【Learn Chinese】Differences Between English and Chinese Calligraphy

Writing English calligraphy is very different from Chinese calligraphy. In English calligraphy, one of the basic elements requires down strokes to be thicker than up strokes, creating a contrast that is pleasing to the eye.

However, these rules don’t apply for Chinese calligraphy. True mastery of calligraphy requires knowledge of the different strokes used in writing characters. Each stroke is painted a certain way using the brush.
However, one important point that does carry over from English to Chinese is stroke order.
Normally, writing words in English doesn’t require a certain stroke order. Sure, maybe when you were learning to write back in elementary school, your teacher taught you to write letters a certain way. But in every day life, using a pencil or pen to write, it’s not noticeable whether you write the letter “V” with two down strokes, one up and one down, or both up!
However, when writing calligraphy in English, the order does become a bit more important because the down strokes should be thicker and the up strokes thinner.
In Chinese, stroke order is important, even in regular writing, but more so in calligraphy. In both cases, if your pen or pencil drags when writing quickly, these extra strokes can either be clues as to what the character should be, or misleading and confusing.
Additionally, the way the brush drags across the paper changes the look of the character, so the correct stroke order and even direction of the stroke is essential!