisei ('achieving peace') era with the epoch of Reiwa ('orderly peace' or 'beautiful harmony' depending on your standpoint):

 The pavement outside the Daiwa Foundation has mysterious calligraphic markings:

Calligraphy in the morning; life class in the evening where I can use my left:

Learning shodo with Taki Kodaira

To learn shodō (書道), a form of Japanese calligraphy, one should be calm of mind, maybe with a view of cherry blossom. Instead I'm ferociously chewing off my lipstick and by the end of the class I look like Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

I have a brainwave.  I'll ask my friend Peter to join the class for moral support. He's a graphic designer with a latent talent for long-range shooting, which is all about focus, waiting for the right moment and doing the tricky sniping stuff as you breathe out, just like shodō. I'm hoping he'll be a shodō black belt in no time.

 

On our way to the next lesson at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, we pass the TfL lost property office with its affectionate window display, including a flat iron left on the number 23 bus in 1934. 

Peter mentions a mutual friend. 'Half his flat's in there,' he muses. 'And a lot of his portfolios.'

 








I've done some drawings in a calligraphic style but calligraphy is not drawing, not the same at all. This is Ayumi LaNoire performing on a golden pole:

But in class I'm struggling to be spontaneous. 父 over and over again.  

Chichi.  

Father.

Right or wrong: my struggle with kanji

Home is where you hang your hat. But in ancient China, home was where you sacrificed animals to propitiate the gods, so the early ideogram for 'home' depicted an animal on a slab.









I'm at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation in London to learn the rudiments of kanji, the pictorial writing system imported to Japan from China in the fifth century AD. Here is the modern kanji character for 'home', drawn swiftly and beautifully by our teacher, Taki Koraida:

It's about to get difficult. I'm left-handed and it's obvious to me that the strokes, sweeps and upticks of kanji are designed by right-handed people. 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning' (Psalm 137). 








To prepare for this calligraphy course I've switched to using my right (wrong) hand in life class:

But, as Taki reminds us, calligraphy isn't painting or drawing. So my 'look - wrong hand!' performance isn't much good as preparation for kanji. At life class I have a moan with another left-hander. His family rejoiced when he fell out of a window and broke his left arm at the age of ten. They mourned when, once the plaster was removed, he remained a southpaw.

To be continued.