The value of warm inkstone is: as a stationery item of an era, warm inkstone provided convenience for ancient literati to write poems, calligraphy and paintings during the severe cold weather.
For ancient northerners, the most troublesome thing in winter was writing, because once the room temperature dropped below the freezing point, a thin layer of ice would form on the inkstone. At this time, if you use a pen to lick the ink, The pen and ink will freeze and stick together, making it impossible to write. At that time, due to the lack of heating facilities, when Cen Shen, a frontier poet of the Tang Dynasty, was drafting a battle message in a military tent in Mobei, the ink in the inkstone froze: horse hair steamed with snow, five-flowered coins were swirled into ice, and the grass in the curtain was blurred The inkstone water condenses.
In fact, there were already warm inkstones in the Tang Dynasty. It may be because the two poets did not have the conditions to use this "artifact" at that time, so they expressed such emotion. Warm inkstones are mostly found in the north. In order to prevent the ink from freezing in winter, the lower part of the inkstone is hollowed out into a warm chamber, and burning charcoal or hot water is poured into it to heat the inkstone pool and prevent the ink on the surface from freezing.
Warm inkstones can be made of a variety of inkstone materials, including gold, silver, copper, iron, stone, ceramics, purple sand, etc.; high-quality products are specially made for the royal family and are mostly displayed in museums; others are generally It is mostly used by yamen, temples, or craftsmen in the north.
Basic information
In the Qing Dynasty, a kind of warm inkstone made of a variety of inkstones was popular in the north. As the name suggests, it was made to prevent ink from freezing in winter. The most common ones were warm inkstones. The warm inkstones made of She stone and Songhuajiang green stone have fewer end stones. This is probably because the end stones in puddles are tender and soft and cannot withstand charcoal fire. The base of the inkstone is high, mostly made of metal, and can be placed over a charcoal fire to maintain temperature.
The inkstone is a tool for grinding ink. It freezes when encountering low temperatures in winter, making it very inconvenient for those who write continuously. Nuan inkstone is a special inkstone that is warmed by charcoal fire inkstone hall and inkstone pool to facilitate writing. In fact, warm inkstones are not only used by poor people, but are often used exclusively by the royal family. The special thing about this type of inkstone is that in winter, hot water is stored in the box to prevent the ink from freezing, so this type of inkstone box is commonly called "warm inkstone". Nuan inkstone is made of precious materials and fine workmanship. It is a representative work of Qing Dynasty stationery.