Continuation of the interview with Régis Soavi, who tells us about his discovery of Itsuo Tsuda‘s calligraphies.
Putting up a piece of calligraphy rather than a photo of a master has another advantage, which I understood later: it avoids a certain “cult of personality”. Instead of putting up a photo of Master Ueshiba, I could have put up one of my master, Itsuo Tsuda… but then that would imply something about “a Gr-ow-ate Maaaaaster” who IS, and that also goes in the direction of religions where there are saints, paintings of saints, statues of saints… We have this in Buddhism, and in Christianity too, of course…
But this way, we no longer have the same resonance, because these are photos of people, of “characters”.
With calligraphy, everyone can practise, regardless of their religion… because bowing down before emptiness cannot offend anyone…
In front of emptiness, and therefore in front of nature, it works very well…
And it gradually, unconsciously trains the eye to appreciate calligraphies. If you look at several of them, your eye begins to see differently… For me, a photograph of a master blurs the eye, whereas calligraphy opens it.
It is in this sense that, for example in Christianity, despite everything, icons are not images… there is a difference between an image and an icon… an icon is a symbolic representation, even if there is a character. It is open to something, whereas an image is closed.
Calligraphy was a very important discovery for me… I can always practise in front of a photo, but even so, when you bow before a master, you are bowing before a particular person, so you really have to visualise that you are bowing before life, and not before a person… otherwise it implies bowing before a great master, a demigod… That is not healthy for human beings!
Calligraphy is much emptier, especially Master Tsuda‘s calligraphies, which do not involve religion…
Itsuo Tsuda had written a calligraphy – in ink on paper this time – of Chuang Tzu’s phrase, which was, in a way, his will, and which he had placed in the dojo…::
‘When I die, if you put me in the ground, the worms will eat me; if you put me in the air, the birds will eat me; and if you put me in the sea, the fish will eat me… do with me as you will!’
And curiously, when he died, there was a Buddhist ceremony, even though he was not a Buddhist. He was cremated during a Protestant ceremony, even though he was not a Protestant, and his ashes are in a Catholic cemetery, even though he was not a Catholic! It is fabulous!
But it is not bad, all things considered…
Itsuo Tsuda mainly did his calligraphy in May. When asked why he did it in May, he would say, ‘It’s spring!’
He had already practised calligraphy in Japan. When he arrived in Europe, he sketched a few things, but the paper he found was not suitable, so he wrote more than he practised calligraphy. And then he wanted to express something through calligraphy.
He always referred to his calligraphies as ‘amateur calligraphies’. In Japan, this does not mean calligraphy-done-by-amateurs, it is rather that of Zen masters, for example, or masters of ikebana, sabre… they use it to convey a teaching.
This was the case with Master Ueshiba. He signed them with a different name. For Master Tsuda, it was about conveying something, it was about transmitting a teaching through a tracing.
He started drawing on rice paper, but as he said, this paper is very fragile if it is not glued, it gets damaged quickly… Unfortunately, he could not find anyone in France in the 1970s who did this gluing work. That is why he decided to use the batik technique, and it was this technique that he subsequently used for most of the calligraphy he produced.
In May, he would prepare himself, in a manner of speaking, and trace his calligraphy.
He did this every year for a number of years. He did not do many, perhaps twenty at most.
However, Master Tsuda did not use the batik technique in the traditional way: normally, you fill in an area meticulously and then dye it… He dipped his calligraphy brush in hot wax and had to draw before the wax dried. This was in order to preserve the act of drawing found in traditional calligraphy: you prepare the ink and then trace. It is a single, uninterrupted movement.
When explaining his technique, he said that it was very difficult and that he had failed many times at first. However, it was the only way he had found to leave a trace in the West.
Master Tsuda dyed the fabrics himself, usually in a shade of blue that I would describe as “Japanese blue”, or in a shade of reddish brown or dark blue. He used only these three colours and chose one each year – why did he choose one colour one year and another the next? He never explained that – then he would remove the wax with an iron and blotting paper. The calligraphy was then ready.