Chinese writing has a history of five thousand years, but the early writings are no longer visible. The earliest writings passed down today are the oracle bone inscriptions (referred to as Jiawen) unearthed in the Yin Ruins of the Shang Dynasty. The so-called oracle bone inscriptions are characters carved or written on tortoise shells and ox bones. These texts are over three thousand years old. In addition, many bronze vessels from the Shang and Zhou dynasties were unearthed underground, with many inscriptions cast on them, called Zhongdingwen (referred to as bronze inscriptions). These two kinds of writing are also called "ancient writing" because they are the earliest writings that can be seen today.
Zhou Xuan Wang Taishi Zhou once wrote Zhouwen (also known as Dazhuan), and part of the Zhouwen body can still be seen in Shuowen Jiezi. After Qin Shihuang unified the world, Li Si wrote the same script, so Xiaozhuan became popular. The book "Shuowen Jiezi" is based on Shuowen Jiezi. After the Han Dynasty, writing became more and more simplified, and official script became the prevailing writing style in the Han Dynasty. After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the font changed to regular script. Regular script is easy to write. It has maintained considerable stability since it became popular and is still used today. At the same time that regular script became popular, for the convenience of writing, running script and cursive script also appeared. These are all variations of regular script.
Cangjie created characters
"Huainanzi Benjing Xun" says: "In the past, when Cangjie was writing a book, millet rained from the sky, and ghosts cried at night." The general idea is that when Cangjie was writing characters in the past, millet rained from the sky, and ghosts cried at night. There are also records about Cangjie's creation of characters in ancient classics such as "Xunzi" and "Hanfeizi". In the Qin and Han dynasties, this legend spread more widely and had a deeper influence.
Historians in the past have examined whether Cangjie was a real person, and if so, in what era. Due to the lack of conclusive historical data, it is difficult to draw a conclusion.
Some people speculate that Cangjie was the historian of the Yellow Emperor. "Xunzi's Jieye Pian" says: "There are many people who are good at writing, but Cangjie is the only one who can pass it down." Someone explained that the "one" here refers to the right way, which is the correct law. Xunzi believed that Cangjie was an expert who organized the writing by intensively using words and feeling its rules. Therefore, it is generally believed that he played a unique role in the transition of Chinese characters from primitive writing to more standardized writing. It can be inferred from this that such a person must have existed in the late stage of the origin of Chinese characters.
But the saying that "Cangjie invented characters" is just a legend. Because writing is definitely not created by Cangjie alone, but when social and cultural development reaches a certain stage and writing is needed to record events, people observe natural things in the process of collective production and labor, and create them based on the ideological content they want to express. came out. Chinese characters are a huge and rich system and cannot be successfully created without a long period of time.
Tao Wen
The distant ancestor of Chinese characters. In China's prehistory and early history, before the emergence of Chinese characters, the symbols that most resembled writing were pottery inscriptions. A lot of information has been unearthed on pottery inscriptions, but they are not as written as the oracle bone inscriptions, with only a single symbol. From the Neolithic Age to the late Shang Dynasty, the Banpo pottery inscriptions are the earliest among the unearthed pottery inscriptions, dating from approximately 4800 to 4300 BC. In addition, the Dawenkou Culture, Longshan Culture, and Liangzhu Culture periods also have pottery inscriptions. Most of the pottery inscriptions are engraved on the black wide stripe and black inverted triangle pattern on the outer edge of the pottery bowl. A few are engraved on the outer wall of the pottery pot and the bottom of the pottery bowl. Generally, there is only one pottery inscription on the pottery bowl. Scholars have different opinions on the nature of these pottery inscriptions. Qiu Xigui thinks it is a "mark", Guo Moruo thinks it is a "symbol with the nature of writing", while scholars such as Yu Shengwu think it belongs to the category of writing. When Mr. Tang Li'an (Lan) talked about the pottery inscriptions of the Dawenkou culture, he said that these "are the distant ancestors of the current writing, and they have a history of about 5,500 years." It is very difficult to decipher the pottery inscriptions. So far, only a few characters can be guessed as being equivalent to a certain character for later generations. However, it should be certain that Tao inscriptions are related to Chinese characters.
Oracle bone inscriptions
The oracle bone inscriptions of the Yin and Shang Dynasties are the real writing of China.
