Master of Haengcho
School of Calligraphy

Yang Jinni known for his brilliant style of brush writing art over four decades

Yang Jinni is a master calligrapher, one of the best in the country, which was proven by the fact that he won the Order of Culture Merit, Og-gwan Medal from the government in 1998 in recognition of the Oriental art form. A graduate of Pusan University, he took the first step in his illustrious career with the honor of his calligraphic pieces passing the National Art Exhibition 1959 when he was barely 32 years old.
Since then his successful artistic life took off with winning the award again in the national exhibition in the following year. His artwork was so acclaimed that he created a calligraphic style called,"haengcho"and has turned out many pupils who studied the calligraphy in haengcho style under Yang.
The master calligrapher was born in Changneung, South Gyeongsang Province in 1928, but he is still going strong.
   
He was first and second chairman of the Korean Calligraphy Association. His art pieces were displayed at the National Art Exhibition 15 times and won special awards three times.
    
He also won the award from late president Park Chung-hee for the mastery of his distinctive style of calligraphy. His school of calligraphy is characterized by strong strokes in semi-cursive style an the cursive style of writing, which is full of natural beauty in perfect combination of "hard"and "soft" "estranged"and "dense" "skeleton"and "flesh"to present a number of examples for the younger generations. He teaches his art at the Woojook Calligraphic Art Center in Insa-dong, downtown Seoul.
Unlike the Westernized Roman alphabetical style, the Oriental calligraphy goes through four different modes: 'press' 'lift' 'show'and 'fast'not strokes by hand. The soft touch of brush creates various types of senses. At a glance one would not easily grasp the exact sense of the strokes composed from the four different modes.
The art of calligraphy then forges into one decisive and strong impact to create such a marvelous effect-the wonder of calligraphy. Within the line, ordinary people would not realize which part the lines are active. It is a special type of character called an art combined by the script with the Chinese ink. nw

Master Calligrapher Yang Jinni.