Sosho

[mellohero]

Not exactly a period concern per se, but I've been looking for a place for quite some time to improve my Japanese penmanship, specifically, gyosho and sosho. My search has been long and hard, and yet there is nothing to show for it, save for a site that goes through most of the Grade 1-3 kanji with sample cursive forms. While this is very useful, and I imagine practicing those kanji would help me learn the basics of simplification, but is there a more complete, free source online, preferably with plenty of illustrations?
This isn't necessarily for calligraphy, but rather to make my general Japanese handwriting more mature. After all, I can't have my girlfriend see my artless, legible penmanship and lack of poetic talent and leave!

[solveig]

Noble Cousins!

Greetings from Solveig! People have an irrational expectation for things or at least information to be free these days. There are wonderful Japanese calligraphy dictionaries out there which give multiple forms for thousands of characters. Incidentally, sosho is difficult. It's difficult to read and difficult to write. Further, I would wager that most Japanese are not particularly proficient in it. I recommend becoming more proficient with kaisho and maybe throw in some gyosho while you are at it.

[Yamanouchi Eidou]

kaisho is the blackletter of Japanese calligraphy.

[solveig]

Noble Cousins!

Greetings from Solveig!

Jan 11, 2010 1:20:00 GMT -5 Yamanouchi Eidou said:

kaisho is the blackletter of Japanese calligraphy.

Kaisho is the printing type characters. Personally, I mostly print in English, so printing in Japanese doesn't particularly bother me. Kaisho is used for Engineering drawings and such like. While you may be able to produce characters that resemble gyosho simply by connecting a bunch of your strokes, sosho is not as simple. Here is the ISBN for a kai-sho, gyo-sho, so-sho dictionary: 4385150494 You can order a copy of the book from www.amazon.co.jp

[Yamanouchi Eidou]

Jan 11, 2010 2:14:11 GMT -5 solveig said:

Kaisho is the printing type characters.

much like blackletter.

A style signified by clean, crisp lines, definitive forms and standard sizing f letters to fit withing clearly divided spaces? Sounds like they overlap pretty well.