Korean Calligraphy

Seoye is brush writing as an art, practised in Korea for well over a millennium, and it has two threads a visitor can actually see apart. One is Chinese-character calligraphy, sharing forms with China and Japan but with its own Korean lineage - above all Kim Jeong-hui, the nineteenth-century scholar whose chusache style deliberately broke the elegance of the models he had mastered into something angular and personal, and whose work hangs in the national museums. The other is hangeul calligraphy, which had to invent itself: the alphabet's geometry gives nothing to the traditional brush strokes, and the palace-style script developed by court women is a distinct tradition. Insadong is where the materials trade lives - brush, ink stick, inkstone and hanji, the four friends of the study - along with small galleries showing contemporary work. Short workshops are widely offered; serious study is measured in years.

What you actually see

• The two threads - character calligraphy and hangeul script.
• Kim Jeong-hui's chusache - the deliberately broken Korean style.
• The four friends - brush, ink stick, inkstone and paper, sold in Insadong.
• The galleries - contemporary seoye in small Insadong spaces.

When to go

Any season. Insadong galleries mostly close on Mondays. Workshops are easy to book but short; the museums are where the historical work is.

Honest expectations

This is a practice, not a place. Gallery shows rotate and some are members' exhibitions of modest interest. Without reading the script, the appeal is purely in the line - which some people find enough and others do not.

Nearby

Insadong's alleys, the Seoul Museum of Craft Art and the National Museum of Korea all hold relevant work.