1. Oracle bone inscriptions
2. Bronze inscriptions
3. Warring States characters
4. Seal scripts
5 , official script
6. cursive script
7. regular script
8. running script
Your question lacks the 'Warring States script'.
The Development of Chinese Characters
1. Oracle Bone Inscriptions
Oracle Bone Inscriptions are a type of ancient Chinese characters, specifically referring to the divination written on turtle shells and animal bones in the late Shang Dynasty. Word. The Yin people used tortoise shells and animal bones to predict good and bad fortunes when encountering major and minor events, such as sacrifices, conquests, fishing and hunting, coming and going, growing up, wind and rain, disease, misfortune, etc. The method of divination is to first polish the turtle shell (mainly the plastron of the turtle) or other animal bones (mainly the shoulder blade of the cow), then drill the back side, and then roast it with fire to make the front side show cracks. They carved inscriptions next to the divination signs to record the content of the inquiries to the gods and ghosts, the revelations from the gods and ghosts, and the subsequent development of events. This resulted in the oracle bone inscriptions we see today, or the Yinxu inscriptions. In fact, there are some special inscriptions that are not used for divination, but are mainly used to register the source, quantity, remediation process, and names of relevant personnel, etc. The content is often very important.
Wang Yirong was the first person to identify inscriptions on tortoise shells and animal bones from the Shang Dynasty. In 1899, Wang Yirong died in the line of duty when the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing. The oracle bones he collected belonged to the famous writer and historian Liu E (also known as Tieyun). He compiled the oracle bone fragments in his collection into "Tieyun Hidden Turtle" This book is the first oracle bone inscription book.
There are about 4,000 single characters in oracle bone inscriptions, about 1,500 of which have been recognized, and many of the unknown characters are proper names and rare characters. The oracle bone inscriptions are very pictographic, but the "six books" are complete. There are obvious diachronic changes in fonts in the early and late periods. Some characters are written in multiple ways between and within each period, lacking a unified and fixed style. Because it is carved with a sharp instrument, the strokes are mostly linear and quite even.
2. Bronze inscriptions
Bronze inscriptions are a type of ancient Chinese characters, also known as Jijin characters, Zhongding characters, Zhongding and Yi ware inscriptions, etc. It mainly refers to the inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Inscription cast on bronze. China entered the Bronze Age approximately from the Xia Dynasty and reached its peak in the late Shang Dynasty. Bronze vessels at that time were often engraved with the clan name, personal name of the person who created the vessel, and the name of the ancestor to be worshipped. The shape of the characters was relatively primitive, and the number of characters varied from small to large, which clearly reflected the development and evolution of Chinese characters. At the end of the Shang Dynasty and the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, bronze smelting and casting technology made great progress. The Yin and Zhou dynasties rewarded nobles and ministers with large amounts of bronze. When these people cast bronzes, they often carved inscriptions to record the gifts of the king and praise the achievements of their ancestors, hoping to pass them on to future generations for a long time.
Mr. Qiu Xigui said in "Outline of Philology": Bronze vessels with family names in bronze are often later than early oracle bone inscriptions. This can often be seen even on bronze vessels in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. Plant gold inscriptions. But their glyphs are more pictographic than early oracle bone inscriptions. This phenomenon should be caused by the ancients' conservative attitude towards clan names.
In 1985, the revised fourth edition of Rong Geng's "Inscriptions on Bronze Inscriptions" adopted 3,902 inscriptions, including 2,420 words in the main text (words that can be read), and 1,352 words in the appendix (words that cannot be determined), *** Total 3,772 words. This is the total number of bronze inscriptions visible today. Although it is not necessarily accurate, it is not far off. Similar to oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions are also based on pictographic characters, which are highly pictographic and are available in six volumes. Because the characters are made from Fan, the strokes are mostly fat, but not as uniform as Oracle bone inscriptions. These are the more prominent features of the gold inscriptions.
3. Warring States characters
Warring States characters are at an important stage of transition from the oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the seal scripts and official scripts of the Qin and Han dynasties, and are relatively rich in content. According to the materials used to record the text, it can be divided into stone drum inscriptions, alliance book inscriptions, bamboo slips and silk inscriptions, seal inscriptions and currency inscriptions, which are introduced one by one below.
