Chinese calligraphy art began in the production stage of Chinese characters. "Sound cannot be transmitted to other places, but stays in different times, so words are born. Words are the traces of meaning and sound." (Yu Chu) "Shu Lin Zao Jian", compiled by Ma Zonghuo) Therefore, writing was produced. The first works of calligraphy were not words, but glyphs - hieroglyphs or pictorial characters.
The engraved symbols of Chinese characters first appeared on pottery. The initial characterization symbol only represented a rough concept of chaos and had no exact meaning.
More than 8,000 years ago, the Cishan and Peiligang cultures appeared in the Yellow River Basin. There were many quasi-text symbols on the handmade ceramics unearthed in Peiligan. These symbols were the ancestors of the ancestors. It is a chaotic combination of communication function, note-taking function and pattern decoration function. Although these are not Chinese characters that modern people can recognize, they are indeed the prototype of Chinese characters.
Following the Banpo site of the Yangshao Culture about 6,000 years ago, painted pottery with some simple depictions similar to characters was unearthed. These symbols are different from patterns and patterns, pushing the development of Chinese characters one step further. This can be said to be the origin of Chinese writing.
Aesthetics of calligraphy
1. Overall shape beauty
The basic shape of Chinese characters is square, but through the expansion and contraction of stipples and the twisting of the axis, it can also It can form a variety of different moving shapes to form beautiful calligraphy works.
2. The structural beauty of dot painting
There are two main ways to construct the structural beauty of dot painting. One is that various dot paintings are directly combined into various beautiful single-character characters according to certain combination methods. and radicals. The second refers to combining various radicals into various glyphs in a certain way.
3. The beauty of ink color combination
The artistry of the ink color combination mainly refers to the orderliness of its combination. As an art of calligraphy, its various colors can no longer be chaotic, but should be very orderly. There are also some different aesthetic principles here, which require writers to abide by. Such as the principle of focus, the principle of gradient, the principle of balance, etc.