In order to make the composition balanced and stable or to show that you can quietly witness the emergence and spread of the work.
When ancient people created calligraphy and paintings, they sometimes stamped their own seals in order to make the composition balanced and stable. At the same time, the author will also stamp his own nickname and other seals based on his environment or his taste when creating, which can also express the thoughts and emotions the author wants to express to a certain extent. For example, Mi Fu, a famous calligrapher in the Song Dynasty, liked to stamp his works with the seal "Xiangyang Manshi" because his native place was Xiangyang, Hubei.
In addition, we can see many seals on some works that have been circulated for a long time, and the names of these seals are also different. This is why this work may have been collected by many people, and these collectors usually like to stamp their names on the work to leave their names behind. This also shows that I can quietly witness the emergence and spread of works.
Differences in seals in different dynasties
The seal characters and engraving methods of seals in the Yuan Dynasty have changed, and the round vermilion seal appeared. Most of the printing colors are mimeograph or watermark, and the materials include ivory, jade, copper, wood, etc. The border around Yu Ji's seal is very neat, and the material of his seal must be ivory. Because the material and printing color of the seal are different, the effect of the stamp will be different.
Since Wang Mian of the Yuan Dynasty began to use stone for engraving, more and more people have used stone for engraving. In the early Ming Dynasty, seals made of various stones were quite common, and the carving method of seal script also had new changes. The stop of each character in seal script was slightly thicker than the original stroke, commonly known as "hammer head style". The seals of the Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty did not have this form of seal script. By the middle and late Ming Dynasty, seal script seals of this style disappeared.
In the early Ming Dynasty, calligraphers and painters mostly used oil printing. Although it was red, it looked lighter and slightly yellow. Different from the printing colors of the Yuan Dynasty, the printing colors used by the emperor, the highest feudal ruler in the early Ming Dynasty, were redder and different from the printing colors of ordinary people. At this time, some calligraphers and painters had more seals, and the seal characters were carved in different ways. For example, in Shen Zhou's "Woyou Tu" album, the two characters "Qinan" on the side of the cow painting are inscribed in red. The size of the characters is It's the same, but not the same seal.