Help with learning cursive forms!

[黄有光]

I just downloaded a copy of a textbook that was recommended for this: Introduction to Chinese Cursive Script by Fang-yu Wang. The general structure of the textbook seems to me to be excellent, however there is one huge flaw which has me a little stumped.

 

The textbook introduces cursive forms in a table -- 楷书 on the right, and one or two acceptable cursive forms on the left (example attached). However, in presenting the cursive forms, it does not present idealized/perfect representations of the desired forms (as might be seen in an English cursive copybook). Rather, it instead presents these forms in a scrawl. Worse, it presents them only once, rather than multiple times written by different people. So it is hard for me to judge how accurate the example is to the hypothetical underlying ideal cursive form. Is this section supposed to be this wide, or is that merely an idiosyncracy of this particular example?  What about this swoop? Is it supposed to be this narrow or should it go out further? Etc etc. 

 

I tried looking up the hanzi on shufazidian.com but for many hanzi was unable to find the same form in the online dictionary as was presented in the handbook. For example, the form it gives for 四 in the first exercise is extremely different from any form I was able to find on shufazidian.com.

 

So basically this handbook seems to be great as practice material, and good at presenting the cursive forms of various hanzi, but terrible at actually *teaching* you how to produce those cursive forms accurately and correctly. Does anyone have advice on how I can bridge this gap in my learning materials?

 

(I have seen the Anki deck provided by Mega Mandarin -- it looks great and I will likely buy it within the coming months -- however right now I am looking for something a bit more comprehensive and self-guided).

 

Is there a print dictionary of cursive forms I can consult? That's basically what I need, I think.

[arrow]

If you are looking for some sort of standard cursive forms, then there isn't any. You'd better choose the style of one of your favourite calligraphists, and start to practice his copybooks. Any kind of dictionary of cursive forms basically exists to help you with recognition skills.

[889]

Fred Wang's book isn't there to teach you perfect cursive script, not that there is such a thing.

 

It's there to teach you the common widely recognized shorthand forms used in cursive writing. Just look at 母 there for example. Could you figure out the cursive form without Wang's help?

 

And while the book's no doubt useful learning to write like a Chinese person, it's value largely lies in helping you to read everyday Chinese handwriting.

 

[Tomsima]

Think of the forms presented as teaching you 'pathways' through the characters. The proportions will come with looking at written calligraphy and other hand written sources over time, gaining a familiarity and personal preference for how you wish to write based on this. As others have said, there is no model cursive character, but rather a model cursive technique, '草法‘, which teaches you what shortcuts can be used to write characters, not how they should look. That was and still is the job of calligraphers in China - to produce a style of writing similar to how we might think of a font on a computer nowadays (but certainly not as rigidly defined), then try to get this style to be received with support from writers, thus defining the aesthetic proportions of characters for an area, or for an era.