…A collection of unconventional hanging scrolls…
The Hanging Scroll
A hanging scroll (kakejiku) is artwork pasted onto paper or silk attached to wooden rods, hung with a cord. A scroll is an ancient East Asian way of displaying, protecting, and storing art. Scrolls usually depict decorative watercolor images or black calligraphic marks. This exhibit explores ways of engaging with the latter.
Calligraphy scrolls can be read as text provide the viewer knows the language—but can also be seen as graphic art. The great variety of styles of writing characters used in both Chinese and Japanese is sometimes difficult for even native speakers to decipher. Yet the visual interest of the calligraphy still arrests the eye.
How can non-readers approach and appreciate such scrolls?
Deciphering calligraphy for its meaning is hugely satisfying. At the same time, the surface pattern of the brushstrokes, the thing an innocent eye relates to, has interest and beauty on its own.
Post-WWII avant-garde Japanese artists sought to emphasize this in abstract calligraphic works where the powerful visual impact of the brushwork was in fact the point.
An ensō, or Zen circle, is a favorite subject of Japanese calligraphers. A symbol of Buddhist enlightenment, ensos are sometimes drawn closed, but more often open, with a well-defined start and finish. Through these simple forms we appreciate that anything can be worth contemplating when framed in the format of a hanging scroll.
This part of the exhibit combines original calligraphy with digitally manipulated versions as seen by Marcia Donahue, an artist who does not read Chinese or Japanese script. Rather than treating the scroll as text, she sees it as shapes, creating images that grow out of the forms.
Donahue’s creations were then digitally colored and printed as a classic hanging scroll by Liza Dalby.
The printed scrolls in this section feature photographs of asphalt repair lines known to bikers as “tar snakes.” Suggesting abstract brush strokes, they are framed like calligraphy in a digitally designed hanging scroll format.
