Category: Culture/Art>> Historical Topics
Problem Description:
Be more detailed, after all, there is a reward of 20 points
Analysis:
The origin of seals
As an art category with national historical and cultural characteristics, seals are like a wonderful flower, continuously exuding unique charm in the broad and profound Chinese art garden. Fragrance attracts people into this small world.
The origin and evolution of seals
Seals are a unique historical and cultural product of our country. In ancient times, they were mainly used as identity documents and tools for exercising authority. Its origin is due to the actual needs of social life. As early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties, seals had been produced. Today's seals have become a unique artistic treasure that combines practicality and artistry.
Seals have had many nicknames in various historical periods. Some are due to differences in uses, and some are just different names. "Yin" in oracle bone inscriptions means pressing a person with his hands to make him kneel down. The word "Yin" has changed to the shape of claws holding joints over the weekend, indicating that the word "Yin" evolved from "Yin". Today we still use "print" as a verb, such as "print", "print", etc. It can be seen that "print" as a noun based on trust was converted from usage.
In the Zhou Dynasty, seals were collectively called seals or seal festivals. The seal system of the Qin Dynasty stipulated that only the emperor could be called a seal. At this point, the seal has become a symbol of status and power. The Han Dynasty inherited the Qin system. The emperor was called Xi, and ordinary ministers were called seals, seals or seals. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the size of official seals gradually became larger, and most of them were Jiudingwen. After Wu Zetian came to power, he ordered the seal to be changed to Bao because of the bad pronunciation of "Xi". After Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, "Bao" became the special name for the emperor's seal and it was used until the Qing Dynasty.
In addition, seals also have some other names, such as "ji", "zhuji" and "contract" in the Song Dynasty, "guarantee" which was popular in the Yuan Dynasty, "guanfang", "fu" and "contract" in the Ming Dynasty. "Deed", "letter", etc. were gradually eliminated after the Qing Dynasty. Only "seal" and "zhang" continue to this day and still maintain strong vitality.
The characteristics of seals as tokens have basically remained unchanged from ancient to modern times. However, the continuous emergence of idle seals after the Tang and Song Dynasties shows that seals have a tendency to gradually transform into artistic appreciation.
Among the famous literati, the first person to advocate the art of seal cutting was Zhao Meng Zhaoye (1254-1322) in the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty. He was also the first famous artist to use Qingtian lighting frozen stone sealing. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Indians rose up and pursued the Qin and Han Dynasties. With the joint efforts of several generations of sealers, the aesthetic value of seals has become more and more prominent. Since the Qing Dynasty, seals have become independent works of art alongside calligraphy and painting.
The Development of Seals
In the long history of the development of seals, there have been two major periods, one in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and the other in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Qin and Han Dynasties
After Qin unified the six countries, while strengthening centralization, it absorbed cultures from various places and synthesized them into a major source of ancient Chinese culture. Reflected in the field of seals are the hierarchy in the system, the unity in writing and the simplicity in style. Institutionally, the Qin Dynasty had established a relatively complete official seal system. In terms of text, the seals of the Qin Dynasty changed the fragmented and complicated situation of the Warring States period and unified them with "copy seal" seal script. In terms of style, Qin Seal pays attention to practicality. Regardless of the seal, the composition, or the button style, it shows a simple and natural beauty. The history of Qin Dynasty is short, but the achievements made by Qin Yin and the role of carrying forward the past and ushering in the future are very significant and important. The Han Dynasty was a prosperous and glorious period in the history of seal development. This period not only inherited and completed the official seal system established in the Qin Dynasty, but also unified the specifications of the seals, the shape of the seal buttons and the form of the seals. It also formed the Han Dynasty. Yin's unique artistic style that is profound, profound, and magnificent. This lofty, almost perfect artistic realm has become a model for future generations to look up to, learn from, appreciate, and admire. The achievements of Han seals can be summarized in the following five aspects: complete system, wide variety, standardized writing, natural organization, and exquisite skills.
The Ming and Qing Dynasties
The Ming and Qing Dynasties can be called the era of seal craze. Since Wen Peng vigorously promoted the lighting frozen stone, for a while, "everyone was interested in it, and every family was in the Qin and Han Dynasties", setting off a wave of heat for seals.
During this period, famous masters competed, schools competed for balance, seal collections and seal theory added fuel to the fire, ushering in the second wave of development in the history of seal development.
Appreciation of seal art
The aesthetic value of seals can be attributed to two aspects: the artistic beauty of the seal and the material beauty of the seal. The beauty of printing art can be divided into four parts: seal text, seal style, seal spectrum and seal decoration.
Appreciation of seal text
To appreciate seal text, you must first grasp the characteristics of artistic expression techniques, such as calligraphy, composition, and knife skills, and then appreciate the interest and content contained in the seal text. It means, take it all together, taste it carefully and appreciate it slowly.