Oracle bone inscriptions are written in the Shang Dynasty (1400 BC). These characters are called oracle bone inscriptions because they are carved on animal bones or tortoise shells. The characters are carved with a contract knife, so they are also called "deeds" and "deeds".
The content of the text, except for a few records, is mostly records of the princes asking for divination at that time, so it is also called "divination" or "divination text". In addition, because the oracle bone inscriptions were unearthed in Anyang County, Henan Province (originally the former capital of the Yin Dynasty), they are also called "Yin Ruins inscriptions". Strictly speaking, only when it comes to oracle bone inscriptions can it be called calligraphy. Because oracle bone inscriptions already have the three basic elements of Chinese calligraphy: pen use, word knotting, and composition. However, not all previous pictorial symbols have these three elements.
Bronze Inscriptions
In ancient times, copper was called gold, so people called the inscriptions on bronze vessels gold inscriptions. Bronze first appeared in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, forming a splendid bronze culture in the history of our country. Bronze vessels can be roughly divided into more than ten categories, mainly including food vessels, wine vessels, water vessels, weapons, chariots and horses, and various tools.
From the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, chimes of varying sizes appeared in bronzes, which were the main ritual vessels for sacrifices and banquets. Among the bronze vessels, the tripod was mostly used as a sacrificial vessel for cooking animals to offer sacrifices to heaven and ancestors. Later, the tripod also became a symbol of national power. Since bells and tripods are important ritual vessels among bronzes, bronze inscriptions are also called bell and tripod inscriptions.
Bronze inscriptions are important historical materials. "Book of Rites" says: "The fuding has an inscription, and the person who inscribes it has his own name. He who names himself praises the beauty of his ancestors and makes it clear to future generations." Han Dynasty's "Inscription Theory" said: "The book of rituals and music of the bell and tripod is the record of Zhaode." "This shows that bronze inscriptions are mainly used by rulers to worship heaven and ancestors and sing meritorious deeds. The calligraphy art of inscriptions and the plastic art of bronzes are a whole. It is the calligraphy art of inscriptions and lines and the magnificent decorative art that make bronzes the embodiment of beauty.
In the middle of the Shang Dynasty, bronzes began to be cast with inscriptions. From the late Shang Dynasty to the early Western Zhou Dynasty, the bronzes became thicker and more exquisitely made. Cloud and thunder patterns are often used as the base to set off the Taotie and Kui patterns, giving people a deep, mysterious, ferocious and majestic atmosphere. Bronze inscriptions are cast with clay molds, which is very different from oracle bone inscriptions carved with knives.
"Si Mu Wu Ding" is a representative work of the Shang Dynasty. The bronze inscriptions are shaped with the images of things, and the stipples use natural curves to describe things. One or two lines are often used to highly summarize the characteristics of objective things. . There were new changes in the bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty. In 1976, King Wu's gui for recruiting merchants was discovered in Lintong, Shaanxi Province. The inscription recorded how King Wu won the Battle of Muye. The handwriting was solemn and steady, making it a representative work of the early Western Zhou Dynasty. In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, bronze vessels became increasingly crude, but the inscriptions continued to be enriched, and the calligraphy art of bronze inscriptions reached a new peak, with calligraphy skillful, graceful and unrestrained. At that time, there were three main styles of bronze inscriptions: the first type, with smooth brush strokes, regular handwriting, and even strokes. Representative works include "Jing Gui", "Dake Ding", "Mao Gong Ding", etc.; the second type, with round strokes and powerful and gorgeous shapes. , with appropriate spacing and density, and a high level of calligraphy art; by the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty, square-shaped inscriptions such as "Guo Jizi White Plate" appeared, becoming another style. This style opened up the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Book style.
