THE CALLIGRAPHY OF SAN FRANCISCO CHINATOWN

The art of Chinese calligraphy as practiced in one of its most vibrant settings is celebrated in this lavishly illustrated study.

Aston, whose previous book was Views From Gold Mountain (2019), recaps the history of calligraphy—the painting of Chinese characters—both as a 3,000-year-old writing system and as an almost abstract artistic form. He starts with the development of Chinese characters from ancient pictograms that evolved over centuries into ideographic symbols of related ideas. (Depictions of a bird’s claw took on the meanings “scratch” and “grasp”). Aston goes on to examine traditional calligraphy instruments—brushes, ink sticks, delicately surfaced ink stones, paper made from mulberry bark—and traces the emergence of distinctive character scripts, from the formal Li Shu clerical style to the informal, cursive style known as Cao Shu, which can be as illegible as a scrawled signature. He also explores the artistic tradition of calligraphy, which in China was the province of gurus who devoted their lives to it—“One morning he did his daily practice, laid down his brush, looked at his work, smiled, and then died—perfection attained at last,” Aston writes of the legendary 16th-century calligrapher Wen Cheng-ming—and its influence on Western artists like Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh. Half the book consists of full-color photos of San Francisco’s Chinatown, where Chinese calligraphy meets Western graphic pizzazz. The photos run the gamut: fat white characters like blossoms on red banners; a bank sign in elegant gold characters on polished black stone; yellow-on-red characters on a baby sling, etc. These images captivate both for their aesthetic appeal and for the meaning and structure they bring to the everyday life of bustling Chinatown. Aston’s writing wears its considerable erudition lightly, conveying a wealth of lore in workmanlike prose that sometimes reaches for Zen lyricism. Fans of Chinese art and San Francisco will find much to love here.

A fascinating, visually rich exploration of Chinese writing and the public culture it sustains.