At present, the silk ink on bamboo slips was first discovered in the early Warring States period. During the Warring States period, Chu bamboo slips and Chu silk books were the bulk of ink. In addition to Chu and Mo, Qin and Mo also include Qingchuan wooden slips in the early Warring States period and a large number of Qin bamboo slips in Tianshui Fangmatan, Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Land in Hubei Province and Liye in Longshan, Hunan Province from the late Warring States period to the period of Qin reunification. Because there is only one piece of wooden slips in Qingchuan, and the time of Shuihudi and Liye slips is late, we will talk about it in the next section. Only Chu bamboo slips and silk books are discussed here.
1. Bamboo Slip Calligraphy
Jane and Xie have some differences in form. Jane is generally narrow, usually only one line is written in a Jane, and occasionally two or more lines are written. "Explanation of Famous Books" says: "Jane also has a room, and the articles compiled have a room." Bamboo slips are the main ones, and there are also wooden slips in Han Dynasty. Bamboo slips are relatively wide and can be written in multiple lines, with wood as the object. Bamboo slips can be written independently, and the slips must be compiled into books, so they are called "simple books" or "simple strategies". This is the place where later books were divided into volumes, volumes and edited. Because Jane can be compiled into a book, which is easy to roll up for storage and dissemination, it is mostly used to record and write a large number of long documents and books. But bamboo slips are mostly used for short chapters such as inscriptions and book introductions. Those who "don't fake the combination, but put all the books on one board" as mentioned in the book "Yili". Before the invention of paper, bamboo slips were the main carrier of calligraphy ink. Therefore, during the long 600 years from the early years of the Warring States to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, bamboo slips calligraphy not only has a large number of excellent works for us to appreciate and learn from, but also plays a very important role in the whole history of calligraphy development in China. Bamboo slips calligraphy has two very important aspects to the development of China calligraphy, namely posture and brushwork.
The calligraphy in pre-Qin Dynasty established the vertical seal script font with vertical painting as the main character, but how to develop and transition to the horizontal script font with horizontal painting as the main character in Han Dynasty? What caused such a remarkable change from vertical to horizontal? This is obviously not artificial, sudden, mandatory laws and regulations can do. Tongwen Lu of Qin Dynasty only standardized the radical structure of Chinese characters in the sense of philology, and did not require the body to change from vertical to horizontal. From this perspective, the reason for this change can only be due to long-term, massive and practical writing. A lot of characters, written on bamboo slips (exactly, written on bamboo slips), are like the fibrous structure of Oracle bones, which makes it easier to carve longitudinal lines. Therefore, the trend of Oracle characters is mainly vertical painting, and vertical painting is often carved first, and then horizontal painting is supplemented. Materials and techniques determine the character's style and construct the most basic style of writing. When characters are applied to a given material and a given space, they must be organically combined with this material, and they must seek proper existence in this given space, conform to this space and fully enrich this space. The changes made to Oracle Bone Inscriptions by inscriptions on bronze in the two weeks are mainly manifested in the roundness and purity of linear structure and the neatness and order of internal structure, but they still follow the tradition of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the longitudinal direction of the body. Although it is completely possible to change the body posture, it is not necessary. The words were quickly written on the narrow bamboo slips, one line down. If we want to get writing speed, write as many words as possible on a bamboo slip or wooden slip, and overlapping horizontal lines will become more and more dominant. Bamboo slips are given a strip space instead of a line, and writers should write more words quickly on a line. This is different from other plane spaces. There is something wrong with plane spaces. Judging from the increasing number of horizontal paintings in the bamboo slips of the Warring States period, we can clearly feel the inevitability of this change. These horizontal paintings, which run through simple sketches from left to right, are so firm and decisive that they gradually affect the body posture. For example, a kind of characters with horizontal pictures in Baoshan bamboo slips numbered 228, such as "Si, Ma, Zhi, Wang, Wei, Ming", were often regarded as a tall figure stretched vertically in previous or contemporary inscriptions, but in bamboo slips, it was already a horizontal knot. It has gone through a long process from the initial vertical seal style to the final establishment of the horizontal script style in Han Dynasty. During this period, different writers in different regions handled each work differently, and there were also repeated and individual special treatments in the middle, but from the statistical point of view, this change can achieve the same goal by writing multiple lines. In other words, the difference between them is that it is a line.
