"Chinese: a language perfectly suited for calligraphy"
From Ideograms in China, Gustaf Sobin's translation of Henri Michaux's prose poem:
"If one takes, from various authors, a specific character, one that is easily recognizable, attractive, and charged with sense, and detaches it from both text and context, the word 'heart' for example, no matter how far removed the brushstrokes might be from anything that might resemble a heart, the heart will, nonetheless, by its tracing, take on -- with each calligrapher -- a particular life of its own. One can readily see, among various calligraphers, how each time it is the same, and each time entirely different. One heart is generous, and another high-spirited. One heart would deceive while yet another would welcome: be good to live with. There is a heart at deep peace with itself, and a heart that is warm, well-disposed. Or the heart unruffled, that nothing troubles, that saves its own skin every time. Or one that is fickle, that settles nowhere, or another that is fearsome, and still another, submissive. There is a heart, too, that -- at the drop of a hat -- would take flight. Or the meddlesome heart, or the heart expectant, or venturous, or dry, or placid, or -- to the contrary -- the dauntless heart that nothing can stop. Or the entirely attentive, the perfect heart that even on a fibrous sheet of rice paper can last centuries and still manage to astonish.
To every calligrapher, the life, the proprietorship of the heart is offered..."
"If one takes, from various authors, a specific character, one that is easily recognizable, attractive, and charged with sense, and detaches it from both text and context, the word 'heart' for example, no matter how far removed the brushstrokes might be from anything that might resemble a heart, the heart will, nonetheless, by its tracing, take on -- with each calligrapher -- a particular life of its own. One can readily see, among various calligraphers, how each time it is the same, and each time entirely different. One heart is generous, and another high-spirited. One heart would deceive while yet another would welcome: be good to live with. There is a heart at deep peace with itself, and a heart that is warm, well-disposed. Or the heart unruffled, that nothing troubles, that saves its own skin every time. Or one that is fickle, that settles nowhere, or another that is fearsome, and still another, submissive. There is a heart, too, that -- at the drop of a hat -- would take flight. Or the meddlesome heart, or the heart expectant, or venturous, or dry, or placid, or -- to the contrary -- the dauntless heart that nothing can stop. Or the entirely attentive, the perfect heart that even on a fibrous sheet of rice paper can last centuries and still manage to astonish.
To every calligrapher, the life, the proprietorship of the heart is offered..."