Fractal Analyses Reveal the Origin of Aesthetics in Chinese Calligraphy

Chinese calligraphy is a thousand-year-old writing art. The question of how Chinese calligraphy artworks convey emotion has cast its spell over people for millennia. Calligraphers' joys and sorrows were expressed in the complexity of the character strokes, style variations and general layouts. Determining how Chinese calligraphy aesthetic patterns emerged from the general layout of artworks is a challenging objective for researchers. Here we investigate the statistical fluctuation structure of Chinese calligraphy characters sizes using characters obtained from the calligraphy artwork "Preface to the Poems Collected from the Orchid Pavilion" which was praised as the best running script under heaven. We found that the character size distribution is a stretched exponential distribution. Moreover, the variations in the local correlation features in character size fluctuations can accurately reflect expressions of the calligrapher's complex feelings. The fractal dimensions of character size fluctuations are close to the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci number is first discovered in the Chinese calligraphy artworks, which inspires the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy artworks and maybe also provides an approach to creating Chinese calligraphy artworks in multiple genres.

Chinese Guqin Music and Calligraphy for Treating Symptoms of Primary Insomnia

Purpose:To investigate the intervention effiects of using traditional Chinese Guqin music and Chinese Calligraphy handwriting(CCH)for patients with Primary Insomnia.Methods:A total of ninety patients were assigned to control group,Guqin group,and calligraphy group for 8 weeks.For 5 days a week,patients’heart rate variability(HRV)and frontal midline(FZ)electroencephalographic signals were recorded in a clinic during interventional period while either listening to Guqin music or writing calligraphy.Patients in the control group remained in rest condition.Results:For the Guqin group,the higher low-frequency-range HRV of coherence was found with marginal significance(P=0.055),and heart rate was significantly reduced(P<0.05)during Hie 4^th week in listening to Guqin music compared to the prerest period.For listening to Guqin music or calligraphy intervention,FZδ,FZθ,and FZα waves in the 8^th week compared to the 0^th week(Pre Intervention)showed a significantly enhanced effect(.P<0.05).Between the three groups,for heart rate and FZδ and FZθ waves,calligraphy group showed significantly increased heart rate than the Guqin group(P<0.001)and the control group(P=0.004);increased FZδ wave than die Guqin group(P<0.001)and the control group(P<0.001);and increased FZθ wave than the Guqin group(P=0.024)and the control group(P=0.008)respectively.Conclusion:Positive intervention effects on 11RV coherence of Guqin music;FZδ,FZθ,and FZα waves of Guqin music and calligraphy proved that Guqin music together with calligraphy training helping to promote physical and mental health,thereby it contributes to the clinical application of TCM Psychology for patients with insomnia syndrome.

Reconfiguration of the brain during aesthetic experience on Chinese calligraphy—Using brain complex networks

Chinese calligraphy,as a well-known performing art form,occupies an important role in the intangible cultural heritage of China.Previous studies focused on the psychophysiological benefits of Chinese calligraphy.Little attention has been paid to its aesthetic attributes and effectiveness on the cognitive process.To complement our understanding of Chinese calligraphy,this study investigated the aesthetic experience of Chinese cursive-style calligraphy using brain functional network analysis.Subjects stayed on the coach and rested for several minutes.Then,they were requested to appreciate artwork of cursive-style calligraphy.Results showed that(1)changes in functional connectivity between frontooccipital,fronto-parietal,bilateral parietal,and central–occipital areas are prominent for calligraphy condition,(2)brain functional network showed an increased normalized cluster coefficient for calligraphy condition in alpha2 and gamma bands.These results demonstrate that the brain functional network undergoes a dynamic reconfiguration during the aesthetic experience of Chinese calligraphy.Providing evidence that the aesthetic experience of Chinese calligraphy has several similarities with western art while retaining its unique characters as an eastern traditional art form.

The Art of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Mounting

The history of Chinese painting and calligraphy mounting can date back to the Warring States period(475-221 BC).This unique craftsmanship saw its heydays in

Hierarchical Approximate Matching for Retrieval of Chinese Historical Calligraphy Character

As historical Chinese calligraphy works are being digitized, the problem of retrieval becomes a new challenge. But, currently no OCR technique can convert calligraphy character images into text, nor can the existing Handwriting Character Recognition approach does not work for it. This paper proposes a novel approach to efficiently retrieving Chinese calligraphy characters on the basis of similarity： calligraphy character image is represented by a collection of discriminative features, and high retrieval speed with reasonable effectiveness is achieved. First, calligraphy characters that have no possibility similar to the query are filtered out step by step by comparing the character complexity, stroke density and stroke protrusion. Then, similar calligraphy characters axe retrieved and ranked according to their matching cost produced by approximate shape match. In order to speed up the retrieval, we employed high dimensional data structure - PK-tree. Finally, the efficiency of the algorithm is demonstrated by a preliminary experiment with 3012 calligraphy character images.