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The Chinese seal, art of virtues
In a relationship between two people, we can find a lot of values and feelings. Love, loyalty, joy, truth, courtesy, concord, happiness, goodness, confidence, and harmony are some of them. Lau Kwok Hung, inhabitant of Loppiano and an artist engaged in the hard work of the metal and in the delicate Chinese calligraphy, put together these two aspects of his art in the production of seals that bring Chinese ideograms representing these virtues and many others.
The seal is a type of art very present in China. Hung says that the seal consists in “put the ideograms in a space, often in a square or a rondel, composing the full and empty of the stretches in a very harmonious way”. The seals can be found in a lot of ways: in the porcelain, hanging on the wall, on the windows, in clothes… Or in laser-cut metal frameworks, as Hung makes them. “The seal is a particular reminder that highlights a conscience that is not only individual but collective. That are traditional values, hence all the virtues”, he told us.
Love: head, heart, hands and feet
The ideogram is a graphic symbol that represents an image or an idea. Each one, hence, is made of different elements that, together, tells a plural and rich meaning. The ideogram of love has, as Hung tells us, a very special meaning. According to him, this ideogram is made of three elements: “Above is a kind of crown. A crown of a king, elegant, that recalls respect. Inside is a heart. And underneath that are two hands, but that can even be two feet. Hence, anyway, head, heart, and hands or feet.”
The head, continues Hung, recalls to a getting into attitude, to respect, to love. The heart is a motor inside us and that gives us energy, in relationship with what the head says. This is accomplished in reaching out the hand towards the other’s hand, or in walking together, as the heart dictates. “This is love”, highlights the artist.
Indeed, walking together is something important in Hung’s reading of the ideogram of love. The artist remembers that Jesus Christ, master of love, used to walk. “The first Christians were called ‘those of the Way”, he explains. “When Saint Paul persecuted the Christians, he used to say that ‘I persecuted with much ardor those of the Way’. The way is a typical thing of the Christian”, he concludes.