关键词: 书法景观, 空间分异, 文化认同, 旅游街区, 全球化

Abstract:

As the most distinctive cultural symbols, the art of calligraphy is endowed with a rich cultural connotation. On one hand, it performances the origin function of identification, and on the other hand, it constructs a meaningful world based on collective memory and identity. China and Japan have the similar cultural traditions of calligraphy. Meanwhile, calligraphic landscape is a crucial component of urban cultural landscapes and an important representative for both counties. Calligraphic landscape is a portion of a geographical space that has a specific visual characteristic and a special sense of the place resulting from the lay-out of calligraphy characters as landscape elements. As one kind of calligraphic landscape, shop signs of different tourist districts are taken into the statistic and analysis process. Selecting Liulichang of China and Sensoji Temple of Japan as traditional tourist districts, Wangfujing of China and Shinjuku of Japan as renewal tourist districts, Xinjiekou of China and Ginza District of Japan as modern tourist districts, this article examined the similarities and differences of spatial differentiation of calligraphic landscapes of two countries from multi spatial scales, by employing specific calligraphic landscape index which indicates more traditional calligraphic signs with a higher value and more non-traditional or western signs with a lower value. The findings indicate that for literal, folk and calligraphic traditional discrepancy between China and Japan, some differences derived from calligraphic landscapes exist mainly in the ways of writing forms and normal authenticity of calligraphic landscapes, characteristics of cultural penetration and fusion, and the identity to the artistic and social status of calligraphers. However, the consistence manifests in the ways of spatial differentiation of urban calligraphic landscapes and cultural identity of two countries on the whole. From macroscopic perspective, in the context of globalization, both China and Japan are affected by the westernization, foreign cultural invasion and urban renewal processing, as a result of which, quantities of western characters appear in the shop signs of the modern tourist districts while renewal tourist districts show the similar characteristics. It reflects the broad impact of modern globalization. From meso-perspective, both two countries have the same spatial differentiation characteristics of calligraphic landscapes among different types of tourist districts: the traditional tourist districts have higher calligraphic landscape indices than the renewal tourist districts, and the modern ones have the lowest calligraphic landscape indices. And from microscopic perspective, both two countries have also the same differentiation characteristics of calligraphic landscapes among different formats: the formats with traditional characteristics have higher calligraphic landscape indices than modern ones, which is explained based on the process of symbolization of culture of the merchandise driven by symbolic consumption after the rise of post-modernism. On all the three types of urban tourist districts, many traditional calligraphic signs are preserved as important tourist attractions, which can lead to the conclusion that strong cultural identity still exists in both China and Japan under the influence of globalization.

Key words: calligraphic landscapes, spatial differentiation, cultural identity, tourist district, globalization