Reading: Hannibal Rising
comments | Posted in reading on Thursday, August 09 2007 15:46:00 GMT
I read books and articles very often and somtimes my reading sends me on a goose chase for deeper understanding of a topic.
Today I was reading through pieces of Hannibal Rising, by Thomas Harris, of which there is a copy floating around my workplace. And, I found a very interesting section
Freed to sit alone in the very back of the classroom, he was able to manufacture ink and watercolor washes of birds in the style of Musashi Miyamoto, while listening to the lecture with half an ear.
There was a vogue in Paris for things Japanese. The drawings were small, and suited to the limited wall space of Paris apartments, and they could be packed easily a tourist's suitcase. He signed them with a chop, the symbol called Eternity in Eight Strokes. [Ch 28, ¶5]
I was really intrigued by the mental image of this signature and decided to Google around. It turns out there is a concept of Stroke Order when writing Calligraphy (the Asian style). The basic strokes in calligraphy are historically practiced using a simple character which requires all the 8 simple strokes in calligraphy. One of the Chinese characters used to teach this is the character for Eternity. You can find more information about this concept and more detail here at Wikipedia. Here is a direct link to the character Hannibal signed his works with.
I find this information very interesting. The concept of eight is prevalent also in techniques found in Aikido, swordsmanship, directions on a compass and target points on the body used in martial arts. Stroke Order, that is to say there is a natural ordering of movements for a sequence, also plays a part in these disciplines.