Shiguwen
Shiguwen is a pre-Qin stone inscription. Among the stone inscriptions that have survived to this day in our country, the Stone Drum Inscriptions are the oldest and most representative. The stone is in the shape of a drum, with ten drums each, each with a four-character poem engraved on it, about three feet in diameter. The content describes the hunting expedition of the king of Qin, so it is also called "Hunting Jie". Because it was abandoned in Chencang Yunye, it was also called "Chencang Shijie". What is engraved is the large seal script before Qin Shihuang unified the script, that is, Zhou Wen. Shiyuan was discovered in the early Tang Dynasty in Sanjieyuan, Tianxing (now Baoji, Shaanxi Province). It began to appear in the world after Du Fu, Wei Yingwu and Han Yu wrote songs and poems in the Tang Dynasty. One theory is that Sima Chi (the father of Sima Guang) in the Song Dynasty searched for nine of them and moved them to his school. Emperor Hu (1049-1053) passed it on to his master before he got all of them. During the reign of Daguan (1107-1110), he moved to Piyong in Tokyo (now Luoyang, Henan), and later entered the Jigu Pavilion of Baohe Hall in the inner palace. When the Jin people broke Bian, the chariot returned to Yanjing and was placed in the Dachengmen of Guozi School. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War in 1937, Shi Guwen moved south to Shu. After the war, it was transported back to Peking and is now in the Palace Museum.
In the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Huaiguan, Dou Gao, Han Yu and others thought it was from the time of King Wen of Zhou Dynasty; Wei Yingwu and others thought it was from the time of King Zhou Xuan; in the Song Dynasty, Dong Bu and Cheng Dachang and others thought it was from the time of King Zhou Cheng; in the Jin Dynasty, Ma Dingguo thought it was from the time of the Western Wei Dynasty. It was engraved in the first year (545); Yu Zhengxie in the Qing Dynasty thought it was engraved in the seventh year (446) of the Northern Wei Dynasty Taiping Zhenjun; people who thought it was a Qin thing began from Zheng Qiao in the Song Dynasty; Guo Moruo thought it was from the time of Qin Xianggong, but Tang Lan thought it was inscribed in the 11th year of Qin Xiangong's reign (374 BC). For details, see "Shigu Chronology". Many of the stone inscriptions are damaged. Only 465 characters were recorded by Ouyang Xiu in the Northern Song Dynasty. There are only 462 characters in the Song rubbings stored in Fan's "Tianyi Pavilion" in the Ming Dynasty. Today, none of the characters of "One Drum" has survived. In the early Tang Dynasty, "Yu, Chu and Ouyang are called Gumiao" (quoted from "Yuanhe County Map"). Zhang Huaiguan's "Book Break" says: "The opening and closing of the ancient text in Shigu Wen is smooth and sharp, but it is straight and fast, like an iron needle, and it is straight and graceful." The contemporary Kang Youwei's "Guang Yi Zhou Shuang Ji" It is said: ""Shigu" is like a piece of gold laid on the ground, and the clouds of Zhicao are not troublesome to cut and have their own unique charm." The rare ink rubbings handed down include the one collected by Zhao Mengfu in the Yuan Dynasty (that is, the one collected by Fan's "Tian-ge"), and the one collected by An Guo in the Ming Dynasty. The Zhongquan version, the Xianfeng version (also known as the "Qianmao version"), and the Houjin version are all rubbings from the Song Dynasty. "Tianyi Pavilion" was originally destroyed by fire, and the latter three are all in Japan. There are photocopies of this book. The original stone is now in the Palace Museum.
His calligraphy fonts are mostly rectangular, with a neat and solemn posture, steady writing power, stone and shape, poetry and characters, and are full of simple and powerful beauty.
Xiaozhuan
"Zhuan" is originally the collective name of Xiaozhuan and Dazhuan. Because it is customary to call Zhuanwen Dazhuan, later generations often refer to "Zhuanwen" specifically as Xiaozhuan. Small seal script, also known as Qin seal script, is a font that was changed from the omission of large seal script. It was produced in the Qin state in the late Warring States period and was popular in the Qin Dynasty and the early Western Han Dynasty. During the Warring States Period, various countries were divided, and the characters of each country were not unified and the fonts were quite complex. Therefore, Qin Shihuang used the seal script of the Qin State and implemented the "Shu Tongwen" to unify the world's characters and abolished various forms of the Six Kingdoms characters that were different from the Qin characters. , and omitted and modified the unique seal script form of the Qin State, and at the same time absorbed some simplified and vulgar fonts in folk writing, and standardized them to form a new font - Xiaozhuan.
