Pre-Qin calligraphy form
Bamboo slips strung together
According to documents, there were simplified books in Shang Dynasty. According to the History Book Toastmasters, Duke Zhou once said to the Yin people, "Only the ancestors of the Yin people have books and classics". In the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period, there should also be ways to take notes on bamboo slips. Because bamboo slips are perishable, bamboo slips in Shang Dynasty, Western Zhou Dynasty and Spring and Autumn Period have not been found, but many bamboo slips were found in Warring States Period. According to records, bamboo slips were discovered in the Han and Jin Dynasties. The change of seal script from running script to official script stippling not only enriches the use of calligraphy, but also has a far-reaching impact on the further development of Chinese characters and calligraphy in the future.
A book copied from silk
During the Warring States period, there was another notebook writing material, silk, which was white silk. In the Han dynasty, silk was called silk or silk, or collectively referred to as silk, so silk books were also called silk books. In 1930s, a silk book was stolen from a Chu tomb in Changsha, Hunan, dating from the middle and late Warring States Period, which was the earliest silk book in China. Silk book is a math book with strange pictures and more than 900 words. Silk scripts appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period. There is a saying in Guoyu Yuyue that "Wang Yueyong wrote silk books", which shows that silk books and simplified books were parallel at that time.
In the pre-Qin era, characters moved from application to art. At this time, calligraphy was closely related to the changes of characters, and gradually improved from the naive stage, thus establishing a special position in the history of calligraphy in China.