Lot Essay
In his recent work, Square Word Calligraphy, Xu Bing has created a method of writing English words in rectangular arrangements that closely resembles Chinese characters. His code of calligraphic script "characters" correspond to the twenty-six Roman letters, and using some relatively simple rules for the composition of the square words allow for one to write English using Chinese calligraphic principles. Xu's manual of English/Chinese-style calligraphy is written entirely in these "square words' and even looks like a traditional Chinese Calligraphy manual. Accompanying the manual is a companion volume of calligraphic models to be used for writing practice.