| The workshop for Chinese calligraphy |
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As far as the practice of art is concerned, my choice is very restrictive. In spite of its extreme importance and daily presence in our house, I do not even mention music. Not everything is suited to the context of a Website. Never mind, that is the glory of the ephemeral. Thus, I limit myself here to two recent experiences that have added something new to my understanding and to my sensitivity, and have changed my vision of life: the painting of icons on the one hand, and Chinese calligraphy on the other. These are two spiritual arts whose technique is the exact expression of the aim they strive for. At the first glance, they seem to be opposites: the icons have a static, hieratic and timeless character, calligraphy depends on movement and is attached to the instant. Nevertheless, they both centralize our forces and open us to a dimension that we do not reach by ordinary means, because it surpasses the limits of human perception. Since I left Germany forty years ago, I have made the same experience all over: those who are strangers somewhere find each other. The voluntarily or involuntarily exiled always recognize, understand and comfort each other. This is true for Paris and Basel, and even for the small Normandy town of Fécamp. Chui Wah Lai is a native of Hong Kong and has now lived in France for more than twenty years. She writes, paints, works in a Chinese bookshop in Paris and teaches calligraphy in Normandy. This several thousand years old, spiritual and secret art is based on the control of the energetic spirit "qi", a descending spiral for the celestial influx and an ascending spiral for the mind that tries to attain it. The one who succeeds in participating, not to say in mastering the "qi", dedicates himself to metamorphoses, finds his accomplishment in it.
I came to Chui Wah’s workshop after my first journey to China and I learned there the patience of gesture; the force of a scripture of ideograms that brings together in a same thought calligraphy, painting and poetry; and more than anything, a surprising way to channel energy in order to place it in the service of harmony. |
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