The Refreshing Paradox of Embracing Innovation for a Return to Antiquity: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Integration of Art Historical Research with Creative Art Practice of Chinese Calligraphy

Historical research of calligraphy and its creative practice fall into different disciplines. In most cases, art historians do not double up as practising calligraphers. The writer, however, has been conducting art-historical researches and creating calligraphic works, with the purpose of trying to transgress the boundaries of the two areas. This essay aims to illustrate how art historical research could be integrated into personal creative theory, and subsequently practiced. Examples listed in this essay include couplets in oracle-bone, bronze and clerical scripts, alongside interdisciplinary creation such as calligraphy sculptures, big-character calligraphy performances and site-specific and improvisational works of calligraphy.