The purpose of this study was to construct measures that allow us to estimate an observer's evalution of character's form, using the semantic differential method. A few characters were drawn in Japanese calligraphy. We focused on the aesthetic impression produced by variations in calligraphic components such as the length and position of a line or the angle between lines. We conducted a factor analysis for data obtained from a 34-item questionaire that were developed through an analysis of aesthetic impression. The final measures comprised 17 items, consisting of three scales (proportional beauty, activity, and potency) that were analysed and scored using Item Response Theory. We applied the measures to data for the characters“折・oru”and“月・tsuki” and examined its validity.
