As a work of art, the value of seal is generally manifested in two aspects. First, its shape design, that is, the design of printed buttons, casting skills and later higher-level deep processing skills; The second is the calligraphy of printed characters, seal cutting. At first, the design of printed buttons was mainly practical, which was used to tie ribbons around the waist, such as tile buttons and nose buttons.
(2) button to print the form
① Head button
This is the most common seal button in ancient China, and it was named because the hole was as small as a nose. This form was widely used in the official seal and private seal in the pre-Qin period. After the Han dynasty, the official seal nose buckle became larger, so it was also called tile buckle and bridge buckle.
② Turtle button
Turtle buttons are also the most common button system in official seals. The combination of tortoise and snake is called Xuanwu, which is a personality god and has evolved into a famous place of martial arts. In addition, the tortoise is homophonic with your name, which is a symbol of longevity and good luck.
③ Snake button
Snake clasp is rare, but the seal awarded to the king of Yunnan adopts snake clasp. There are records of sheep buckle, horse buckle and rabbit buckle sent to other ethnic leaders.
In addition, animal buttons such as deer buttons, turtle buttons and fish buttons are also found in historical records and unearthed cultural relics. It is particularly worth mentioning that the tiger button, also known as the tiger button, is used by both emperors and queens. Spine is a kind of dragon. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the emperor's seal used the shape of a thorn as a button.
Due to the extensive and in-depth use of seals among officials and people and the diversification of printing materials, a broader space has been created for the design and manufacture of printed buttons. Therefore, in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, seal cutting gained unprecedented prosperity.
The design of buttons has also broken through the above button system, and all kinds of animals, insects, birds and flowers are also reflected in the design of buttons. In this form, copper seal, as a printing material that has been passed down in China for thousands of years, did not decline in the competition with lithograph materials that appeared in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, but a large number of exquisite copper seals went to the market and passed down to future generations.
Compared with other printing materials such as stone, wood, horn, ivory and plexiglass, copper printing materials are durable, handed down from generation to generation, rich in artistic forms and suitable for processing. The color of copper seal is more solemn, which can be more detailed and hollow than the above-mentioned printing materials. With the surface deep processing technology such as wrong gold, wrong silver, bronzing and carving, the bronze seal can show the royal eternal, lasting, solemn and noble style at a higher level.