After the Qing Dynasty, some painters incorporated the knife-cutting flavor of lines in seal cutting into their own paintings, which made the paintings on paper rolls have a "golden stone flavor". Jinshi is a general term for ancient bronzes and stone carvings. The words engraved on Zhong Ding and stone tablets are simple and elegant, boundless and have a "Jinshi flavor".
"Epigraphy" appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty, and a large-scale epigraphy movement was formed in the middle of Qing Dynasty. People began to pay attention to inscriptions, and some painters' calligraphy was influenced by the fonts on the inscriptions. At the same time, seal cutting flourished and played a great role in painting and calligraphy.
Zhao, a painter of Shanghai School, is good at seal cutting, mixing some words from inscriptions (mainly Weibei) and brick carvings into seal cutting. The "stone flavor" he pursues has a unique charm of seal cutting, which is different from "bookish spirit" and "market spirit" and reflects the unique interest of stone carving seal cutting. He has a deep understanding of the beauty of seal cutting, and applied seal cutting to the flowers he painted, which broadened the expression of painting brush and ink and made the flower works have a new style.
Another Shanghai painter, Wu Changshuo, is also proficient in calligraphy, seal cutting and painting. Among his calligraphy, seal script is the highest achievement, and his pen is full of "golden stone flavor". He also integrated the brushwork of "Jinshi" into the flower-and-bird painting technique, which was magnificent. His flower-and-bird paintings were rated as "vigorous and ancient, full of scholars" This kind of flower-and-bird painting with "golden stone flavor" reached its peak in the hands of Wu Changshuo, and at the same time, it also formed a very extensive influence, from which painters such as Qi Baishi and Pan Tianshou learned a lot of nutrients.
The techniques of calligraphy, seal cutting and painting influence each other, and the three have achieved real integration on the paper roll.
Summary: epigraphy means that the engraved seal has the taste of epigraphy and stone carving. All paintings with these two aesthetic characteristics, bold and simple, naturally reveal "epigraphy".