Seal cutting generally refers to the way of engraving characters on seals. Its fonts are mostly based on seal script, so it is called seal cutting, seal cutting, seal cutting and so on. Judging from the physical objects discovered by modern archaeology, as early as the Shang Dynasty, people carved "characters" on tortoise shells with knives. These characters have sharp blades, beautiful brushwork and a high level of "lettering". It is known that seal cutting has a long history of two or three thousand years. The ancient seal in the Warring States period has reached a fairly high artistic level. Before the Warring States period, seals were collectively called "seals". After the reunification of Qin, it was stipulated that only the emperor's seal could be used, and only the official seal could be used. Dynasties after feudal society generally followed this system. In the Han dynasty, seals with "Zhang" or "seal" began to appear under the official title, such as "General Zhang of Guanghan". In the Tang Dynasty, Wu Zetian changed the name of "Xi" to "Bao" because of its homonym, such as "the treasure of the emperor". Besides, it was also called Ji, Zhu Ji and Xi.
During the pre-Qin, Qin and Han dynasties, people used seals to seal things. For example, letters written on bamboo slips should be sealed with mud and then stamped to prevent unauthorized unpacking. After writing letters on paper, this habit still exists, but the seal mud is replaced by cinnabar inkpad. In addition, seals are often used as evidence when exchanging goods in business. In the political field, seals are very popular, and official seals have become a symbol of power. Especially after the Tang and Song Dynasties, official seals of various sizes were very popular. Before the Tang and Song Dynasties, seal cutting was mainly for practical purposes. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, literature prevailed in painting, and poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing were integrated, and seals gradually became an indispensable part of painting and calligraphy. But until the Ming Dynasty, seal cutting mainly existed as an accessory of calligraphy and painting. It was not until the Ming and Qing Dynasties that it really became an independent art, with the same independent appreciation value as calligraphy. During this period, the font, composition, knife method and content of seals really tended to be perfect.
The words on the seal were first consistent with the common fonts at that time. The main seal script and seal script were used in the Warring States Period, and Qin Zhuan, who used official script in the Qin Dynasty. After the Qin and Han dynasties, the font range on the seal was expanded, and various seal characters such as Miao seal and bird seal appeared. Since Sui and Tang Dynasties, not only the characters of seal script have been used, but also official script, regular script and even Oracle Bone Inscriptions's characters have been applied to seal cutting, and seal script has been in a dominant position until today.
The font of the seal is mostly seal script. Seal script is a common font in pre-Qin and Qin dynasties. Identifying seal script is not easy. To recognize it requires a certain cultural accomplishment, which is challenging for the viewer. The long time has made this font have a historical vicissitudes.
The layout of printed words and lines is generally called composition, which is beautiful and natural and will make the seal interesting. The seal should not only be written but also engraved, therefore, the knife method has become an important part of the seal. Knife cutting methods are generally divided into two types: fast punching knife and slow cutting knife; The knife runs thousands of miles, and the knife is steady and powerful; When the two knife methods are used together, the lines carved by the knife have aesthetic feeling. Judging from the contents of seals, literati painters and calligraphers often like to carve some idioms and allusions or poems on seals because of their self-cultivation, which makes the seals full of cultural interest.
At first, the seal materials were mainly copper, gold and other metal materials, which was inseparable from the fact that seals were mostly cast and smelted at that time. There are also a few rhinoceros prints, ivory prints, jade prints and stone carvings. Ancient seals are generally flat and small, engraved with buttons of various shapes, such as altars, tables, dragons and tigers, etc., which are usually hung on belts for easy use. The ancient seals in the pre-Qin period were different in material and shape, and there was no customization. After the Qin Dynasty, clear regulations were printed in the palace. The material of the seal is the standard to distinguish official ranks. Its rank order is: jade is the most expensive, generally used by emperors, followed by gold, and then silver. Generally, officials can only use bronze seals, while privately printed materials are not so particular. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the official seal became larger and the printed products became richer.
In the long-term development process, seal cutting has experienced two highly developed historical stages. One is the Warring States, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties. During this period, the materials used in seal cutting were mainly jade, gold, teeth and horns. It is called "the period of ancient seal cutting". The other is that in the Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties, the application of regular script replaced seal script, official seal and private seal were fundamentally separated, and seal cutting went downhill. Wang Mian, a scholar in Yuan Dynasty, first tried to replace bronze seals with stones, which opened up a vast world for the development of seal cutting. In the Ming Dynasty, Wen Peng and He Zhen sprang up, followed the Qin and Han Dynasties, boldly broke through the barriers of their predecessors, and spared no effort to push seal cutting to the peak.
