New Forms of Calligraphy in Contemporary China

Calligraphy is a central tenet of Chinese civilization. The whole history of China is strictly linked to the history of its writing and calligraphy. In contemporary times Calligraphy has undergone a radical change and it has evolved into new forms in all fields of visual and performing arts. This paper aims at analyzing how all these forms emerged in: 1) “fine and contemporary arts”, where it became, for example, a naïf painting made of pictographic shapes of characters, an abstract combination of dots and lines, a “light-calli-photograph,” or an artistic video based on digital strokes.; 2) decorative and applied arts, where the characters lost their connection with the linguistic meaning to become decorative elements used for commercial purposes or to design modern architectures; 3) performing arts, where the rhythm, dynamism and harmonic movement of calligraphy became a choreographic gesture of a contemporary ballet or a piece of classical music; and 3) graffiti art, where the presence of calligraphy along the streets evolved from Maoist propaganda posters into graffiti pieces made of wild-style characters or cursive tags. Proposing a media-based categorization and a new taxonomy of the contemporary calligraphic production, this article aims at demonstrating how these new forms powerfully resonate with China’s rich and enduring cultural tradition and at the same time mirror the sweeping cultural and economic changes that have taken place in China during the last decades.