The Stone Drum Inscription: The Stone Drum Inscription was discovered in Tianxing County (now Baoji City, Shaanxi Province) in the early Tang Dynasty. It contains about 700 characters and is carved on ten stones. The stone was more than three feet in diameter and shaped like a large drum, so people called it a stone drum. The texts on the stone drums are all four-character poems, one to ten, mainly describing the grand occasion of the Qin king renovating roads and visiting fishing and hunting. Because it talks a lot about hunting, later generations also called it "Hunting Jie". "Jie" means dome-shaped stele.
Now stored in the Palace Museum in Beijing, most of the text on the drum has been erased, leaving only 272 characters. It is the earliest extant long-form stone inscription in China. The Stone Drum Inscription also occupies a high position in the history of Chinese characters and calligraphy. As a Qin script before Qin Shihuang's "Tongshu script", "Shiguwen" is a typical representative of the seal script style and can be called the "ancestor of seal script".
Alliance writing: The alliance writing in the early Warring States period, unearthed in 1965 at the Jincheng site in Houma, Shanxi, is not only a typical representative of early Chinese alliance writing documents, but also a typical representative of early calligraphy documents. The "alliance book", also called the "containing book", is a special document that records the alliance oath letter; it is usually made in multiple copies, one is kept in the alliance mansion, one is buried underground, and the others are kept by the alliance partners. Most of the Houma League books were written on Gui-shaped jade pieces with a brush. Although their fonts were similar to the bronze inscriptions of the time, they were less carved and looked much more natural.
Jianbo writing: Jian refers to Jian Ce, and Bo refers to silk books, which are called according to the materials. Unearthed cultural relics prove that from the Warring States Period to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, people mainly used narrow bamboo or wood chips to write. Bamboo pieces are called bamboo slips, and wood pieces are called bamboo slips or slips. They are collectively called slips and slips. Several briefs are compiled together and called Ce (tong "book"), and the series are called "Jian Ce". In the last years of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, King Lu of Lu demolished Confucius's old residence in order to expand his palace, and found a large number of bamboo slips from the Warring States Period in the walls. This was the earliest batch of bamboo slips discovered in Chinese history. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty, someone robbed the tomb of King Wei Xiang of the Warring States Period in Ji County, and dozens of cartloads of bamboo slips with characters were unearthed from the tomb. This was another large discovery of bamboo slips in Chinese history. Because the Warring States characters on the bamboo slips were written using ancient official script, with a sharper starting stroke and a heavier final stroke, resembling a tadpole, people called it "tadpole writing".
Seal text: According to documentary records and unearthed objects, seals appeared around the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, and were very popular during the Warring States Period, which corresponded to the situation of frequent wars and developed trade at that time. Studying the seal characters will help to further explore the characteristics and application of Chinese characters. However, it is obviously impossible to reasonably arrange a number of square Chinese characters in a limited square frame without specialized technology and profound aesthetic accomplishment.
Currency characters: characters used on commodity trading media, such as cloth coins, knife coins, round coins, etc.
4. Seal script
Large seal script and small seal script Collectively known as seal script, it was mainly popular before the Han Dynasty. Dazhuan is a relatively broad term, generally referring to pre-Qin texts such as "Shuowen", "Shuowen" and "Shiguwen". After Qin Shihuang unified China, he adopted the opinions of Prime Minister Li Si and actively promoted the policy of unifying the national script. He simplified and deleted the Qin Dynasty's inherent Xiwen form, and formed a new official font called Xiaozhuan. Li Si was the first master of seal script in history and the main planner and implementer of the Qin Dynasty's unified writing policy.
The characteristic of seal script is that the font structure is neat. No matter how many strokes there are, they are all elongated and written one by one. The sparseness, density, length and shortness of the strokes must be well coordinated. Chinese characters have developed into the Xiaozhuan stage. From strokes to structure, they have become stereotyped as never before, which plays a great role in the standardization of Chinese characters. However, Xiaozhuan is rarely used in practice. The surviving ones include Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" and some carved stones. The seal script font is solemn and majestic, so after regular script became common, it was still used as seal font and plaque text.
