HOW DID JAPANESE CALLIGRAPHY GROW ?
Calligraphy’s original birthplace is China in the history. Japan was influenced by China in its use of the character and also in Calligraphy, or Shodo in Japanese language. The Chinese had original character and it’s believed that Japan imported their character as Kanji. After that, Kanji grew Japanized together with life style and sense of Japanese people, which made a little difference in the style and the form between original Chinese character and Japanese Kanji. Also in Japan new character called Kana ( or Hiragana) was born, which had a totally new and different impression in form of the character in comparison with Chinese character or Japanese Kanji. With the stream of the birth of new characters, Japanese calligraphy left unique progression in the history. In that point of view, Japanese calligraphy is rather progressive than conservertive. Japanese calligraphy style changed its forms together with rise and fall of people. The character was used only in a practical way in the
