This is the classic introduction to Chinese calligraphy. In nine richly illustrated chapters Chiang Yee explores the aesthetics and the technique of this art in which rhythm, line, and structure are perfectly embodied. He measures the slow change from pictograph to stroke to the style and shape of written characters by the great calligraphers.

Speech and writing are two organs of the same human impulse--the conveyance of thought: the one operating through hearing, the other through sight; the one by sound from mouth to ear, the other by form or image from hand to eye. But each can do...