Paul Wang Studio

RICHLAND, Mich. == Paul Wang spends 30 minutes just stirring the ink. The longer he grinds the ink-stick against a stone, the blacker the ink becomes. He mixes until it resembles oil, then picks up a writing brush made of animal hair and begins to write calligraphy. His hands cocks backward, poised until the wrist aches, as his practiced muscles move swiftly over the paper.

Calligraphy has been the written form of the Chinese language since 2000 B.C. It has 10,000 characters, and is revered by the Chinese as the highest art form. In recent years, this ancient skill has become popular in the United States; Michigan even has its own calligraphers, association, headquartered in Royal Oak.

Chinese students once had to master calligraphy to be considered scholars, and their exams were graded not only for content but also for the beauty and clarity with which the words were written. Every generation learned this art from the generation before; it often takes 10 years or longer to memorize all the symbols.

BUT WHILE Paul Wang practices calligraphy at his home in Richland, striving to duplicate the stroke of 3^rd-century masters, this art form languishes in China as an ancient culture enters the electronic age. Where artists once worked hours to balance black ink on white paper, now Chinese symbols are printed by computer.

Students in China are not stressing art work by brushes, "Wang says, "because the Chinese people are looking down on anything related to the past. They think about the future is in machines and electronics and computers.

The fact that traditional Chinese calligraphy is a dying art has made it valuable. At the Sotheby’s auction in June, 1984, two albums containing 25 letters of various Song and Yuan Dynasty calligraphy sold for $270,000. Collectors in the United States are increasingly interested in Chinese works now that China is opening its doors to foreign investors and trade.

The irony is that in their attempt to modernize, the Chinese may be losing their cultural identity. "Always, I think there will be people writing calligraphy," Wang says. "But the flourish time has past. You can't make a living being a calligrapher in the United States or China, and so we are rare birds."

Dr. Wang, 53, moved to the Kalamazoo area because the country hills and trees remind him of China. He originally lived in Ann Arbor, where he studied accounting and English at the University of Michigan. After graduation, he worked as a cost analyst at the Ford Motor Company. But, dismayed when he saw people who had been doing the same job for 20 years, he quit and went back to medical school.

DURING HIS RESIDENCY, Wang maintained his passion for Chinese literature, and assembled a valuable collection of Chinese stone sculpture and porcelain. This collection is now on loan to the government of Taiwan.

When Wang comes home from work and enters his studio, he retreats into himself. The room becomes a room in Chungking long ago, and his hand becomes the hand of his father or grandfather or an artist from another century. He paints landscapes, villages and bamboo, or copies a poem in calligraphy.

"If you incorporate the calligraphy into the painting, then you have a visual enjoyment of the painting with its color and stroke and the various shadows," he says. "Then you enjoy the calligraphy, which in its self is an art, with the flowing of lines and words. Then you also have poetry, which corresponds to the landscape. So you have many expressions all in one."

THE RECOGNITION of China’s waning art form has begun to spark interest in Wang’s work: It has been exhibited in various galleries, and he has been asked to give lectures on calligraphy.

Wang first learned calligraphy from his father. On Saturday afternoons, a small group of artists would arrive at the Wang home in Chungking. They often stayed the weekend. These artists had grown up with Wang’s father, and Wang loved their visits. Every table was covered with their paper and writing brushes, and talk and laughter filled the room.

Wang would wait for them to finish and break for dinner. Then he would pick up their brushes, trying to control his unpracticed fingers enough to copy the precise and balanced strokes of these masters.

"I did some work and they gave me encouragement," Wang recalls. "They took me in and taught me. That’s how I learned my painting and writing, through tutorship."

ONE OF his father’s friends, professor Huang Chun-pi, took a personal interest in Wang and became his tutor when the boy was 13. Wang still considers himself a student of Huang and visits him in Taiwan when traveling there. "Once you are a student, (your tutor) is your teacher for life," Wang says. Wang describes Huang, now 86, as a robust man who walks 10 miles a day and eats three times as much as anyone. "When he dies," Wang says, "it will be the end of a great tradition."

Wang’s training first involved copying the works of calligraphers from the Ming Dynasty and from Chen Chou, the greatest calligrapher and painter of all time. Imitating the works of others is still important to Wang, because it gives him a standard to judge his work. It also eases the burden of creating.

"The greatest calligrapher lived in 300 A.D. So this is a relief, Wang says. "The best has already been done."

THINGS ARE very different today from the way Wang learned his craft. "Today in Taiwan or in mainland China, an artist will be just like a Westerner, "he says. "You go to art school and are exposed to many teachers don’t have the obligation of giving you everything they know. By a change of the system, I think the thing itself has changed."

This saddens Wang, a man who follows tradition even in a foreign environment. Whereas the Chinese have historically revered tradition and the wisdom of the ancients, Western art encourages individuality. Wand sees a great rift between the two approaches, both in creating and appreciating art, and regards his own work specifically as a continuation of what came before. He finds that few Westerners understand why he tries to copy great calligraphers instead of developing his own style.

"It is an admirable quality to have the urge to create something new. But if everybody is going to create with very littlie basic foundation, then they are going to be creating garbage. If you don’t believe what I say, go to an art fair. There is just so much junk. People are putting eggshells together and saying, 'that’s my creation.’ But can this last the test of time? No, it cannot."

I BELIEVE if I do this ling enough, the 'me’ will come out. It’s bound to; you cannot copy for your total life."

The instruments Wang uses are simple. Brushes are different sizes for different purposes. The animal hair chooses, from rabbit fur to lamb’s wool, depends on the width he wants to create in each character. The ink stick consists of pone soot and glue, compressed and dried. He makes ink by rubbing the stick against a special stone. Wang’s stone, mined from a cave in the province of An-Hui in China, is five generations old. These stones are treasured because they can hold water for a long period while the ink is being prepared.

Wang points to a painting he completed, claiming that the brush stroke is in the manner of Chui. Chinese artists often say their work is in the manner of another artist, because this is considered a form of respect for works they love. In Wang’s eyes, there are not many new things to be created, but the old values last.

"This is no embarrassment or shame that you should be losing yourself in the style of another painter, "he says. "You can bring the two of you together. That will be even better."

Paul Wang is a long way from China and his boyhood, and he knows that the country is changing. But he has never lost his love for the traditional arts of writing, and for preserving words through calligraphy.

"What would be more beautiful than writing the poetry of the 12^th century poet Tao Yan-Ming in calligraphy?" Wang asks. "He speaks to me, I speak to him. He talks to me every night and helps me to go sleep. It’s like having Mozart in your bedroom."