China has said that "calligraphy and painting are of the same origin" since ancient times. This is because the earliest source of words is pictures. Books and paintings are brothers, born from the same root, and have many internal relations. The origin of Chinese characters is the original picture, which primitive people used to express their "picture" form in their lives. Slowly from the original picture into an "ideographic symbol."
It was in the 14th century BC, in the late Yin and Shang Dynasties. "Ideographic symbol" has evolved into a relatively stereotyped "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". This is considered to be the first form of Chinese characters. The characters carved on the bones of animals and tortoise shells, and the characters found in Yin Ruins, are regarded as the direct ancestors of "modern Chinese characters", which can prove the continuity of Chinese civilization. For thousands of years, Middle Easterners have been unable to interpret the hieroglyphics of their ancestors. Only modern people in China can read some "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" in the Shang Dynasty. The characters on these tortoise shells were first used to predict good or bad luck. Ancient people thought that some questions about diseases, dreams, hunting, weather and so on were engraved on the tortoise shells, and then the tortoise shells and animal bones were baked with fire, and the resulting cracks could be judged by the diviner according to the shape and direction of these cracks. This is the ancestor of modern Chinese characters of "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". There are more than 5, kinds of "Oracle Bone Inscriptions" discovered so far. And there are more than a thousand that can be interpreted.
In the Western Zhou Dynasty, bronzes were widely used, and the characters carved on bronze Zhong Ding and stone drums were "Da Zhuan". Also known as Zhong Dingwen and Shi Guwen. According to legend, it was written by Taishi in Zhou Xuanwang period. At present, there are ten stone drums of the Zhou Dynasty in the Palace Museum, on which ten four-character poems are engraved. Because of the feudal regime, it was fragmented and fragmented, and the words were not the same. Until the Qin dynasty. Qin Shihuang unified China. To unify the words. During the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang unified writing and measurement. His outstanding achievement was the prime minister at that time-Li Si. After Li Si collected and sorted out the characters at that time, and then simplified and beautified them, the unified characters were called "Xiao Zhuan", also known as "Qin Zhuan". At this time, there are almost no hieroglyphics in the text.
The writing of "Xiao Zhuan" in the Qin Dynasty was too standard and the writing speed was very slow, so many simple fonts appeared among the people. This font is characterized by changing the original square of "Xiao Zhuan". The song of "Xiao Zhuan" was changed to be straight, and some radical parts were divided, which were called "Qin Li". In the Han Dynasty, official script was very popular, and "Qin Li" did not completely get rid of the structural characteristics of "Xiao Zhuan", and it was basically square, while "han li" fully played the role of a brush, with the twists and turns of a "swallow-tailed silkworm head", which made it easy to write. This kind of official script was popular in the Western Han Dynasty. Call it-"han li".
While han li was popular in the Han Dynasty, regular script was in its infancy. By the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, it was very popular. Wang Xizhi and Wang Xian in Jin Dynasty were the real founders of regular script. At the same time, they absorbed the round strokes of seal script, kept the square and straight of official script, and removed the "swallow tail". The structure of Chinese characters is generally fixed. At that time, it was called "true calligraphy", and later generations renamed it "regular calligraphy" because it was used as a model for learning calligraphy.
in the Tang dynasty, "regular script" was particularly popular. Yan Zhenqing, Liu Gongquan, Ou Yangxun and other calligraphers were outstanding at that time, and their calligraphy works are still being studied as examples.
due to the neatness of regular script, the need of writing quickly, and the creation of the writer to express his own thoughts and feelings at the end of the pen, a font with smooth flow, great rhythm and artistic appeal has been produced-"cursive script".
what lies between regular script and cursive script is "running script". Running script is not as formal and serious as regular script, nor as unrestrained and difficult to identify as cursive script, but elegant and cheerful, with flexible fonts. It is also the most popular and commonly used font. Before I knew the font, I was asked to practice running script when I was a child. In the Song Dynasty, one of the four great inventions of China, block printing and movable type printing, was invented, and "Song-style characters" should also be produced. First produced in the Northern Song Dynasty, it was changed from regular script. There are fat bodies and thin bodies, but whether they are fat or thin, they are horizontal, thin and vertical, and square. It looks quaint and dignified.
"Imitation of Song Style" is also a kind of font produced by imitating "Song Style". This font has only appeared for 7 or 8 years, but it has developed very rapidly. It is a standard font that people like to use most, and it has been widely used in printed matter and various occasions. At the same time, the "black body" was born. This kind of font is striking and generous, the handwriting is all the same thickness, the structure is striking and tight, the strokes are strong and powerful, and the strokes are not sharp, which makes people easy to read. Because of its eye-catching characteristics, it is often used in titles, leads, signs and so on. It enriches the expression forms of Chinese characters.
after the founding of the People's Republic of China, all kinds of fonts were born, such as comprehensive art, whole block, floating clouds, variants and so on. This is the concrete manifestation of the cultural prosperity of the motherland and the inevitable result of the development of Chinese characters.