Features of Li Shu

The structural design of Li Shu is somewhat similar to Zuan Shu. Their principles focus on the spacing between strokes. The spacing and position of strokes are well designed to render a sense of elegance and beauty.

Basic features and rules of Li Shu include:

If a character contains a horizontal stroke, its ending at the right side resembles a wave. This is called the Bird Tail ( 雁 尾 ). However, only one Bird Tail is usually allowed for one character even if that character has more than one horizontal stroke. This rule is literally translated as: “ No two bird tails will fly together ( 雁 尾 不 雙 飛 ).” However, we may have two Bird Tails with one less obvious than the main one.



If a character has two or three horizontal strokes, the bottom one rather than the upper one will usually be the Bird Tail to support the upper part of the character. This will render a sense of stability. Otherwise, the heavy head might collapse the character’s structure.



However, if the horizontal stroke is the longer one and it happens to be in the top portion of a character, it is the Bird Tail. The shorter ones in the lower part of the character are not Bird Tails.



There are rare exceptions when a character will have two Bird Tails. This should still make the character look stable and not double-weighted.



In a Li Shu work, not all of the characters will be of the same height. That is, the ratio of length of width to height may be different among several characters in a work. Calligraphers usually justify all characters to the top (“Chi Sum 齊 上.”) That means that the top strokes of characters will be pushed upward to be aligned.



If the stroke is “Na 捺 ” (going in a southeast direction), it will be the Bird Tail.