On The Naming Of "calligraphy"

People pay more and more attentions to the art of calligraphy. It is popular in China and Japan. But the appellations for it are different. Now the art of calligraphy is called “Shu Fa” in Chinese and “Shu Dao” in Japanese. Most people consider the calligraphy as the pure art and the practicability is reduced. Under these circumstances, “Shu Fa” and “Shu Dao” are compared frequently. In the 1980 s, many experts and scholars express opinions on this issue. The reason for this article is not to discuss good or not for the word “Shu Fa”. According to 111 calligraphy theses wrote by historical famous writers from Qin Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, I made a statistic of the appearance times of these two words “Shu Fa” and “Shu Dao”. I want to obtain a objective view for the use of these two words. I analyzed the statistics and obtain the reason why the people argued the use of these two words. I also want to present the incidental and inevitable reasons why Chinese people finally choose “Shu Fa” to name the calligraphy.