Is the printing style of the Song Dynasty italic, imitation Song style or Song style?

Song style is a Chinese character font that appeared to adapt to printing. The strokes have thickness changes, and they are generally horizontal and vertical, with decorative parts at the end (i.e., "feet" or "serifs"), and strokes such as dots, apostrophes, pinchs, hooks, etc., have tips, which belong to the white body, and are often used in the text typesetting of books, magazines, and newspapers. Because it was introduced to Japan from the Ming Dynasty, it is also known as the Ming Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty.

The Song style is a printed body born with it, which was produced in engraving and formed in the Ming Dynasty. In recent years, some people have rumored that it is called Qin Hui.

The creation is groundless, and there is neither historical record nor documentary support. In the existing literature, it can be clearly found that both the imitation Song and the Song style were formed in the bookstore. The Song was defeated by the Jin Dynasty.

Later, it was thought that the reprint remained in the Northern Song Dynasty.

Books of the Southern Song Dynasty.

Many publishers have been established on Pengbei Street in Lin'an, the capital, among which there is Chen Qi's Chen Zhai Book Shop. The books published by Chen Zhai Book Shop have a very distinctive regular script font. This font, imitated by later generations, is the modern so-called "imitation Song style", which has become the basis of Song style. <>

The early engraving fonts of engraving printing are often written by calligraphers after the regular script is directly engraved by the engravers, and the engravers respect the calligraphers very much, and the engraved fonts are as much as possible to preserve the characteristics of the calligraphers. Therefore, it also has a strong flavor of block calligraphy. This kind of character is the predecessor of what we call "imitation Song style" today, and it is also the predecessor of "Song style".

Therefore, the evolution process of Song characters is through the engraving printing technology from calligraphy block letters to imitation Song style and then to Song style. But why is it that the imitation Song style that was produced in the Tang and Song dynasties before the Song style characters is called the imitation Song style? It turned out that this was when China entered lead movable type printing.

In 1916, China's famous calligraphers and seal carvers Ding Fuzhi and Ding Shanzhi two brothers referred to the Northern Song Dynasty ancient carved rare book imitation production, at that time named "Juzhen imitation Song". After that, Shanghai Huafeng Mold Casting Printing Institute and Baisong Casting Printing Factory have a variety of imitation Song Dynasty styles. Today, the imitation Song style has become the hard pen orthography of our country.

"Imitation of Song style" is not completely imitated from the font of a calligrapher or celebrity in the Song Dynasty, but is modeled after the engraving font of the Song version of the book. Prudence.

Why imitate the Song and not the Sui and Tang dynasties or the Ming and Qing dynasties? Imitation of the Sui and Tang dynasties, there were no large-scale engraving and printing books at that time, and the selection of words was obviously insufficient; Imitation of the Ming and Qing dynasties is better than directly imitating the Song Dynasty. Because most of the engraving fonts of the Ming and Qing dynasties were created in imitation of the Song Dynasty, or indirectly derived from the Song version of the font.

Imitation Song writing is more convenient and faster than Song and Heiti, because as long as the character grid is calculated, it can be written directly with a fountain pen or a wide brush (a harder wolf pen is required). On the other hand, the imitation Song style pays attention to the structure and modeling, which is relatively close to the regular script, and more practice of the imitation Song style is conducive to accurately grasp the basic structure of Chinese characters, and on this basis, it is more convenient and fast to learn other art fonts. Therefore, some comrades advocate that the study of art characters should start with the study of imitation Song style, which is also very reasonable.

The imitation Song style is developed and evolved from italics, and the economy of the Song Dynasty in China has developed to a certain extent, and our ancestors first invented printing. In order to meet the needs of engraving printing, the engravers require a more neat and standardized font than the regular script, and they have created a horizontal and vertical, more standardized engraving font after continuous exploration, which is very close to the italics, and there is not much difference in horizontal and solid strokes. In the Ming Dynasty, this kind of engraving font developed more standardized, becoming a horizontal and vertical, slightly angular font, later generations called the old Song style.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Qiantang Ding Fuzhi Luzi, Ding Shanzhi and others set the Song Dynasty engraved font, imitating a kind of printing movable type font, this font is equal in horizontal and vertical thickness, beautiful strokes, the glyph is rectangular, delicate and beautiful.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Ding Fuzhi and Ding Sanzai, who were the presidents of the Xiling Seal Society, decided to recruit Song edition books, and personally imitated and engraved movable type. By 1916, this kind of italic font after the processing and design of the two brothers, this font that imitated the unified modification of the European style (Ouyang Xunshu style), because the original shape of the font was from the Song version of the book, was named "imitation Song style".

It should be regular script, many people will think of Song style, in fact, Song style is a font suitable for engraving printing, and the establishment of the name of the shouting limb was later than the Song Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty to be perfected and matured.

