Esteemed Scholar delivers Calligraphy Forum at UQ

16 April 2018

In early April, esteemed Chinese calligrapher and Oracle scholar Professor DeShun Ou delivered a presentation and discussion at the Confucius Institute at UQ on artistic views of the traditional Chinese art of calligraphy and Oracle culture.

The forum provided a rare opportunity to hear from a Calligraphy master of Professor Ou’s status, sharing his experiences and insights into the ancient art, as well as offer demonstrations of his skills and advice to attendees through the interactive session.

During his presentation, Professor Ou emphasized calligraphy as a creation that shouldn’t be confined by existing forms, but to also include the creator’s personal style and understanding of the Chinese characters.

Four artistic levels of calligraphy mastery were highlighted; with the first being the Technical stage in where the practitioner focuses on refining basic skills to build a foundation for calligraphy creation, and according to Professor Ou the key to success being “to keep trying and repeating even the simplest strokes until one’s hand is capable of expressing what one wants to express, or simply the ‘artisan spirit’.”

The second level involves the search for one’s own artistic styles, requiring the practitioner to pay more attention to the understanding of characters.

The third level of free expression allows the practitioner to express themselves freely in their work by combining other art forms such as painting and music and their understanding of other fields, including history and philosophy.

The highest level of calligraphy creation is what Professor Ou referred to as ‘soul-infusion’, which encourages the calligrapher to infuse a connection with humanity into the calligraphy creation resulting in the reflection of national responsibility and broadened mind within the works.

The forum’s speaker was invited by the Confucius Institute at UQ, and attended by guests, staff and students who had an interest in Calligraphy and Chinese culture.

Professor Ou is also renowned for his calligraphy creation of the ‘China Dream’ symbol artwork.

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