Do you want to write more words in Chinese or more lines in an article? Write a few more words on a line, with the spacing between words as close as possible, and the font will be compressed vertically into a horizontal trend; More words should be written in one article, the line spacing is relatively close, and the glyph is squeezed horizontally into a vertical trend. As the most important writing material at that time, when calligraphy ink was popular, it was only an obvious and inevitable trend that the two met and the writing style changed from vertical to horizontal. Sensitive to materials, sensitive to a given space, and writing purposefully without thinking are the qualities that all excellent writers or calligraphers must possess.
Regarding the brushwork of bamboo slips, we just want to point out the fact that calligraphy ink developed from the bronze inscriptions in the Western Zhou Dynasty and even the pure seal script in the Qin Dynasty, and became the forerunner of the calligraphy style of official script and cursive script in later generations. With regard to brushwork, more people pay attention to the superficial form, which is not wrong, but to grasp the brushwork fundamentally, we must further explore the internal reasons of different forms. The following is a comparison between seal script strokes and bamboo slips ink strokes.
Through the above comparison, we can know that the brushwork of bamboo slips ink is developed from the brushwork of seal script, and it has become the same origin of the brushwork of official script, regular script, running script and cursive script in later generations. The brushwork of "Kai", "Xing" and "cursive script" came into being after the dissolution of Lishu in the late Han Dynasty, which is the natural development of calligraphy brushwork and ink brushwork.
Let's talk about Chu bamboo slips calligraphy in detail.
From 195 1 up to now, a large number of Chu bamboo slips have been unearthed in Chu tombs of the Warring States in Hunan, Hubei and Henan provinces. The specific locations are Changsha Wulipai, Yangtianhu, Yangjiawan, Xinyang Changtaiguan, Jiangling Wangshan, Tengdian, Tianxingguan, Jiudian, Jingmen Baoshan, Guodian, Linli Jiuli, Changde and Cili shi ban cun. There are also 240 bamboo slips unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Houyi in Sui County, Hubei Province, which belong to Chu system.
Among Chu bamboo slips, the bamboo slips of Zeng Houyi's tomb are the earliest. According to the gift given to Ceng Houyi by the King of Chu, it is generally believed that the time is fifty years (433 years before) of King Hui of Chu. Bamboo slips are a kind of relic, which records the funerary objects such as horses and chariots, armor and soldiers. Jane is generally 70 cm long and 1 cm wide. The writing structure is similar to that of Chu bamboo slips, and the brushwork obviously has the characteristics of tadpole brushwork in China ancient Jin Dynasty, that is, the pen is heavy and light, with a thick head and a thin tail, which is tadpole-shaped. Zeng Guo's geographical position is close to the Central Plains, so it is possible that his calligraphy style and brushwork were influenced by the Jin Dynasty. Because words belong to the category of posting strategies and are buried behind books, they are careless, so they show a simple and naive style.
