Taking a Chinese language class and struggling with the characters? Remember being pushed as a young toddler by your parents into Chinese school? Whether Chinese characters frighten or delight you, after visiting the Chinese Calligraphy exhibit at the Met, you will surely view those tedious characters as astonishingly beautiful works of art.

Those of you who have gone through elementary Chinese schooling may recall slaving over all those dreaded Chinese characters minutes before class; trying to remember the relentless sequence of strokes, dots, lines, and curves that made up just one character among the countless number of characters. For the eight years I spent sitting in those classrooms, I remember painstakingly learning, practicing, memorizing, and reciting the many Chinese characters in lessons and poems. Thus, I became aware of the level of difficulty, as well as the time and patience necessary for one to master the art of Chinese calligraphy. Yet it wasn't until I spent time examining and reading about the John B. Elliott Collection of Chinese Calligraphy at the Met that I realized there was so much more to what I had perceived as random scribblings on handscrolls. Along with the unfathomable difficulty and intricacy, there is an enormous amount of artistry, creativity, and hard work required in Chinese calligraphy, and with each artist, there is a new unique style that emerges.

Wang Xizhi, recognized in China as the "calligraphy sage," was a key figure in the transformation of writing into art. He developed new forms of running and cursive scripts that changed calligraphy into a personal expressive medium. In the areas of the exhibit, it became noticeable that Wang's scripts were used as examples and his characters served as models for many later Chinese calligraphy artists.

Yu He, who copied Wang's Essay on Yue Yi on handscroll, caught my attention because of the clarity, neatness, and precise strokes that were created with a long thin brush. The characters were rather small, compared to the other scrolls, yet when examined closely, the light and heavy brushstrokes were amazingly clear and precise. The slim lines were remarkably even and the characters were placed in a way that seemed almost mechanical, with each character perfectly lined up in its place. It resembled typed print, instead of hand-written characters, which displayed the great talent and artistry of Yu He.

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