In the history of seal cutting, Wen Peng, the son of Wen Zhiming in Ming Dynasty, is recognized as the founder of seal cutting in Ming and Qing Dynasties. When Wen Peng was in imperial academy, he met an old man with a frozen stone lamp on his donkey. Wen Peng bought frozen stone at twice the price, and Wen Peng used frozen stone to print. His seal cutting has the significance of connecting the preceding with the following. His works are based on lightness, elegance, calmness and beauty. Bai Wen deliberately traced back to the Han Dynasty, while Zhu Wen took the legacy of the Song and Yuan Dynasties and founded the first school of seal cutting in the Ming Dynasty, Wumen Sect (also known as Sanqiao School). The widespread use of light frozen stone made it common for literati to carve their own seals, which led to the prosperity of seal cutting in Ming and Qing Dynasties. In addition, Wen Peng's seal changed the shortcomings of the previous seal, such as rough surface, irregular pattern, rigid font and grotesque shape, and deliberately imitated the natural and quaint style of ancient seals in Qin and Han dynasties, with skillful knife work, combination of knife and pen, and combination of seal cutting and calligraphy. In addition, Wen Peng also pioneered the frontier seal. He carved the font size and year on one side of the seal, which enriched the content of the seal and made the edge a unique landscape of the seal.
If Wen Peng created a new style of seal cutting, then his disciple He Zhen really developed this new style into an artistic orientation. The relationship between He Zhen and Wen Peng is also a teacher and friend. Influenced by Wen Peng, they often have new ideas. His seals are full of interesting styles of literati, such as drinking love poems and wine, selling wine and listening to fishing songs, listening to the depths of partridges, white cranes in the clouds, fishing in Grain Rain and laughing, which completely abandons the practicality of seals and enters the aesthetic realm of self-entertainment. He Zhen also improved and popularized the method of Wen Peng's side payment. The leftover material of the article is slightly fat and soft, while He Zhen cuts the edge with a single knife, and the lines are sharp and heavy, and the artistry is obviously improved. He Zhen also advocated the standardization of seal cutting fonts, and his seal cutting was "error-free", which set an example for future generations. He published the first personal print in the history of seal cutting. He Zhen's seal cutting is famous all over the world, and people from the city to the frontier fortress are proud of his seal cutting. It is said that his seal was "the same price as the stone" at that time, and there were many imitators, so there were many scholars. He Zhen was a native of Wuyuan, Jiangxi Province, which belonged to Huizhou, Anhui Province in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the school he founded is called "Huizhou School" or "Anhui School" and is the earliest school of literati in history.
During this period, seal cutting schools emerged in succession, and reached the heyday of art in the Qing Dynasty. Due to the prevalence of epigraphy in Qing Dynasty, many scholars devoted themselves to the research, writing and dissemination of inscriptions and ancient Chinese characters, which invisibly expanded the vision of seal cutting, and made seal cutting in Qing Dynasty form Yunjian School, Putian School, Yangzhou School, Rugao School, Yushan School and many other schools, among which Zhejiang School and Huizhou School were the most influential.
Ding Jing. No, Menon, who has been selling wine all his life, is indifferent to fame and fortune. His artistic accomplishment is comprehensive, including poems, books and paintings. He is also proficient in ancient Chinese characters and full of personality. Ding Jingzhi inherited the styles of Wen Peng and He Zhen. But he changed his beauty and elegance into masculinity, and his knife method was unique. He imitated Qin and Han Dynasties and created his own knife. Each line has been raised and lowered by the knife for many times, which has both undulating rhythm and three-dimensional sense. This knife method has become a unique technology in Zhejiang seal cutting. Ding Jingzhi's seal is simple and full of personality, full of cynicism of the owner. For example, he has a self-printed, printed five-character poem: "If there is no candidate, he will be angry." I don't know the customs. Teach me to be a man? "It depicts Ding Jing's aloof image. The printing style is heavy and Gu Zhuo, and the lines of characters are thick and short, filling the whole printing frame, leaving a little red, showing a unique personality. After Ding Jing, seven people, including Jiang Ren, Xi Gang, Chen Yuzhong, Chen Hongshou, Zhao and others, inherited and promoted Ding Jing's engraving. Because these eight Indian artists are all from Hangzhou, they are called "West Cold Eight Schools" ("West Cold" is located near the West Lake in Hangzhou) and also known as "Zhejiang School".
