History of official script development

This is a classic description of Lishu itself and its background in Wei Heng's Four Books of the Western Jin Dynasty. In fact, the regular script of seal script refers to a new relatively independent font that changed in structure and writing during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. In other words, official script was born out of seal script font through "official change".

Li Bian is an important calligraphy cultural event in the history of calligraphy in China. The internal motivation of the official change is to adapt to the requirements of the social development at that time for the application of characters. "Li change is mainly manifested in two aspects: first, the change of font structure is not only the change of regular script font structure, but also the main direction of this change is simplification; The second is the change of writing style, which is not only to change the writing style of the original regular script, but also to be concise and convenient. The simplification of font structure and the simple flow of writing style constitute the core content of the transformation process of officialdom. The simplification of glyph structure and writing style here is not only for the improvement of writing speed, but also for the inherent writing movement situation that is more in line with people's physiological movement track, so that official script was widely used with the political changes at the turn of Qin and Han Dynasties.

As far as calligraphy is concerned, Li Bian completed the following official seal transformation: 1, which got rid of the solidification of the font structure of the official seal and moved towards the abstract expression of the temporal and spatial movement of the official seal lines; 2. Lines change from euphemistic arc strokes of seal script to steep straight strokes, and twists and turns change from joint circle of seal script to turning point of Fang Bi. The formal transformation marks the destruction of the phase of Chinese characters and the establishment of abstract symbols, which makes Chinese characters change from ancient writing system to modern writing system. At the same time, it also marks the final formation of the independent personality and aesthetic characteristics of Lishu.

On the other hand, as people's normative consciousness, we must standardize this new font and style. As a result, a highly standardized stereotyped writing appeared in the late Han Dynasty. Therefore, we say that the so-called official reform process is the normative construction process of the new calligraphy body produced by the triumph of seal script. As calligraphy, the beauty of official script lies in the process of official change that lasted more than 400 years.

It is very necessary to interpret the aesthetic connotation and background of official script, which is helpful to our in-depth understanding of official script itself. Usually, we know official script from the existing Han steles and bamboo slips. However, it is far from enough to understand official script only through Han steles and bamboo slips. Because we can't understand the origin of the aesthetic connotation of official script. Therefore, we should interpret the process of official change for more than 400 years under the cultural background of Qin and Han dynasties, and explore the cultural and ideological origin of the beauty of official books. Only in this way can we know some official script traditions.

In the Han Dynasty, Lishu not only formed its own independent personality and aesthetic characteristics through the process of bureaucratization, but also had a general trend of development in the direction of laxity and standardization. On the one hand, Lishu gradually broke away from its original practical position in the extreme of overemphasizing the convenience of writing, and then in the process of constantly planting grass, because of the different writing movements, what we call Cao Zhang and modern grass finally formed; On the other hand, it shows the normative construction of the original writing form of official script, which is based on the formal order. Because the stability of writing order directly affects the smooth communication of national culture and social progress. This is an important link that the government has always attached importance to. Therefore, with the establishment of the kingship in the Han Dynasty, it is inevitable to standardize the official script widely circulated in real life. Stereotyped writing effectively overcomes the tendency of random writing in seal script Li Jie's calligraphy by standardized means, and makes the formal order tend to stable position selection and orderly structure diagram. Coupled with the constant accommodation of the aesthetic concepts of the official literati in the Han Dynasty, it finally formed a standardized, harmonious, quiet and left-handed style. The overall trend of stone carving in Han Dynasty from the simplicity of Western Han Dynasty to the standardization of Eastern Han Dynasty also confirms the historical process of official standardization of official seal characters.