From the point of view of composition, Chinese characters fall into two categor

Square characters with four edges.

   A single character has only one method of composition, while a compound character can be two components (on the left and right, or above and below each other), three components (on the left, middle and right, or top, middle and bottom) or encircled characters (full or semi-circled).

   Both the single and compound characters have a center. With a good grasp of the center of a Chinese character, it is easy to arrange all the strokes so that they are not too loose or too tight or in a strong contrast with other strokes. To help learners grasp the center of each character, many copybooks have been published for practicing penmanship. One of them is a ~, (rice) -shaped copybook (see P.49), because each square has four red crossed lines in that pattern to help the student handle the relations between the centripetal and centrifugal forces of all parts of the character.

   Straight and even. While writing, it is necessary to pay attention to the balance of the lines of the character; otherwise, it will look ugly. Traditionally, calligraphers have stressed the evenness of the character's makeup, the proper length of its vertical and horizontal strokes and the suitability of darkness and lightness. This matches the esthetic requirement that beautiful people should have regular features, and that rooms and courtyards are only beautiful when everything is in good order; they are unpleasant to look at if every thing is in disorder. To hang a picture on the wall, the picture should be pleasant to look at and with suitable spaces on its left and right and above and beneath. Even a stamp should be pasted straight and even in order to give a good impression to the receiver of the letter.

   Well-balanced. Characters or strokes should be well balanced. For the characters with few strokes, the strokes should be thicker, and strokes should coordinate with each other. For characters with more strokes, the strokes should be thinner, closer and well balanced.

   Among various kinds of scripts, the seal script comes the first in fine balance. At the same time, this script tries to minimize the blank spaces between strokes of a character. Other scripts come in this order according to their demands

   Uneven and not uniform. Like many things in nature, calligraphic characters are written in an uneven and not uniform way in order to display their beauty. If all

the strokes of a character are straight and even, they are print characters and not artistic ones. Even the seal script shows different lengths of strokes. Take the character (three) as an example. The three strokes are of the same length, but in seal hand, the stroke in the middle turns upward at the end. In official script, the two top strokes are of the same length, but the last stroke starts in a shape

of the silkworm's head and ends in a shape of wild goose's tail. In formal hand, the top stroke has an upturned end, and the stroke in the middle is short while the bottom stroke is thicker.

The character (flower).

   Coherence. All the strokes or the various parts of a character should match each other, so that the coherence of the strokes can make the whole character vigorous, vivid and rhythmic.

   The coherence of a character falls into two kinds: indirect or direct. Take the character (flower) as an example. It is composed of four parts, with their coherence in the middle. When writing it, the four parts should be close, and the top and bottom parts can be connected.

   In general, direct coherence is used to connect two strokes in cursive and running ha

Part of Prose On the Goddess of the Luo River, written in cursive script by Zhu Yunming.

A poem in an ancient famous prose Preface to the Pavillion of Prince Teng, written in running script by Wen Zhengming.

   Dynamic. This is the most important way to make a character vivid. From such strokes, an artistic work gains vitality and rhythm.

   The dynamism of a calligraphic work comes from other two aspects, as follows: First is the movement speed of strokes. In the seal and official scripts, the writing of a character can be finished in one or two minutes. But in cursive or running hand, the brush moves more quickly, and it only takes several seconds to finish a character.

Second, unstable and inconsistent space can be caused by the slanting of the character. In the rigorous official hand, some people make the characters straight and graceful, while others make them slanting, and the strokes are of different lengths in order to display their vigor, vividness and rhythm. In running, cursive or wild cursive hand, this is out of the question. Prose on the Goddess of the Luo

River, written by Zhu Yunming (1460-1526) of the Ming Dynasty, demonstrates the coherent and dynamic strokes in cursive hand, and displays the charm of the characters and Zhu¡¯s excellent skills of controling the speed of brush movement and rhythm. Zhu, Wen Zhengming, Tang Bohu and Xu Zhenqing were four talented calligraphers in the Suzhou area and made great contributions to the development of calligraphy in the Ming Dynasty.