The Brush (Pen)
The tip of the brush (毛筆) is made up of a bundle of animal hair that is glued to the end of a tubular cylindrical body, which is usually a bamboo stick:
Typically, the hair is obtained from weasel/wolf (狼), goat (羊), or horse (馬). Hair from other animals, such
as rabbit (兔), can also be used. Some brush tips are even made up of mixture
of hair from different animals (兼毫).
Different animal hair offers different elasticity and resilience to the
brush, which, in turn, affects the manner of the scribed calligraphy. For
instance, the less elastic goat-hair brush (羊毫) is more appropriate for scribing medium or large-sized standard script
(中/大楷) and clerical script (隸書), for the tip gives a more robust and
firm appearance in scribed strokes (Fig. 1 below). On the other hand, weasel/wolf-hair
brush (狼毫) is more appropriate for scribing semi-cursive script (行書) or cursive script (草書), for it offers a more fluid and dynamic
appearance in scribed strokes (Fig .2). Yet, there is no absolute golden
rule in which type of brush should be used for a particular script style. It really depends on the context of the work involved.
Fig. 2 Sample work written with wolf-hair brush
Fig .1 Sample work written with goat-hair brush
Generally, the less elastic goat-hair brush (羊毫) is more suitable for beginning learners, as it trains your brush
control much better than other tips. If
one masters utilizing the goat-hair brush, then applying the weasel/wolf-hair
brush should be quite easy.
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How to hold the brush
For extra large brush:
For regular brush:
click to enlarge
Proceed to: The Ink, The Paper, The Mounting, The Seal or Return to: Introduction or top of this page