Evolution of characters
Almost everyone of us has had such a question, what is the original text like? How did it develop step by step to today? Ok, let's talk about the evolution of words.
1959, some pottery was unearthed in Dawenkou, Shandong Province, with some symbols engraved on it, which can be considered as the embryonic characters of the early period (about 4300 BC). But at present, the relatively complete writing that has begun to take shape is Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Yin and Shang Dynasties. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, many tortoise shells and animal bones were found in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province, with characters engraved on them, which aroused great interest in academic circles and called this kind of characters Oracle Bone Inscriptions.
With the development of society, fonts are constantly evolving. Bronze inscriptions from Shang Dynasty to Qin Dynasty were developed on the basis of Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Bronze inscriptions are the general name for bronze inscriptions. Ancient bronzes were mostly Zhong Ding, so they were also called Zhong Dingwen. Compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the inscriptions on bronzes are much richer, with symmetrical size, lines and certain decorative features.
We have studied history, and we all know that during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the warlord scuffle also resulted in abnormal language and writing. It was not until Qin Shihuang unified the six countries that the characters were unified into biographies. Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jin Wen used to be known as Da Zhuan, and The Carving of Stone in Langxietai and Mount Tai handed down from generation to generation are all masterpieces of Xiao Zhuan. Although the seal script is standardized and looks beautiful, it is not easy to write and its application is not satisfactory. People's hope for writing, a tool to spread the thought recording language, is that the more convenient it is, the better, so a new font, official script, appeared on the basis of Xiao Zhuan. According to legend, the founder of official script is Cheng Miao. Because he offended Qin Shihuang, he went to prison and spent ten years in prison, sorting out a set of new fonts with simple application, which was called official script by later generations. Qin Shihuang was very happy. He not only pardoned his crimes, but also made him an empire.
In the Han Dynasty, official script gradually matured and occupied a major position. At this time, due to the improvement of people's aesthetic consciousness, the official script has been beautifully written, leaving many famous monuments, such as Zhang Qianbei, Shimen Song, Cao Quanbei, etc., which is still the best model for learning official script.
Official script further evolved into regular script, which is the font we use today. Richer and more complete than official script. During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhong You made great contributions to the processing and arrangement of regular script. In the Tang Dynasty, culture was highly developed and calligraphy reached its peak. A large number of famous writers who are good at regular script have emerged, such as Ou Yangxun, Yu Shinan, Chu Suiliang, Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan.
Besides, cursive script. Cursive script came into being after regular script appeared. "Grass" means preliminary and hasty. No matter which font is scrawled, it is cursive. As a special font, it only existed in Han Dynasty. By the end of the Han Dynasty, cursive script was very popular, first in Cao Zhang, then today's cursive script, and finally developed into wild grass and grass. There are many kinds of cursive scripts, which are not suitable for beginners to learn, so I won't say much here.
Finally, let's talk about running script. Running script is a font between regular script and cursive script, which was produced in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. The real period of prosperity was the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Wang Xizhi's masterpiece Preface to the Lanting Pavilion, known as the sage of books, was a running script. Because running script is more practical, writing is more convenient than regular script, and it is not as difficult to recognize as cursive script, so it is still the most commonly used font until today.
The evolution of China characters has gone through several stages: Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Dazhuan, Xiaozhuan, Lishu, cursive script, regular script and running script. This is in line with the development law of characters from complexity to simplicity and from nonstandard to standardized. Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Dazhuan and Xiaozhuan can be collectively called seal script. Then, seal script, official script, regular script, running script and cursive script constitute the five fonts of China's calligraphy. With the development of Chinese characters, regular script and running script are still in use, while seal script, official script and cursive script, especially seal script, are no longer used in daily life, but exist as a kind of calligraphy art.