The main stone carvings of the Qin Dynasty include "Yishan Carving Stone", "Taishan Carving Stone", "Langyatai Stone Carving", "Zhifu Stone Carving", "Jieshi Gate Stone Carving", "Kaiji Stone Carving", etc. They are all carved based on the seal script of Li Si, the Prime Minister of the Qin Dynasty.
5. Official Script
Wei Heng of the Jin Dynasty said in "Four Body Scripts": "Since the Qin Dynasty used seal script, there were many things to do, and it was difficult to write seal characters, so the official script was ordered , called official script. Those who write official script are also good at seal script. This means that compared with small seal script, official script is a more convenient and easy-to-write style. Because government affairs are complicated and a large number of documents need to be written, official script is used. Ordinary petty officials assisted in writing.
The official script of the Qin Dynasty is very close to the Xiaozhuan script. Because it was popular in the Qin Dynasty, it was called "Qin Li". After the evolution of Qin Li, it gradually broke away from the seal meaning and further lost the pictographic meaning of Chinese characters. As a result, it formed its own unique style characteristics: the character shape is flat, the structure of the characters is mostly square and angular, and the strokes are thick and thin, forming waves and challenges. Method, the so-called "twists and turns, silkworm head and swallow tail", has caused a qualitative change in the shape of Chinese characters. Modern writing below the official script has weakened its pictographic nature and strengthened its symbolic nature, becoming a watershed between ancient writing and modern writing.
Generally speaking, the "twists and turns, silkworm head and swallow tail" style of official script mainly refers to the "Han Li" that was popular from the middle of the Western Han Dynasty to the early Jin Dynasty. Because the Han Dynasty official pays attention to the shape of the strokes, especially the strokes and strokes, which are separated from the left and right like the character "eight", it is also called "eight points".
According to the latest data unearthed from archaeological excavations, ancient scribes existed before the Qin dynasty. Looking at the words and explanations on the bamboo slips unearthed from the tomb sites of the Qin Dynasty, we can see that the handwriting has more official meanings, with waves and picks, and the writing is much more sloppy and faster than the small seal script that appeared later. The key reason why official script is simpler and easier to write than seal script lies in the "official script". The so-called "official change" refers to the change in the shape of the seal script through the transfer of official script.
6. Cursive Script
Broadly speaking, cursive script is a relatively sloppy font. Ancient characters have the sloppy writing of ancient characters, and modern characters have the sloppy writing of modern characters. In a narrow sense, cursive script is a calligraphy style characterized by connected strokes and simple structure.
Liang Kaidi Xiao Yan's "Cursive Script" believes that the emergence of Jincao is due to: "The princes competed for leadership, and the simple messages were passed down from generation to generation. They were looking for beacons to leave the post, but they could not save the time due to the difficulty of seal script and official script, so they made "The calligraphy written in urgent need is the modern cursive script." This shows that cursive script was created for the convenience of writing. The first time in history that the name of cursive script was mentioned was "Shuowen Jiezi? Xu", which clearly pointed out that "cursive script existed in the Han Dynasty".
Font characteristics: Cursive script itself also has a tuxedo evolution process. Generally speaking, from the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, major forms such as Zhangcao, Jincao and Kuangcao appeared successively. "Zhangcao" has strict organizational rules, so people call the cursive script with official script in the Han Dynasty "Zhangcao" and the later cursive script with regular script "jincao". Generally speaking, cursive script refers to "modern cursive script".
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, a famous cursive calligrapher Zhang Zhi, named Boying, appeared. His calligraphy was exquisite and he was known as the "Sage of Cursive". Zhang Huaiguan's "Shu Duan" of the Tang Dynasty listed Zhang Zhi's Zhangcao and Jincao as divine products. In the Tang Dynasty, another famous cursive calligrapher Zhang Xu appeared, named Bogao, who pioneered "Kang Cao" and was known as "Cao Xian". Kuangcao is a further artistic expression of Jincao. It is often a series of figures, continuous and wanton, with very strange and beautiful shapes.