Deng is a great engraver and master of seal cutting. He is an Anhui native, born in poverty, and has been wandering the rivers and lakes all his life, not seeking fame and fortune. He studied hard, devoted himself wholeheartedly to a dazzling array of inscriptions, copied hundreds of inscriptions in five years, studied seal script, and studied official script in three years, and finally became a master of seal cutting. He painstakingly studied calligraphy and realized the wonderful truth that "seeking rules is round and seeking squares is square". It was applied to seal cutting, creating a school of "Yuan Jin", later called "Deng School" (also known as "Anhui School"). Deng was later than Ding Jing, and his seal cutting borrowed from He Zhen's "Huizhou School" in the early stage, and then made some innovations. And learn from Luo Pin's theory of "vigorous and graceful" plum painting, and inject its meaning into his seal cutting creation. Deng's prints draw a lot of nutrition from calligraphy, from official seal to official seal, from official seal to official seal, from Wei Bei's books, and apply some brushwork of inscriptions and Han steles to seals. "Printing comes from books, and books come from printing", which makes the seal look smart, round and masculine. His representative works include Spring Cliff, Rain and Wind Sketch, Smoke and Waves in the Painting House, The Sound of the River, thousands of feet Break. Some works are quite ingenious, such as The Seal of Our Country (Deng). The layout is unique. The word "Wan" stretches gracefully, and the word "Bai" is deliberately flattened, but the first stroke of the word "Bai" is bent into three folds, which seems to be the same as the last two plays of the word "Wan". The seal is of moderate density and full of interest. He closely linked seal cutting with calligraphy, and his achievements in seal cutting are of great significance in the history of seal cutting development in China.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the seal cutting style became more changeable. The "Zhao School" represented by Zhao consciously took brushwork from ancient mirrors, Han bricks, coins, inscriptions and inscriptions, and then applied it to seal cutting, making seal cutting more diverse and beautiful. And can have the best of each family, the master should push Wu Changshuo.
Wu Changshuo was a master of calligraphy and painting in the late Qing Dynasty. His achievement in seal cutting is to integrate poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing in one furnace, opening up a new realm of seal cutting. His seal cutting began with Zhejiang School and Huizhou School, and he also studied with Deng and other senior seal carvers, as well as inscriptions on Qin bricks, Han tiles and bronzes. He used a knife and punched, and the layout was more accurate than before. The lines of seal cutting change with the different contents, and the structure is not uniform, but emphasizes the uneven natural situation and ups and downs, thus creating a new style that is highly praised by future generations. Compared with Ding Jing, Deng and other predecessors, Wu Changshuo's printing features are more prominent. If Ding Jing, Deng and others can still see the trace of knife carving, Wu Changshuo's seal can be called a beautiful calligraphy, and the book and carving have been integrated without trace. For example, the layout of Zhu's Broken Lotus Pavilion is about three characters, with a column of "Pavilion" and a column of "Broken Lotus". The layout is left sparse and right dense. Looking at the word "pavilion" alone, it is tight at the top and sparse at the bottom, but the lower part of the line hangs solemnly, echoing the two rare places on the right. All three characters are close to the printed border, and the edge lines of some words directly overlap with the border. The printed fonts are vigorous and concise. The font is chic and complacent. There is a Buddhist monk on the seal, and a monk's son is engraved on it: "If you don't know anything, settle for second best." The face is not so good, to show people with their backs. "This seal is unique and natural from composition to seal. It was really written by a master. Wu Changshuo's printing style had a great influence after the late Qing Dynasty, and his reputation spread far and wide at home and abroad. Japanese calligraphers also respect him as the first person to carve seals since the Tang Dynasty.
The development of seal cutting in Qing Dynasty also directly gave birth to the printing society. 1904, Zhejiang seal engravers Ding Ren, Wang Ti, Wu Yin and Ye Ming initiated the establishment of "Xiling Printing Society" with the aim of "preserving epigraphy, studying printing, and painting and calligraphy". 19 13 years, Wu Changshuo was appointed as the first president, and under the prestigious reputation, elites gathered. In the past century, famous artists such as Ma Heng, Zhang Zongxiang, Sha Menghai, Zhao Puchu and Qigong have all served as presidents of Xiling Printing Society, and Xiling Printing Society has become the first one to study epigraphy and seal cutting at home and abroad.
In modern times, due to the prosperity of archaeology and the establishment of Xiling Printing Society, seal cutting was extremely active. At that time, Wu Changshuo, Ding Fuzhi, Chen Hengke, Zhao Shi, Qi Baishi, Zhao Shi, Qiao Dazhuang, Wang Ti, Deng Sanmu, Qian Shoutie, Lai Chusheng and others were famous all over the world. However, in terms of genre style, Qi Baishi, Shi Zhao and Wang Gan are the most influential. Modern seal cutting inherits the tradition of literati seal cutting in Ming and Qing dynasties, but it is more skillful in techniques, wider in materials and more magnificent in realm. In a word, modern seal cutting makes seal cutting independent and more magnificent.
Qi Baishi was born in the name of a rich man with 300 silver coins. He borrowed the mountain pavilion, the owner of Pingtang, Lao Ping, the owner of the mountain pavilion, the old man of Xingziwu, Woodenhead, and the wooden layman. Baishi borrowed the name of his hometown village in Xiangtan, Hunan. Qi Baishi is an outstanding carpenter who combines poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing. He thinks that seal cutting is the first, poetry is the second, calligraphy is the third and painting is the fourth. Qi Baishi's seal cutting works emphasize density, spatial division and ups and downs, single-handed stone cutting, bold and oblique, full of fierce charm, and create a unique style of "freehand seal cutting".
In this way, under the hard practice of seal cutting in Ming and Qing Dynasties, seal cutting created a unique artistic landscape in China, and Li Zhuo was in the forest of art.