Calligraphy is the art of writing Chinese characters. It is not only a cultural treasure of the Chinese nation, but also unique in the world's cultural and artistic treasure house. In the long history of evolution and development of Chinese characters, on the one hand, it plays an important social role in the exchange of ideas and cultural inheritance; on the other hand, it has formed a unique plastic art in itself. Through research in modern times, regarding the origin of Chinese writing, it is generally believed that writing was created during the "Yangshao Culture Period" in the middle reaches of the Yellow River in China, about 5,000 or 6,000 years ago. Yangshao culture was named after it was first discovered in Yangshao Village, Shengshan, Henan in 1921. In the past 40 years, many discoveries have been made one after another.
The writings of various ethnic groups in the world can be summarized into three major types, namely ideographic writing; ideographic writing; and phonetic writing. Chinese characters are typical ideographic characters developed on the basis of ideographic characters. The pictographic method of making characters is to draw the actual objects. However, drawings tend to be more simplistic and abstract, becoming a symbol that highlights the characteristics of physical objects, represents a certain meaning, and has a certain pronunciation... Our Chinese characters, from pictures and symbols to creation and finalization, from ancient large seal script to small seal script, From seal script to Li, Kai, Xing and Cao, various forms gradually formed. In the process of writing and using Chinese characters, the art of calligraphy, which is unique among the languages ??of various ethnic groups in the world and can be an independent category, gradually emerged.
Chinese calligraphy art began in the production stage of Chinese characters. "Sound cannot be transmitted to other places, but stays in different times, so words are born. Words are the traces of meaning and sound." Therefore, Text is produced. The first works of calligraphy were not words, but glyphs - hieroglyphs or pictorial characters.
The engraved symbols of Chinese characters first appeared on pottery. The initial characterization symbol only represented a rough concept of chaos and had no exact meaning.
More than 8,000 years ago, the Cishan and Feiligang cultures appeared in the Yellow River Basin. There are many symbols on the handmade ceramics unearthed from Feiligan. These symbols were first It is a chaotic combination of people's communication function, record-keeping function and pattern decoration function. Although these are not real Chinese characters, they are indeed the prototype of Chinese characters.
Following the Banpo site of the Yangshao Culture about 6,000 years ago, painted pottery with some simple depictions similar to characters was unearthed. These symbols are different from patterns and patterns, pushing the development of Chinese characters one step further. This can be said to be the origin of Chinese writing.
Then there are Erlitou culture and Erligang culture. During the archaeological excavation of the Erlitou Culture, pottery pieces with carved marks were found. There are twenty-four types of marks, some of which are similar to the oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin Ruins, and they are all single independent characters. Erligang culture has been found to have a writing system. Three bones with characters were found here, two with one character each, and one with ten characters, which seemed to be carved for practicing carving. This brought civilization a big step forward.
The origin of original writing is an instinct of imitation, used to image a specific thing. Although it is simple and chaotic, it already has a certain aesthetic taste. This simple writing can therefore be called prehistoric calligraphy.