Gyousho
Gyousho cursive writing "I'm a camina"
The latest style of calligraphy to emerge is called Gyousho 行書 or “running or walking writing” which arises from the need for faster and even more emotional daily writing and which lays the foundations for the semi-cursive form of calligraphy. The Gyousho style is neither as strong and rigid as Kaisho nor as illegible as Sousho and allows for a less strict stroke order. The idea is to achieve softer and rounder forms than in the Kaisho style but which can be understood and is easy to read, unlike in the Sousho style which, by synthesizing the letter so much, becomes practically illegible even for native speakers of this language. The master par excellence of Gyousho is the famous Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (in Japanese, Ou Gishi), he was ahead of his time in the artistic field and his most relevant work in this style is the “Prologue to the Poems Composed in the Orchid Pavilion” 蘭亭序, in Chinese Lantingji Xu, in Japanese Ranteijou, written in the year 353 AD. This work is not only considered one of the greatest calligraphic treasures of all time but is also the source of the development of the Japanese language, even today and has been the subject of numerous plays and novels to name just a few examples of its cultural reach. Emperor Wu of Liang 梁武帝 once said of Xizhi's Sho or calligraphy, that “it is as powerful as a dragon leaping through the heavenly gate and a tiger crouching in the Phoenix Tower”. After the night Xizhi wrote his masterpiece, he tried to repeat it, but despite finishing hundreds of copies, he was never able to surpass the original.
This style also gained prominence during the Heian Era of Japan (794-1185), a time when three essential calligraphers emerged in the world of Japanese calligraphy. They were called Sanpitsu 三筆 or, in other words, "The Three Brushes" and were formed by the Emperor Saga 嵯峨天皇, Tachibana No Hayanari 橘逸勢, a government official, and the Buddhist monk Kuukai 空海. Each of them had a profound influence on the later development of Japanese calligraphy and their influence on younger painters. A clear example of this is the emergence of three other scholars of this style who are known as Sanseki 三跡, "The Three Traces" (of brush) also belonging to the Heian Era. The first of them is Ono No Michikaze 小野の道風, an artist and calligrapher who, continuing with Kuukai's studies, managed to develop a new and unique style known as Wayou Shodou 和様書道 or "Japanese style calligraphy", also Fujiwara No Sukemasa 藤原佐理, a Japanese nobleman dedicated to calligraphy, among other things, and Fujiwara No Yukinari 藤原行成 also an outstanding calligrapher. The Gyousho style is perhaps the one that most attracts the inexperienced public because it clearly defines written characters but shows traces of ink written with a writing tool as rich and versatile as the brush. It has strength, like the Gyoukaisho 行楷書 (Gyuosho style that is closer to Kaisho) but at the same time it dances by softening the strokes that denote the gesture of the person who writes it like the Gyousosho 行草書 (style that is closer to Sousho) making it a writing without expressive limits. Text written by Elena Hikari
