A Study Of Calligraphy Education In Modern And Contemporary Japanese Primary And Secondary Schools

This thesis is a monographic study of the modern and contemporary calligraphy education in Japan. In general, it is described in5chapters in a chronological order as follows:In the first chapter, the state of calligraphy before Meiji Restoration was mainly described from three aspects including textbook, education and places for such kind of education.The second chapter focused on the calligraphy education during the Meiji period. With the three important publications as main thread, the author introduced the development of calligraphy, the reason of give priority to KaiShu exercise, and the establishment of Japanese course. Additionally, qualification test as a calligraphy teacher and certification of specialized textbook were described too.Subsequently, Calligraphy in Japanese and art class from Daisho period to Showa period (before the2nd world war) were described in the third chapter. Firstly, the authors discussed that, why the calligraphy education declined and vitalized alternately. This is a quite special period as it witnessed the ruination and vitalization of Japanese calligraphy education within such a short time, meanwhile, various trends of educational thoughts came out at this time. At first, influenced by the American liberal education thoughts, the calligraphy declined quickly; but later it was revitalized quickly attributing to the efforts of various calligraphy societies. Secondly, the authors introduced some representative theory about calligraphy, the purpose of including calligraphy in art class and how to improve calligraphy education. Finally, the author declares his opinion on how to orient the calligraphy in school education and the relation between artistic and realistic functions of calligraphy.Calligraphy education after Showa period was described in the fourth chapter. Beginning with the introduction of five different versions of<Essentials of Instructions on study>, details of each version were presented including their structures and purpose of learning calligraphy. The advantage and disadvantage of every version were compared followed by his own comments on how to further improve the essentials of instructions. Among which, the disadvantage of33rd version and the reason of take calligraphy as compulsory course were introduced in detail. In the last chapter, the situation of calligraphy education in Heisei period was briefly introduced. Furthermore, based on the Chinese <Essentials of instructions on calligraphy education in elementary and middle school>(2013version), and compared with the Japanese calligraphy education, a series of problems were discussed including recruiting temporary calligraphy teachers, difficulties for Chinese teachers to teach calligraphy, selection of textbook and so on.In conclusion, the author has given a systemic, detailed and intensive introduction of Japanese calligraphy education system, which can be used as a good reference for Chinese educational officials to further optimize the current calligraphy education system.