Chinese characters have developed into the Xiaozhuan stage, and have gradually begun to take shape (contours, strokes, and structures). The pictographic meaning has weakened, making the characters more symbolic and reducing confusion and difficulties in writing and reading. This has It is also the first time in the history of our country that administrative means have been used to standardize writing on a large scale. The Qin Dynasty used the compiled Xiaozhuan script to unify the national writing system. It not only basically eliminated the phenomenon of different writing styles in various places, but also greatly changed the situation of many different styles of ancient writing. It played an important role in the history of Chinese writing development. In addition to Xiaozhuan, ancient characters including oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions are collectively referred to as Chinese characters; the development of paleography has a very important impact on promoting the study of ancient Chinese history, philosophy, economy, law, culture, science and technology.
Official Script
Although Xiaozhuan is a relatively neat rectangle with a structure composed of evenly rounded lines, it is quite inconvenient to write and the glyphs are complicated. Due to various shortcomings, it is not popular among the people. A new font soon appeared, in which the dignified, neat, rounded and curved lines of Xiaozhuan were written with square folds. This font was said to be more popular among lower-class officials, craftsmen, and slaves at that time, so it was called "official script". . In the Han Dynasty, official script replaced Xiaozhuan as the main font, and the development history of Chinese characters moved away from the ancient writing stage and entered the official regular script stage. After the Han Dynasty, Xiaozhuan became the ancient font mainly used for engraving seals and inscribing gold inscriptions. The formation of official script changed characters from characters tracing the shape of objects to simple characters composed of some straight strokes. This change greatly increased the speed of writing. The transformation of Chinese characters from Xiaozhuan to official script is called "Li Bian". The Li Bian is an important turning point in the development of Chinese characters. It ends the stage of ancient characters and brings Chinese characters into a more stereotyped stage. The characters after the Li Bian are close to what they are today. The characters used are also easier to identify than ancient characters.
Cursive script
Cursive script is a font written in a hasty and fast manner.
Cursive script is a simple font that assists official script. It is mainly used for drafting manuscripts and correspondence. In the process of the formation of cursive script, official assistants and historians often needed to use drafting documents, which affected the spread of cursive script. After entering the Eastern Han Dynasty, after being processed by literati and calligraphers, cursive script had a relatively regular and strict form. It could be used in some official occasions and was called "Zhangcao". It has a bit of the flavor of official script and retains the provocative style of official script. And pen. Because the glyphs of cursive script are too simple and easily confused with each other, it cannot replace official script as the main font in the same way that official script replaced Xiaozhuan. After the emergence of regular script, cursive script further developed on the basis of regular script. Not only the strokes can be connected, but also the upper and lower strokes can be written continuously. Some characteristics of the official script strokes have also disappeared, forming another type of cursive script, which is called cursive script. "Imakusa".
Running script
Running script is a font between regular script and cursive script. It is not as neat as regular script, nor as unrestrained as cursive script; if regular script is like a person sitting, cursive script If people run, then running script is people walking. Because running script is more casual than regular script, you can write faster, and it is not as sloppy as cursive script, so it is the most loved by people. Running script has probably become popular among the people since the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Wang Xizhi, a great calligrapher of the Eastern Jin Dynasty who is known as the "Sage of Calligraphy", created a large number of running script works and has been loved by people for a long time. There are no strict writing rules for running script. Those that are more regular and close to regular script are called Zhenxing or Xingkai; those that are written more indulgently and have a strong cursive flavor are called running cursive. Running script is faster than regular script and not as difficult as cursive script. It can identify people, so it has high practical value.
Regular script
Regular script is similar to official script in terms of font structure, but regular script changes the writing method of official script strokes, and changes from flat official script to basically square regular script, that is The so-called "square characters". Regular script is also called Zhengshu or Zhenshu, which shows that regular script is a formal script for people to learn and use. The earliest regular script calligrapher was Zhong Yao at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The writing style of official script still remains to some extent in his works handed down. Regular script went through many changes during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and was basically finalized after the Sui and Tang Dynasties. After the finalization, the strokes and structure of regular script were quite exquisite and rigorous. For example, the works of Ouyang Xun, a famous calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty, are one of the models.
After Chinese characters entered the regular script stage, the glyphs continued to be simplified, but the fonts did not change much. Printing, one of the four major inventions in my country, uses regular script as a printed book. Among the books printed in the Song Dynasty, the main font was regular script, which was artisticized and written more regularly and beautifully. It was called "Song style". Later, some imitated Song style and changed it, which was called "fake Song style". The fonts used in the books and newspapers we read today are roughly a variation of regular script of this style