Abstract

In the second half of Nineteenth century, Japan and its culture were transformed by a huge process of renovation, after the encounter with the Western culture and tradition of thought. Particularly, the art of writing ("shodo") as an artistic and also ethical discipline, was one of the esperiences by which we can witness as a single form of art became a sort of contested terrain, to prove the hope for a change or, as it was seen by another perspective, the necessity of a preservation. «Writing» itself became thus a representative aspect of the «crisis» through which new categories and a new self-reflection emerged in modern Japan.