Calligraphy
Successful printing artists have always attached great importance to calligraphy. We have already understood in the previous chapter that "no wrong writing" is to ensure that the printed text has the An important prerequisite for appreciation of value. As we all know, calligraphy is the art of writing. If you can't even read the words, what kind of art appreciation is there? The reason why the seal has been respected and loved by the intellectuals of all ages is precisely because of the temptation brought by its difficulty and difficulty. Things that are readily available are not challenging or tempting, let alone connoisseurship. For appreciators, understanding seal characters has become a top priority. At first glance, seal characters seem a bit unfamiliar, but in fact it is easy to learn but difficult to master. Seal characters were developed with "shape" as the center. Although it later turned into "image", if we look into its origin, there are always traces of form to follow, so seal characters have been artistic from the beginning.
Composition
Printing composition is the method of positioning and overall layout between words and lines. Reasonable rules can give people a high-grade enjoyment, while unreasonable rules will tell a discerning eye that they are insufficient or even fake. The basic requirements of seal law are balance, honesty, generosity, and correctness. Most of the Chinese seal laws are based on this, and further require natural, vivid, and interesting, so that they can be negotiated and pondered.
Knife Techniques
The ancients used great difficulty in chiseling copper and carving jade, and the process was complicated. Good stone is very suitable for bearing force, just like good paper bears pen and ink. Wherever the stylus goes, stone chips scatter, showing a natural cracking effect. The traces left behind have an ancient and vigorous atmosphere of metal and stone. Knife techniques can be roughly divided into two types: punching and cutting. The punching knife travels quickly and spreads thousands of miles, much like the straight down strokes in calligraphy, which can show a vigorous and vigorous momentum; the cutting knife travels slower, using a short-range cutting knife to cut continuously, one step at a time, just like the astringent strokes in calligraphy. , can show a powerful, condensed, solid and steady atmosphere. Sometimes the two knife techniques are used together for better results.
Taste and meaning
We know that many writers, poets, calligraphers and painters in the past dynasties have a special liking for seals. Many sealers are also engaged in poetry, calligraphy and painting. They often take Using some allusions, idioms, poems or slang as the content of leisure chapters can often be surprising and full of interest and meaning. When we appreciate such sentences, we will also find them particularly interesting and interesting.
Appreciation of the side stamps
The side stamps are the written records such as name, date and month engraved on or around the seal. According to the nomenclature of Zhongding and other inscriptions, "the style is the one with the yin character recessed, and the recognition is the one with the yang character sticking out." However, in the field of seals, regardless of yin and yang, they are usually collectively referred to as the edge style or the style recognition. It is rare to refer to the yang character of a seal. The knowledge is called "border knowledge".
Ancient seals rarely had signatures. Wen Peng's use of double swords to mark the calligraphy became popular. After that, seal masters showed their talents and made the seal margins quickly become an important part of seal art, playing the role of inscriptions and postscripts on paintings. Same effect. The engraving of the inscriptions also shows the wonderful knife skills and superb calligraphy realm of the sealers, which is worthy of our careful appreciation and appreciation.
In addition to being appreciated as works of calligraphy and inscriptions, seals and inscriptions also have high literary value. It can record stories or express emotions, or talk about art or taste. It is fascinating to read and reminds you of the ancient feelings. The so-called "there are thousands of things in a square inch" refers not only to seals, but also to inscriptions. Both of them have the subtle feeling of gold and jade. They are equally fascinating, arouse us endless associations, and bring us endless meanings.
Appreciation of seals
Seals are the carrier of seals and inscriptions. The exquisite seals not only allow us to enjoy the masterpieces, but they are also a work of art in themselves.
Before Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty, only ink rubbing was used to rub seals without ink rubbing. It was not until the late period when Xiling seal art was prosperous that Lin Yunlou used the method of rubbing stele and inscriptions to make ink rubbings for Zhao Zhishen. The paragraph is placed behind the seal. Since then, everyone has followed suit and it has become a common practice. The ink rubbing of the seal is divided into two steps, one is the ink rubbing of the text on the bottom of the seal, and the other is the ink rubbing of the seal name. You must use high-quality ink pads for moistened vermilion seals. Good ink pads have fine luster, no oil leakage, no deterioration, are thick and even, and have a three-dimensional effect. The seals will last as new and be bright and pleasing to the eye. The operation of ink rubbing is relatively complicated. On the one hand, you need to have skilled skills, and on the other hand, you need to grasp the time, which requires care and experience. When making a seal, generally the ink rubbing is done first, and then the red seal is applied. The ink rubbing is divided into ink rubbing and wax rubbing. Wax rubbing is not as fine and clear as the ink rubbing. It can only meet the urgent needs of the moment and is not suitable for making notation. According to the shade of ink color, ink rubbings can be divided into "black gold rubbings" and "cicada wing rubbings". The former has strong contrast and is full of luster, while the latter is plain, gentle and elegant. The quality of seal rubbings is directly related to the expression of seal words and seals. Therefore, there is a saying that "the merits of engraving are six and the merits of rubbing are four", which shows the importance of seal rubbings. The exquisite seals are elegantly bound, and the paper is made of pure cotton Xuan, single Xuan or continuous history paper. Each type of printing is for each industry. The main color is touch, Zhu Danxuan ink, which complements each other and is pleasing to the eye. In addition to viewing, it can also be used for practice and study. Therefore, it has become a precious thing for people to appreciate and collect.