The Art of Kanji

In Japanese, there are three different alphabets that students are required to learn. Going in order from easiest to hardest, they are Hiragana (ひらがな), Katakana (カタカナ), and Kanji (漢字). There are about 3,000-5,000 different Kanji, and the lower end is how much is used in daily life. For a lot of people, this is very daunting and overwhelming if you're trying to learn the language.

But Kanji is also very beautiful. There are many styles of writing when it comes to Kanji and each style is a work of art in of itself. Kanji originated in China and is believed to have been used as early as 1250 B.C, and maybe even earlier. As the civilization grew, so did the written language, and eventually, Kanji would find a home in Japan.

At the time, Japan did not have a writing system for their language. As is true of many cultures, many accounts throughout history were told orally. When Kanji was introduced to the Japanese, they adapted to their spoken language, and over the years, different characters were simplified into Hiragana and Katakana. But it all originated from one system of writing: they all are the descendants of pictures.

Before there was Kanji, there were pictures, much like the hieroglyphics used by the Ancient Egyptians. With no words to write down to explain what people saw or how they felt, they would draw pictures. There are books that break this process down, showing how the image became a character, which is really fascinating and definitely something I'd recommend to anyone curious in languages. It's these picture that evolved into different writing systems, including Chinese. Because of these early origins, it is clear to see the art and beauty of each Kanji (even those with 23 or more brush strokes). Writing them is like painting a picture. Even if you are using a simple pencil, it feels like you're creating art.

I like to take it a step further and add some color (as in the picture above). Using colors that are associated with the word seems to create those feelings people feel when they hear certain words. In the picture, I used the Kanji for "Spring", which I associate a lot of greens with because of the leaves that return to the trees, and a purpley-pink for the flowers. The characters themselves start to take on the feelings and emotions you can get from the colors, and I love it! It cements in my mind that writing in Kanji is much more like creating art. Learning new Kanji is like the drawing time you had in Kindergarten. And I will never give up drawing time.

One thing you'll often hear from Japanese language students is their love-hate relationship with Kanji.  Most of the time, it's when we're learning knew Kanji and writing it 10 or more times each that we don't love it as much. And sometimes we stumble when we read it. But once we've got it down to a T, it's the best feeling. We can now take it, put our own spin on it and create our own versions of this beautiful writing.