The word Calligraphy is from Greek κάλλος kallos "beauty" + γραφή graphẽ "writing". A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is

- "The art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner" (Mediavilla 1996: 18).

- The story of writing is one of aesthetic evolution framed within the technical skills, transmission speed(s) and materials limitations of a person, time and place (Diringer 1968: 441).

- A style of writing is described as a script, hand or alphabet (Fraser and Kwiatkowski 2006; Johnston 1909: Plate 6).

Chinese calligraphy

Traditional Chinese writing uses ink brushes to write characters. The way of writing (Shufa 書法) is an important aspect of Chinese culture.

Calligraphy has influenced ink and wash painting, which is accomplished using similar tools and techniques. Calligraphy has influenced most major art styles in China, including Ink and wash painting, a style of Chinese painting based entirely on calligraphy.

In ancient China, the oldest Chinese characters existing are Jiǎgǔwén characters carved on ox scapula and tortoise plastrons, because brush-written ones have decayed over time. During the divination ceremony, after the cracks were made, the characters were written with a brush on the shell or bone to be later carved. (Keightley, 1978).

With the development of Jīnwén (Bronzeware script) and Dàzhuàn (Large Seal Script) "cursive" signs continued. Moreover, each archaic kingdom of current China had its own set of characters.

In Imperial China, the graphs on old steles — some dating from 200 BC, and in Xiaozhuan style — are still accessible.

About 220 BC, the emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first to conquer the entire Chinese basin, imposed several reforms, among them Li Si's character unification, which created a set of 3300 standardized Xiǎozhuàn characters. Despite the fact that the main writing implement of the time was already the brush, few papers survive from this period, and the main examples of this style are on steles.

The Lìshū style (clerical script) which is more regularized, and in some ways similar to modern text, was also authorised under Qin Shi Huangdi.

Kǎishū style (traditional regular script) — still in use today — and attribute to Wang Xizhi (王羲之, 303-361) and his followers, is even more regularized. Its spreading was encouraged by Emperor Mingzong of Later Tang (926-933), who ordered the printing of the classic using new wooden block and such Kaishu. Printing technologies here allowed a shape stabilization. The Kaishu shape of characters 1000 years ago was mostly similar to that at the end of Imperial China. But small changes have be made, for example in the shape of 广 which is not absolutely the same in the Kangxi dictionary of 1716 as in modern books. The Kangxi and current shapes have tiny differences, while stroke order is still the same, according to old style.

Styles which did not survive include Bāfēnshū, a mix made of Xiaozhuan style and Lishu. Some Variant Chinese characters were unorthodox or locally used for centuries. They were generally understood but always rejected in official texts. Some of these unorthodox variants, in addition to some newly created characters, compose the Simplified Chinese character set, which is the official writing in mainland China, whilst in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, Traditional Chinese is widely used.

Please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org for more detail.