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Student from Romania finds joy in calligraphy
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EDITOR’S Notes:
Hangzhou is known for its long history of literature and arts due to the fact that many scholars have lived here or written poems and essays about it. Today, it houses the prestigious China Academy of Art, and the city is attracting more and more foreign artists to study, work and live in the city. Shanghai Daily will introduce international artists based in Hangzhou.
THE transformation from a foreigner who knows nothing about Chinese language to an artist of Chinese calligraphy took 10 years for Romanian Calin Andrei.
Chinese people are usually surprised when they see his works, strong, sophisticated and subtle. Nobody can tell that they were done by a Westerner.
“Practice makes perfect,” Andrei said. As a PhD student at the calligraphy department of China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, he studies with modern calligraphier Wang Dongling, one of the most famous modern calligraphists who demonstrated how to use the Apple Pencil in Apple’s introduction video of the iPad Pro.
Andrei is capable of writing in various styles.
His favorite styles are caoshu (cursive style), jinwen (bronzeware script), and ancient China’s jiaguwen carved on ox scapulas and tortoise plastrons.
But learning Chinese calligraphy is not only studying how to write Chinese characters in different styles. The art is much more than decoration yet lies at core area of Chinese culture, and is related to literature, painting and philosophy.
“Understanding ancient Chinese is a must, reading Chinese literature, history and philosophy books is necessary,” said the European.
What makes the Romanian so dedicated to a sort of Eastern art that is unfamiliar to most Westerners?
Andrei, who studied graphics in a Romanian college, said he came to China because a friend who won a scholarship to the country encouraged him to have a try. The young man soon succeeded. In 2005, he came, planning to study language for one year, and Chinese traditional woodcut for the second year.
However, once he started learning Chinese characters, he realized his heart beat fast for the mysterious writing art, thus he applied to change his major to calligraphy.
After a two-year study he went back to his home country and never stopped practicing. After gaining a master’s degree of design in Romania, he again received a scholarship supporting him to continue study in China, he without hesitation came back in 2011 and became the student of Professor Wang Dongling.
“Calligraphy is so unique. I could not find another writing system that could express oneself so completely by using a single black line,” said Andrei.
“Calligraphy is more than art, it is philosophy,” he added. “And it is not about what we write, but about how we write.”
Andrei likes to use non-traditional content for his works, such as the translation of a Romanian poem. He writes a title or a segment (in Chinese translation), and injects his understanding of the poem onto his writing style.
“An obstacle of introducing Chinese calligraphy to foreigners is that they don’t know what’s written,” he explained. Therefore, using content that people are familiar with helps them get in contact with the art form.
Drawing is used as a way of expression as well. His latest work is a series of wall-size pieces, written with ink and charcoal. Each of them features two huge cursive style characters, as well as a geometry shape at the center.
For example, there are images of different diamond cuts coupled with two characters “coal” and “star.” The star symbolizes brightness and an unachievable perfection. The geometry shape gives the work depth, highlighting the tension in the calligraphic line.
“While Western art focuses on creating ‘space’ through perspective, Chinese art allows and encourages people to imagine,” he said. “And that is why learning Chinese art showed me a different way of looking at art, and the world.”
His PhD thesis discusses the original source of Chinese calligraphy and how will it influence other arts in the information age.
Andrei was invited to give lectures to both foreigners and Chinese people many times. In his native country he has held a few exhibitions, showing his works and also his photos of China.
“There are two kinds of foreigners studying Chinese art. Some learn Chinese art and use it in their own art, and some immerse themselves into the Eastern art. Andrei is the latter,” said Lu Dadong, a successful calligraphist who is also a student of Professor Wang.
Professor Wang praised Andrei for “paying lots of effort on all aspects.”
“He is an excellent student, and I wish someday he can spread the culture to Europe,” the professor said.
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