Shufa Essentials

Introducing Chinese calligraphy to Western audiences has long been a challenge. The intricate beauty of the art is often overshadowed by a fundamental cultural and linguistic divide. While the meanings of the characters may be obscured by language barriers, this need not be an obstacle. Beyond the ability to read or understand Chinese characters lies a set of core principles—values that transcend language and allow this tradition that has lasted for more than two millennia to be appreciated by anyone willing to look closely.

Once the brush has gathered and directed this energy, it must be received somewhere—and here traditional Chinese paper plays a decisive role. These papers are crafted from the bark of trees such as blue sandalwood, paper mulberry, and mitsumata. Each material produces a distinct texture and level of absorbency, offering artists different surfaces with which to engage. The fibers are preserved in long strands, creating a structure that absorbs ink in subtle and complex ways. It is not only the surface texture but also the network of fibers within the sheet that interacts with liquid ink, shaping the saturation, spread, and edge of each stroke. The paper responds differently depending on the ink’s moisture and the pressure of the brush, producing a spectrum of effects—from crisp lines to layered, translucent shades of black that retain depth even when multiple strokes overlap.

Such paper allows no disguises. There are no erasures, no revisions, no second chances—only an unedited record of choice and nerve. Each stroke is preserved exactly as it was made, capturing the artist’s movement, energy, and state of mind in that instant. To write on this surface requires courage: once the brush touches the page, nothing can be undone. The artist must either prepare with clarity of intention or enter a state of focus so complete that hesitation has no place.

With brush and paper now joined, we can turn to the third and most elusive element: Qi. Through the centered brush, the artist transmits energy with precision, and through traditional paper, every nuance of that energy is faithfully preserved. It is from this union that the concept of Qi in calligraphy becomes comprehensible.

Although Qi is a complex concept in Chinese culture—often translated as “breath” or “vital energy”—within the practice of Shufa it can be understood more simply as the artist’s pulse, breath, or inner rhythm made visible on paper. The calligraphy brush, extremely soft and responsive, is typically held above the paper with the artist’s body suspended—no arm or wrist resting for support. The moment the tip touches the surface, it bends under pressure, producing lines of varying thickness and shape. These are not only the result of deliberate movements—lifting, pressing, and guiding the brush—but also of involuntary ones: the tremor of a hand, the cadence of breathing, subtle shifts in posture, and fluctuations of mood. Every stroke, then, is a composite of intention and accident, discipline and spontaneity. The brush becomes a sensitive instrument, recording not just motion but the flow of Qi.

To the casual viewer, the result may appear as two-dimensional lines of ink. To the trained eye, however, each stroke contains the full dimension of the artist’s being: traces of breathing rhythm, psychological state, reflexes for handling unexpected variations, even flashes of joy or intensity felt during the act of writing. In this sense, the stroke is less a fixed mark than a record of movement, a projection of lived experience onto paper.

This group of works grew out of Wang Mansheng’s daily practice of Shufa, serving as a foundation for his long and thoughtful preparation of the exhibition Without Us. The poems perform a meditative allusion, guiding his reflection on the exhibition’s central question: how do we imagine a landscape without people? In Wang’s observations, the modern retina is flourished with the noise of industrial landscapes and artifacts, for which he seeks a tranquility in nature as a state of mind that allows transcendental engagement with the world he dwells in. Written on rustic papers made of tree bark, these quotidian accumulations embody a meditative process—each character flows consecutively like winds and waves across the page, carrying his pursuit of Wuren (无人, without us).

Wang interprets Wuren as a spontaneous oblivion of humanly desires through the practice of tranquility, which will ultimately dissolve his subjectivity in nature. With this being said, Shufa is an ideal medium for him to reach the state of mind. Beneath Wang’s writings sits a unitary form established upon archaic scripts. His characters sit steadily in blocks, with every stroke landing or standing with gravity, seeping through it the stoniness of seal and cleric scripts.

At their ends, Wang’s strokes spill from their volumes into the next, rebelling the limitations of form with the unraveled movement of nature. Yet his brush still runs as usual, embodying every touch of ink with tendons and bones that support the flesh, which through the writings one can picture a seated writer, injecting his full energy and spirituality onto the bare paper, maximizing his subjectivity while intentionally minimizing it.

The aesthetic and expressive power of Shufa may be perceived independently of one’s ability to read Chinese. By following the arc of a stroke, sensing the breath within a line, and noticing the rhythm between ink and empty space, you enter the same current the artist once followed. At that moment, the work ceases to be bound by language. It becomes an encounter—direct, immediate, and human.

This exhibition invites you to experience Shufa in that spirit: not simply as writing, but as living art. To stand before these works is to glimpse a tradition that has shaped Chinese culture for millennia, yet still speaks with vitality today. Across distance and time, the movement of a hand continues to cross the divide, reminding us that art, at its deepest level, is nothing less than one soul reaching another.