The British Museum Li Luogong (1917-1991) Li was a pioneer of the Modernist movement. He created a new style of calligraphy by combining ancient Chinese pictograms with the spirit of European post-Impressionist painting, which he had studied in Japan in his youth. See his innovation with 'The Indominitable Soul'.

The British Museum Huang Miaozi (1913–) Huang worked for Premier Zhou Enlai in the early 1950s. During the Cultural Revolution he was imprisoned for seven years. He wrote this couplet in April 1976 after joining the vast crowds in Tiananmen Square who had gathered to lament Zhou’s passing and condemn the Gang of Four. People expressed their grief by carrying the traditional white paper flowers of mourning.

In 1985 Huang Miaozi, Gu Gan, Li Luogong and others held China's very first exhibition of Modernist calligraphy in Beijing. Somewhat to their surprise, the authorities agreed that it could be staged in the China Art Gallery in Beijing. The exhibition attracted huge crowds and aroused a great deal of controversy--not unlike the Armory Show, the well-known exhibition of European art held in New York City in 1913, which introduced Cubism to America. Many visitors simply could not understand what the Modernists were doing, and those who did were either delighted or outraged to see so many long-standing conventions being flouted. Meanwhile, other artists, such as Wang Dongling in Hangzhou, were independently developing their own Modernist styles.

The British Museum Gu Gan (1942-) One of Gu Gan's main ideas is that Modernist calligraphy should provide aesthetic pleasure linked to an idea, not a lengthy text. It was in this style that he produced 'Opening Up (1995).

The British Museum Wang Dongling (1945-) Wang is one of China's pre-eminent Modernist calligraphers. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he worked in the USA and Japan. He likes combining classical Chinese styles with inspiration from other arts and cultures. See his treatment of Daoism, 'The Void'.

The exponents of Modernism believed that calligraphy would never become a means of creative expression in modern China unless it broke free from the rigorous rules that had constrained it for centuries. Modernist calligraphy, they argued, should unashamedly proclaim itself a form of fine art. They intended, therefore, to be more painterly in their whole approach to calligraphy, including the way they structured their characters, the compositions they created and their use of inks. Instead of being inward-looking, like the calligraphers of the past, they wanted to draw inspiration from other arts, both Chinese and Western.

Although the movement itself only emerged in the mid-1980s, it grew out of the work of five pioneers who had been exploring new possibilities since the mid-1960s. Four of them had started out as painters and the fifth had been a theatrical designer. They, in turn, had drawn inspiration from the experiments of other calligraphers in the first half of the century.

The first was Lu Weizhao (1899-1980), a highly innovative artist who managed to get calligraphy established at the Hangzhou Academy of Fine Art as a subject worthy of scholarly study, not merely one taught as a practical art. The second was Zhang Ding (b. 1917), the only artist from the People's Republic of China to have met Picasso. The third was Zhang Zhengyu, who brought his theatrical eye to the design of characters and the spatial relationships between them. The fourth was Li Luogong, who had studied Western avant-garde art, and the last was Shi Lu (1919-82) who, as he declined through alcoholism into madness, made his characters seem as if they were exploding.

The Modernists pointed out that Chinese characters, which had been written in many different ways by various artists over the centuries, could be made even more interesting artistically. Gu Gan demonstrated this by presenting 46 alternative versions of the character for 'mountain' (shan)--some of them forms created by famous calligraphers of the past, others his own inventions.

The more complex characters offer even greater scope for conversion to new forms. For example, the proportions of a character can be modified to create a new dynamic in the relationship of the spaces within it or of those between it and other characters. The standard compact form of the character for 'cloud' (yun) can be stretched vertically or horizontally. Alternatively, one might exaggerate one part of a character; in the character for 'orchid' (lan), for instance, the upper part usually quietly takes up a third of the space occupied by the whole. Here it has been enlarged to fill two-thirds of the space dramatically, albeit with the help of innovative ink techniques.

Wherever possible, therefore, Modernists like to reshape characters in order to reinforce their meaning. This has been done not only with clouds and orchids, but also with other subjects from nature, such as tigers. This reshaping is often done by linking back to the earliest forms of writing, based on pictograms.

Another approach is to use the old Daoist technique of blending two well-known characters together to form a new one. Instead of using the conventional thick black ink with its lustrous sheen, so loved by the Classicists, the Modernists seek to exploit the full range of effects that have long been known to Chinese painters, including the use of coloured inks. The range of possibilities is enormous. For example, a line simply written in solid black becomes much more interesting when flecked with water; striking effects can be achieved by using dark ink across lighter ink that is still wet; and by using a brush so loaded with watery ink that the water oozes into the paper beyond the ink, it is possible to impede the flow of ink from a second brushstroke, thereby creating a whitish halo effect. In line with their painterly approach, Modernists tend to use relatively few characters. Their works will often, however, carry layers of meaning--ranging from ones that conjure up beautifully soothing images to religious or philosophical ideas, or expressions of the artist's attitudes on various issues. In these compositions the characters are not meant to be an explanation in prose of an idea or a sentiment, but are used as symbols that are intended to open up ideas in the mind of the viewer about what it is that he or she is seeing.

Gu Gan's 1991 piece 'World of Supreme Bliss' conveys the message in the title in several different ways. The large image of Buddha, rendered in red with a seal, induces an air of calm. So, too, do the characters written across the work--Ji Le Shi Jie--which mean 'World of Supreme Bliss', a well-known Buddhist phrase that refers to the state of mind achieved by rejecting the material world and seeking inner peace. The images on the seals that Gu Gan carved specially for this composition are a reminder of the glorious Buddhist works of art created in China. Many of these can be seen at Dunhuang, the famous monastery situated on the Silk Road, along which Buddhism first entered the country.

The Modernists hope not only that China will absorb more of the culture of other countries, but that Chinese culture will increasingly be appreciated internationally. Naturally, they want calligraphy to be part of this ideal and to act as a bridge in achieving it. The fact that some of the works by Mirņ and other Western abstract painters look almost like modern Chinese calligraphy encourages this aspiration. So, too, does the importance of line in much recent Western abstract art.