Friday, March 29, 2024
ARTLANGUAGE&CULTURE

The first day of spring (ipchun daegil) calligraphy

(updated 2020) At this time of year anyone who is into calligraphy may well be practising to write the message 吉 ipchun-daegil to wish for good luck in the coming year.

Read more about this tradition and see a picture of the calligraphy on a front door. 

Here’s my attempt of ipchun daegil in hangul and Chinese characters.

calligraphy in hangul and Chinese characters of the spring message ipchun daegil

The finished masterpiece should be put on the front door in time for the first day of spring which is Feb 4. The whole expression means something like:

‘may the spring bring great luck, light, and many blessings’

吉  입춘대길
建陽多慶  건양다경

Since the paper can stay up on the door for the whole year, it’s good incentive to practise hard to write it as beautifully as possible!

Here’s a quick video of me trying to write it!

DIFFERENT STYLES OF CALLIGRAPHY

So there are 5 styles of calligraphy. 

Seal script (전서) is the oldest style and taken from the curvy pictographs found carved into shells and stone in ancient China. Here’s an example I found of ipchun daegil written in calligraphy in seal script.

Seal Script 전서

But this style had variations and was not always easy to read so later the standardised and simpler clerical and printed styles were developed for writing documents.

Printed Style 해서

The printed style of calligraphy (해서 hae-seo) is the one which calligraphy students have to spend many years mastering before they can move on to the cursive styles. Here’s an example of ipchun daegil written in the printed style

Finally the semi-cursive and cursive styles were developed for artistic self expression. Since the characters or individual strokes can be joined together, they are harder to read but look more artistic.

It used to be common practice for households to put this wish at the entrance to their home but now that most people live in apartments (and don’t practise calligraphy) the custom is dying out.

semi-cursive style 행서

I found this video which was taken during a calligraphy class. At the end of the clip the teacher is asked what style this is and he replies haeng-seo (행서 semi-cursive style). The characters are still separate but some of the strokes within each character are more joined together.

meaning of each character

吉 (입춘대길 ipchun-daegil)

 stand  spring  big 吉 happiness

慶 (건양다경 keon-yang-ta-gyoung)

 build  sunshine  many  joyous occasion

related posts: 

What are some Korean folk customs at Lunar New Year?

What are Lunar New Year Gift sets?

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