I have been watching Queen Seon Deok, the extravagant, 62-episode Korean television series (2009). It was rated the best watched tv series in 2009 in Korea. What draws me to this historical drama is not about the ratings, it is the amount of Chinese influence reflected in that era. Korea was literally using ancient Chinese as the written language - a form that I can understand. The time was circa 632- AD, which was the Tang Dynasty in China. Chinese culture had spread to and was adopted by neighbouring countries like Korea and Japan.
At the same time, I was also watching another Chinese TV series - The Hundred years of Rong Bao Zhai (2008). I learned about this studio almost thirty years ago but have never been so utterly taken by its presence until now. Established in 1672, Rong Bao Zhai was famous for selling the four treasures of study: brush, ink, paper and inkstone. Rong Bao Zhai is reputable for their extremely faithful reproductions of some of the most famous paintings and calligraphy work. Over the past 300 years it has been enthusiastically endorsed by numerous great Chinese artists. Up to this day, it is still home to many calligraphers, painters and collectors.
Through Rong Bao Zhai I revisit the significant fact that in the past, Chinese poetry, usually written with brushes, has non-separable bond with Chinese paintings. Calligraphy is an art form by itself still respected and practised today. There are three prints in the GOOD Edition that bear witness to this point. They are by the famous Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Obviously Araki is a lover of calligraphy, and his hand-writings appearing in these prints are pure work of art. Though they are only hand-written acknowledgements of his monographs as gifts to another photographer, they are stylish and high-spirited just like Araki himself. These are great drawings rooted from calligraphy, a tradition slipped through his fingers when he is not pressing the shutters of his cameras.
