Calligraphy, I learned from Ishikawa Kyuyoh, is not writing but, rather, carving. It is, in other words, sculpture. That was something of a revelation. What I had practiced ever since elementary school as "handwriting" was a more physical undertaking than I had realized. It is the drama of taction-the recurring drama of a pen, brush, or other instrument making contact with paper or another medium, arousing friction with the medium, and then withdrawing from the medium.
In enacting the drama of taction, Ishikawa assumes a solid footing, raises his arms on high, and brings all manner of force into rendering the lines of his calligraphy. His stance calls to mind that of the abstract French artist Pierre Soulages (1919-2022). Soulages used specially ordered large brushes to apply dollops of highly viscous pigments in fat vertical and horizontal lines. The physicality of the endeavor is common to both artists.
Ishikawa's stance also calls to mind a tree-climbing account in the essay collection Tsurezuregusa (Random thoughts) by the Japanese Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350). In that account, a man renowned for his tree-climbing prowess watches silently as his apprentice climbs a tall tree. The master utters not a word as the apprentice finds knots with his feet and grasps limbs to ascend the tree and then descend. Only when the apprentice is back down safely to within just a step of the ground does the master speak: "Be careful!" Kenko's explanation is that people exercise ample concentration on their own while danger is manifest but require guidance to remain vigilant when the danger recedes.
We see in Ishikawa's work that he has attained the wisdom of Kenko's tree-climbing master. He evinces that wisdom as a master of taction. Ishikawa deploys his lean and muscular brushwork in ever-changing ways across the works of his oeuvre. That begs the question as to what trait the works have in common.
The diversity, to be sure, is astounding, each set of works capturing our attention in its own way: with the strident overlapping of horizontals and verticals; with free-spirited, unrestrained frolicking; with personal musings; with explorations of traditional Japanese aesthetics, such as seasonal beauty. Some of the works feature dissections of kanji that leave fragments of the ideographs scattered across the paper. Yet even those works retain a riveting tension between each of the fragments and the medium. Each fragment serves as a crucial element in the overall composition.
What is ultimately the unifying trait of Ishikawa's oeuvre is the rigorous order that governs what unfolds on the paper. And in that unaffected yet reliable order do we find something infinitely bewitching.