The official of Baoshan Chu Tomb lives in Zuoyin and has a high position, so its document files and records of divination prayers are naturally different from those of border guards, and should be made by good writers. For example, Jane numbered 1 19, 68.2 cm long and 0.8 cm wide, is a record of prison proceedings, with a line of 40 words. The brushwork is clever and hovering, and sometimes there are purple bands, such as the word "line" and "yang", from which we can see the clue of cursive script. In such rapid writing, the font is well controlled, such as the circular structure of "Yue", two strokes are completed, the pen body is round and the pen is tightly closed, from which we can see the writer's superb control skills of the brush. Another example is the Jane numbered 180, which is heavy and light, showing the tadpole brushwork; The number 206 Jane is thick with a pen, similar to the brushwork of Chu silk. The styles of Baoshan bamboo slips are diverse, which is a model of daily calligraphy and official document records. Among Guodian bamboo slips, Yu Cong San has the most elegant style and relatively peaceful and rigorous structure. Although the brushwork is ingenious and the stippling thickness changes, the layout of Shu Lang still has the ancient meaning of seal script as a whole. The styles of Cheng Zhi and Xing Fei are still mainly vertical, but the horizontal style is much wider than that of Yu Cong San. His brushwork is funny, and stippling often makes an S-shaped swing. For example, when he painted horizontally, the pen fell from the master's pen and then put it down at the pen-receiving place, making his works elegant and beautiful, which seems to be different from Yu Cong San. "Series 4" is obviously written by another author. Round and thick lines, writing can start, walk and stop, and the body is especially thick.
In addition to archaeological excavations, there are many unearthed bamboo slips. The Shanghai Museum has a large collection of such Chu bamboo slips, including ancient manuscripts such as Confucius' Poems, Drought in Lu, Zi Lamb (Figure 1.35), Fan Yi (Figure 4) and Parents' Man (Figure 1.36). Among them, Confucius on Poetry and Zi Lamb are similar in style, with thick lines and many dots when painting vertically. The pattern of "distribution" is broad and full of real power. The "parents" have a flying state, which can be used as a reference for the decoration fashion of Chu bronzes.
Chu bamboo books are rich and colorful, and the environment is vast. Because Qin Shihuang's "Shu Tong Wen" is inconsistent with Qin Wen except for the glyph structure, the glory of Chu calligraphy is unsustainable and almost becomes Guangling San.
2. Silk script
One of Chu's calligraphy works can't be ignored, that is, the silk calligraphy unearthed from Changsha ammunition depot (figure 1.37), which is the only combination of calligraphy and painting found so far in the Warring States period. Silk book 1942 was stolen, with a longitudinal length of about 38 cm and a transverse length of about 47 cm. In the middle of the book, there are two paragraphs in opposite directions, collectively called A and B. Chapter A is called Four Seasons, which states the sequence of the four seasons. Chapter 13 "astronomical phenomena" records the changes of astronomical phenomena. The silk book is painted with the god of December, and there are four-color trees in the four corners instead of four trees. Every month, there are also words under God, recording the name of God and the so-called "avoiding the moon" to distinguish good from bad. Chu Silk Book is the earliest complete work written directly on silk fabrics. The ink on silk books and bamboo slips is different from that on Meng Jin's books. This is a work created in a relatively wide and stretched space. The font is slightly horizontal, graceful and graceful, and the writing speed is different from that of bamboo slips, not stimulation, but self-discipline The greatest contribution of silk book should be its composition. The two characters in the middle, A and B, are opposites, juxtaposed in the distance, but independent in the near trial. There are about 250 words in Part A and nearly 400 words in Part B. Such macro articles are arranged neatly, echoing from beginning to end, and there is a hidden order in the middle, which shows the rigor of their brushwork. The names of the gods in December and the surrounding words "avoiding the moon" are accompanied by drawings, each with a division of labor, but they also show random changes from time to time. There were also silk books in Changsha's hometown in Han Dynasty, but compared with this, it was slightly involved in copying books, so there was no such plan, and the statutes were harsh and unpredictable.
In addition, a piece of silk calligraphy was unearthed in the same tomb, which is 13 Zhu Lan ink calligraphy. There are two silk scripts in Mashan No.1 Chu Tomb, which shows that silk scripts were mostly used as writing materials here at that time. There are not many words in the two fragments, especially the Mashan silk script, which has only three words and the handwriting is very cursive, so I won't elaborate.