7. Regular script
Regular script can be used as a model for practicing calligraphy, so it is called regular script. Regular script is a calligraphy style that is based on the Han Li script, with the addition of hooks and hooks. It is also called "zhengshu" or "zhenshu". Regular script evolved from Han Li, so it was also called "Jin Li" in history. In the Three Kingdoms period, Wei Zhongyao and Jin Wang Xizhi further standardized the style and made regular script a completely independent style.
Compared with official script, the lines of regular script are straighter, and the stereotypes of glyphs are further strengthened. Specifically, the writing style of Han Li is mostly flat and square in shape and spread outwards, while the writing style of regular script is generally rectangular in shape and concentrated inwards. The pens used in Han official script mostly have ripples, and the thickness changes greatly, while the pens used in regular script are either relatively stable or have hard breaks, and the thickness changes relatively little. Regular script has strict rules and very standardized writing forms, such as the "Eight Methods of Yongzi" and so on.
In the history of regular script, various regular script styles have appeared, such as Wei style, European style, Chu style, Yan style, Liu style, Shoujin style, Zhao style, etc. The so-called "Wei style" refers to the calligraphy on stone carvings, cliffs and statues in the Yuan and Wei Dynasties in the Northern Dynasties. It is also called "Northern stele style" or "Wei stele style". Wei style has various postures, but is mainly square and dignified. It was an important calligraphy style during the period of Li Kai reform. "European style" is the regular script style created by Ouyang Xun in the Tang Dynasty. "Chu style" is a regular script style created by Chu Suiliang in the Tang Dynasty. "Yan style" is a regular script style created by Yan Zhenqing in the Tang Dynasty. "Liu style" is the regular script style created by Liu Gongquan in the Tang Dynasty. "Thin Gold Style" is a regular script style created by Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, based on the regular script style of Xue Ji of the Tang Dynasty. "Zhao style" is a regular script style created by Zhao Menfu in the Yuan Dynasty. Among the many regular script styles, the majestic and solemn "Yan style" and the powerful and gorgeous "Thin Gold style" deserve special attention.
8. Running script
Running script is a calligraphy style between cursive script and regular script. It is also the most commonly used calligraphy style in daily life. Therefore, it can be said that it is regular script. The regularization of cursive or cursive writing. Zhang Huaiguan, a native of the Tang Dynasty, said: "It's not true or crude, it's called running script." In fact, cursive script was created to remedy the difficulty of legible cursive script and the slowness of regular script writing. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, cursive script and regular script became popular. On the one hand, cursive script accepted the influence of cursive script, but corrected the irregularity of cursive script. On the other hand, cursive script accepted the influence of regular script, while avoiding the laborious writing of regular script. Running script is somewhere between cursive script and regular script, taking advantage of both aspects.
Exinguing script is a style of writing between cursive script and regular script. If there are many cursive scripts, it can also be called "cursive script" or "Xingcao"; if there are many regular script elements, it can also be called "Xingkai script". ” or “True”. Liu Xizai of the Qing Dynasty said in "Yi Gui": "There are true lines and cursive lines. The true line is close to the truth and indulges in the truth, while the cursive line is close to the grass and converges to the grass."
There are many famous calligraphers in the past dynasties, and The first recommendation is Wang Xizhi of the Jin Dynasty. Wang Xizhi, also known as Yi Shao. Because he served as a general of the Right Army and an internal historian of Kuaiji, he was also called Wang Youjun and Wang Kuaiji. When he was young, he carefully studied Mrs. Wei's calligraphy. Later, he learned Zhang Zhi's cursive script and Chuan Yao's regular script. He learned from the strengths of others and studied the calligraphy carefully. He changed the simple calligraphy style of the Han and Wei dynasties, created a beautiful and smooth calligraphy, and achieved A magical realm, unparalleled in ancient and modern times. Wang Xizhi's calligraphy has been handed down from generation to generation, and the most famous one is naturally "Lanting Preface", which is classified as the best running script by calligraphers. Some great calligraphers in the Tang Dynasty were not only good at regular script, but also famous for running script, such as Ouyang Xun, Yu Shinan, Yan Zhenqing, Chu Suiliang, Xue Ji, etc. In the Song Dynasty, more famous figures such as Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, Mi Fu, and Cai Xiang emerged in large numbers.