****When we see the wonderful oracle bone calligraphy works, how do we appreciate them?
First of all, you should understand the writing, origin and characteristics of oracle bone inscriptions.
According to research, the writing and carving of oracle bone inscriptions were carried out in two steps. First, use a brush to write the inscriptions on the tortoise shell or animal bones, and then carve them with a knife. There is no need to hide edges when creating oracle bone inscriptions, because the strokes of oracle bone inscriptions are carved with a knife. Although the lines are of different thicknesses, both ends of the lines are pointed.
The strokes of oracle bone inscriptions are often pointed at both ends, thick in the middle, and thinner. Most of the fonts are rectangular, which accounts for 75% of the total oracle bone inscriptions, square ones account for 20%, and flat square ones account for about 5%. The shapes of most characters are in the form of five to eight and five to three, which is in line with the principle of the golden ratio. In addition, the beauty of geometric shapes has been used quite successfully in Oracle, such as triangles (various), circles , square (including rectangle), oval, prismatic, etc.
Oracle bone inscriptions are vivid in shape. Through oracle bone inscriptions, we seem to be able to see many vivid sketches of life: such as the dexterity and liveliness of birds, the ferocity and power of animals, etc.
Understanding the above, I think it will be much easier to appreciate oracle bone calligraphy works, right?
Reference materials:
Documents from China's Shang Dynasty and early Western Zhou Dynasty (about 16th to 10th centuries BC) using tortoise shells and animal bones as carriers. It is the earliest known form of Chinese literature. The characters engraved on armor and bones were previously called deeds, oracle bone inscriptions, oracle inscriptions, tortoise edition inscriptions, Yinxu inscriptions, etc., and are now commonly known as oracle bone inscriptions. Due to superstition, the emperors of the Shang and Zhou dynasties used tortoise shells (the most common ones were tortoise shells) or animal bones (the most common ones were the ox shoulder blades) for divination. The omen results, verification status, etc.) were engraved on the oracle bones and kept as archival materials by the royal historian (see Oracle Bone Archives). In addition to the inscriptions on divination, there are also a few inscriptions on oracle bones to record events. The contents of the oracle bone documents involve astronomy, calendar, meteorology, geography, country, lineage, family, characters, officials, conquests, prisons, agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, transportation, religion, sacrifices, diseases, fertility, disasters, etc. It is extremely precious first-hand information for studying the social history, culture, language and characters of ancient China, especially the Shang Dynasty. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when oracle bone documents were discovered, people successively copied (ink rubbing, photographing, tracing) and sorted them out (splicing, concatenating, identifying forgeries, and authenticating), and compiled and compiled them into volumes. The content is transferred and stored in other places. The oracle bone documents that have been excavated are mainly Yinxu oracle bones, in addition to Zhouyuan oracle bones.
“The oracles are deeded to the tortoise bones. The precision of the deeds and the beauty of the characters will fascinate our descendants for thousands of years.” Mr. Guo Moruo, an expert on ancient writing, once commented on oracle bone inscriptions. For us modern people, oracle bones are mysterious, ancient, exquisite, and incredibly beautiful.