Kotobuki calligraphy with bird 壽 | Korean anonymous | 19th century

Korean calligraphy from the 19th century (and earlier) is rarely available in stores. The calligraphy style of this scroll painting has something folksy about it with its cliché-like nature. The bird on the left is just a cipher, as it were, of a similar kind that is often found in the painting of ceramic vessels. What is exciting, however, is the juxtaposition of this bird formula with the highly artistic and sophisticated lettering of the symbol for "long life" (kotobuki in Japanese).壽

If you analyse this character, i.e. if you break it down into its six different parts,士、つ、工、一、口、寸, you quickly realise how difficult it is to achieve the goal of capturing all the parts in a single breath and brush stroke. But other paintings in this style also show that Korean calligraphers never had any qualms about shortening a character, leaving out parts or developing it with free imagination. There are paintings of "100 kotobuki" (as if they were grandiose congratulations) in which the same character is varied beyond recognition. The character is suddenly a group of birds, then a bamboo grove, or a bouquet of flowers, etc. - almost anything is possible. Such a display of boundless imagination seems to me to be typical of non-academic Korean art.

If you are familiar with Japanese art from all centuries, the colors of this painting are at least as pleasing and refreshing as this specific approach to calligraphy. The wonderful dark blue, one might call it "Prussian blue", was first known in Japan in the 19th century in woodcut art. It is not present in painting (with the possible exception of Shiba Kōkan).

The almost faded pink is also enchanting - and all of this on a wonderfully "dirty" looking background, which is more than just a basis for the picture, but is full of life with all its impurities.   

The picture was remounted in Japan. Some of these calligraphies exist only as loose sheets and are often in a deplorable condition. A dark green was cleverly chosen here, which is rarely used in Japan, but which fits all the more convincingly with the color scheme of this calligraphy.