Countries and cultures - Cultures and customs - Calligraphy - Traditional Japanese arts - Japanese aesthetics - Japan
What is the traditional Japanese art of calligraphy called?
Correct!
Shodō (書道) is the traditional Japanese art of calligraphy. Japanese or Chinese characters are written on paper with a brush and black ink. Japanese government sources describe shodō directly as the art of expressing characters with a writing brush and ink. The name means roughly “the way of writing”: sho refers to writing or calligraphy, while dō means “way”. Together with sadō, the tea ceremony, and kadō, flower arranging, shodō is one of Japan's established traditional arts. Traditionally, shodō is not only about writing characters correctly. Rhythm, brush movement, balance, line quality and the empty space on the paper all contribute to artistic expression. The art form is still practiced and developed in Japan today.
Traditional Japanese calligraphy is called Shodō, the “way of writing”.
