Oracle Bone Inscriptions → bronze inscription → seal script → official script → regular script → running script.
(Shang) (Zhou) (Qin) (Han) (Wei and Jin Dynasties) cursive script
The evolution of Chinese characters can be simply summarized into five stages: sound, shape, image, number and reason.
"Sound" is an important part of any language. In the distant and long Archaean, human beings gradually diverged from the instinctive "ridiculous ……" or the imitation of nature's "birdsong, insect song, animal roar, thunder and rain …", which is the evolution of pronunciation. For example, "Mom, Ba" is used to represent "Mom, Dad", which may be different from crying "Ah …". Phonetics has developed into a very complex system in modern times. Chinese has about 4× 400 = 1600 sounds. Phonetic differentiation must have its own laws, and some clues can be distinguished from modern languages.
"Form" is the second important part of language, but it is not necessary. In ancient times, human beings mainly faced the problems of survival and racial continuity. In the process of fighting against nature, wild animals and poisonous snakes, it is sometimes necessary to use "shape" or "painting" to express things. For example, in order not to get lost in hunting, some marks may be made on rocks or tree trunks. When hunting, humans also pay attention to observing the footprints of wild animals to identify their characteristics. In addition, human beings may draw images of "the sun, the moon, people, mountains, trees, bricks, animals, ancestors, etc." out of worship of mysterious nature or pursuit of beautiful things.
"Image" is the main method to create Chinese characters and explain things in the Book of Changes. "Sun, Moon" and so on belong to hieroglyphics and are the basic components of word-making. These basic components combine with each other to produce various "images" and create more words. Basic components and characters can also be combined at a higher level to produce many characters used to express various things and ideas.
The concept of "number" is gradually formed in the long-term evolution of human beings. The concepts that humans first master may be "nothing" and "being". Without water, you will be thirsty, without food, you will be hungry. "Is there-?" ? In the word "moon", it means hand, and "moon" means meat. The word "you" originally meant "you have meat under your hand". If you have meat, you won't be hungry. "You" is further divided to form the concept of "one, two, three and many".
"Reason" is the expansion of "image number". The evolution of Chinese character extension is mainly based on "reason", that is, things close to each other are also related by "reason". For example, "Ming" means bright, which is extended to "eyes can see clearly, hearts can understand, and things become obvious ..." and so on.
The five stages of the evolution of Chinese characters "sound, shape, image, number and reason" are essentially five basic methods to create Chinese characters.
In Chinese characters, all kinds of fonts formed in different historical periods have their own distinctive artistic characteristics.
The origin of Chinese characters is well documented. This was in the late Shang Dynasty, about14th century BC, when the original font, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, was formed. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is the Oracle Bone Inscriptions carved on tortoise shells and animal bones in Shang Dynasty. Because it is carved on Oracle Bone Inscriptions with different shapes, it is not easy to change after carving, so our ancestors followed the trend in one go. The overall effect or rules are orderly or changeable, which embodies the human nature of pursuing balance, symmetry, harmony and stability. Oracle Bone Inscriptions is both a hieroglyph and a phonography. Until now, there are still some pictographs in Chinese characters, which are very vivid.
In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, Chinese characters developed into Da Zhuan. The development of seal script has produced two characteristics: first, the lines with uneven thickness in the early days became uniform and soft, and the lines they drew with utensils were very concise and vivid; Second, standardization, the glyph structure tends to be neat, and gradually deviates from the original shape of the picture, laying the foundation for the square characters.
Later, Li Si, the prime minister of Qin Dynasty, simplified Da Zhuan and changed it to Xiao Zhuan. Small seal script not only simplifies the shape of big seal script, but also achieves the perfection of lineation and standardization, almost completely divorced from pictures and characters, and has become a neat, harmonious and very beautiful square font which is basically rectangular. However, Xiao Zhuan also has its own fundamental shortcoming, that is, its lines are very inconvenient to write with a pen, so almost at the same time, a kind of official script with flat sides was produced.
In the Han Dynasty, the Qin system was inherited by the Han Dynasty, and the centralized system was further developed and strengthened. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, who is still wise and foolish, invaded the east and cut the west, constantly expanding the territory of the central empire. In order to protect Yong 'an frontier, he established a garrison system, which enabled Chinese culture to spread and take root rapidly in the frontier. At the same time, there are higher requirements for the quality, speed and quantity of information dissemination. At this time, the seal script was gradually simplified and evolved into an official script, which was called "official change" in history. This change is not only because Xiao Zhuan is complicated and difficult to write, but also needs to be changed. The most important essential reason is that it is closely related to the invention and popularization of China people's writing tool, the brush. It is the writing form of brush that transforms the image of seal script into straightness and makes the image of Chinese characters turn to abstraction, and initially forms the stroke characteristics of point, horizontal, left, vertical, lifting, hook and folding, as well as the appearance characteristics of square fonts. After Li Shu, it evolved into Cao Zhang, and now it is grass. In the Tang dynasty, there was Weeds, which expressed the writer's thoughts and feelings with a pen. Subsequently, regular script (also known as original script), a combination of official script and cursive script, became popular in the Tang Dynasty. The print we use today evolved from regular script. Between regular script and cursive script is a running script, which is fluent in writing and flexible in using a pen. It is said that it was invented by Liu Desheng in Han Dynasty, and it is still the font used in our daily writing today.
In the Song Dynasty, with the development of printing, block printing was widely used, and Chinese characters were further improved and developed, resulting in a new type of calligraphy-Songti printing font. After the invention of printing, the carving knife used for lettering had a far-reaching influence on the glyph of Chinese characters, resulting in a kind of printing font with fine horizontal and thick vertical, which is eye-catching and easy to read, and later called Song Style. There are two kinds of fonts for the moment: fat imitation face, Liu style, thin imitation European style and dangerous style. Among them, the strokes of Yan and Liu are towering, with some characteristics of horizontal, thin and vertical. In the Ming Dynasty, between Qin Long and Wanli, it changed from Song style to Ming style, with fine strokes and square fonts. It turned out that at that time, a kind of Hongwu style with thin horizontal and thick vertical was popular among the people, and this font was used for the title cards of official posts, lanterns, notices, private stones, ancestral halls and other gods. Later, some book carvers created a non-face and non-European skin silhouette in the process of imitating Hongwu's style. Especially because the strokes of this font are horizontal and vertical, it is really easy to engrave. It is different from Zhuan Xu, Li, Zhen and Cao, unique and fresh to read. Therefore, it has been widely used since16th century and has become a very popular main printing font. Now it's also called Song Style, and it's also called type.