Calligraphy is generally divided into five types, namely seal script, official script, regular script, running script and cursive script. As an art, China's calligraphy mainly consists of five writing styles: seal script, official script, regular script, cursive script and running script. In the past, although Oracle Bone Inscriptions and inscriptions formed a systematic writing style, they did not form a writing art, and few calligraphers copied and wrote in the future.
Seal script is a kind of writing form, which presents the fun of matching form with form. The broad sense of seal script includes Oracle Bone Inscriptions and inscriptions on bronze. The seal script here is especially limited to the big seal script and the small seal script. Generally speaking, the ancient prose and hoop prose before the pre-Qin period are called Da Zhuan, and the characters compiled by Li Si are called Xiao Zhuan.
The emergence of official script is to deal with the increasingly complex official document processing. Changed the structure of seal script, emphasizing horizontal and vertical, tight shelf. Official script is much more convenient than seal script, which saves a lot of precious time for future generations and is also of great academic value.
Regular script is an improved script in Han dynasty, which is based on the official script font. Now people call it regular script. Because regular script is more convenient to write than official script, people in Han Dynasty used it to meet the needs of real life.
Related content
For beginners, learning calligraphy should start with regular script, and then write other regular scripts. First, regular script is easy to learn and write. Only by writing regular script well can we basically understand the structure and strokes of Chinese characters in China, and then cursive script will come naturally.
Second, regular script is more in line with people's aesthetics than flat-length official script. Therefore, practicing regular script is the first step to learn calligraphy.