In ancient times, the Japanese called calligraphy "the way to learn" or "the way to write", and the word "the way to write" did not appear until the Edo era in17th century.
What do you know about Japanese calligraphy?
In the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Taizong ordered the collection of Wang Xizhi's works, which led to the high esteem of Wang Xizhi's works. The Japanese envoy to the Tang Dynasty returned to China and brought back a lot of Wang Xizhi's handwriting. Wang Xizhi was honored as a book sage by ancient Japanese, so he called calligraphy "the way of learning".
After Buddhism was introduced into Japan, Buddhists imitated China and copied scriptures with a brush, thus prevailing Japanese calligraphy. Among them, The Book of Crane Jingyi copied by Shoto Kutaishi is a masterpiece influenced by the calligraphy style of the Six Dynasties in China.
In the mid-Heian period, due to the cancellation of Japanese diplomatic envoys in Tang Dynasty and the appearance of pseudonyms, calligraphy became increasingly harmonious, and there appeared "three traces" in Japanese calligraphy, namely, Xiao Ye Feng Dao, Fujiwara Saori and Fujiwara, which were also the norms of calligraphy in later generations, and on this basis, various calligraphy schools were formed.
At the end of Edo, the shogunate rewarded Confucianism, so "tang style" prevailed again. Japanese calligraphy came into being during this period and became the representative of Japan's inherent art. In the early Meiji period, Yang Shoujing, a native of China, came to Japan and introduced China's calligraphy style of the Six Dynasties to Japan, which created a spring breeze in Japanese calligraphy circles. As a result, Japanese calligraphy began to change from respecting individuality and genre inheritance to paying attention to free expression.