In terms of font structure, regular script is similar to official script, but regular script has changed the way of writing the strokes of official script, and changed from a flat official script to a regular script that basically presents a square shape, that is, the so-called square character. Regular script is also known as the main book and the real book, which shows that the regular script is a formal book style that provides people to learn and use. The earliest regular script calligrapher was Zhong Xuan at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and from the works that have been handed down, there are still some remnants of the brushwork of Lishu.

The regular script has undergone a lot of changes in the period of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and it is basically finalized after the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the regular script after the stereotype, the strokes and structure are all delicate and rigorous in Zheng Shidang, such as the work of the famous calligrapher Ouyang Xun in the Tang Dynasty is one of the models.

After the Chinese Wenzhou parallel character into the regular script stage, the glyph continues to be simplified, but the font has not changed much, as one of the four major inventions of our country's printing technology, is to use the regular script as the main font for printing, in the Song Dynasty engraved books, the regular script is artistic, written more regular and beautiful, called Song style, and later there is imitation of Song style characters and changes, called imitation Song style. The fonts used in the books and newspapers we read today are roughly variations of this style of regular script.

The official font of the Song Dynasty is: 宋体.

The regions where Song Jin is used: Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Japan.

Song style is a Chinese character font that appeared to adapt to printing. It is often used for the text typesetting of books, magazines, and newspapers. Because it was introduced to Japan from the Ming Dynasty, it is also called Ming and Ming Dynasty.

The Song style is a printed body born with it, which was produced in engraving and formed in the Ming Dynasty. The printing and publishing industry entered the first era in the Song Dynasty, with the prosperity of engraving printing, the rapid development of the book engraving center, and the invention of movable type printing. The Yuan and Ming Dynasty copied a large number of Song books, and the Song characters were established in the Ming Dynasty.

Features: Song characters are easy to write and engrave, the font is beautiful and dignified, adapts to the industry operation requirements of the printing and publishing industry, and becomes a witness to the cultural excellence of the Song Dynasty. The combination of Chinese calligraphy and block printing gave rise to the Song style characters in early days.

Therefore, Song characters not only have the charm of Chinese calligraphy, but also have the charm of engraving and woodblock knife carving.

The basic writing of the imitation Song font is: horizontal and vertical, clear ups and downs, consistent thickness, hook length and sharpness, uniform structure, and full of squares.

The dot "dot" in Chinese characters has different shapes depending on the position. Horizontal: "Horizontal" is the pillar of the word, and it should be written flat. The "flat" here is horizontal, but flat with a slight slope to the upper right.

Vertical "vertical" should be written straight, and the center of gravity of the word can be stable. Apostrophe: "Apostrophe" is characterized by a curved tail with a thin tip. The shape of the pen is long, and the shape is undulating.

Songti features:

This involves another font, Songti. What are the characteristics of Song Ti? Horizontal and vertical, horizontal and vertical, horizontal and vertical strokes are very thick, and the ends of each stroke are also thicker, these are not the characteristics of handwriting with a brush.

The horizontal and vertical strokes of the imitation Song style are uniform, the starting and falling strokes are oblique, the brushwork is sharp, the structure is tight, and the elegance is delicate. In contrast, the strokes of the Song style characters derived from the Ming Dynasty inscriptions have variations in thickness.

It is also generally thin and vertical, with decorative parts at the end (i.e., "foot" or "serif"), and strokes such as dots, apostrophes, pinchs, and hooks with tips, and is often used for the layout of the text of books, magazines, and newspapers.

The official font of the Song Dynasty is: 宋体.

The Song style has been produced in the Song Dynasty, but it is not mature, and the Song Dynasty advocates the imitation calligraphy font of Yan Ti, Liu Ti, and European Ti. Woodblock printing appeared in the Song Dynasty in China, and since Chinese books at that time were printed with two pages per page, rectangular wooden plates were used to engrave plates. The wood board has a wood grain, which is generally horizontal, and the horizontal lines of the engraved characters are consistent with the wood grain, which is relatively strong; However, when the vertical lines of the characters are engraved, they are intersected with the wood grain, and they are easy to break.

Therefore, the vertical lines of the font are thicker and the horizontal lines are thinner. Horizontal lines, even if they are stronger, tend to wear and tear at the ends, so the endpoints are thicker. This produces a Songti glyph with vertical thickness and horizontal thinness, and a thick point at the end of the horizontal line.

2.Until the Ming Dynasty, due to economic factors, the Song style, which occupied a smaller layout, gradually became popular, and was criticized by the literati of the Ming Dynasty due to the lack of change in the artistic poor ethnic nature of this font"Craftsman characters"。The Song style spread to Japan and was called the Ming Dynasty style by Japan.

Today, it has become the mainstream printing font in the Chinese character cultural circle.

3.After the introduction of modern printing technology to China, Chinese people have been accustomed to reading books printed in Song style for more than a thousand years, so modern lead characters also use Song style printing. Later, according to the Heiti and Italian scripts of Western characters, Heiti and Song-like lead characters were also created in Chinese character printing.

4.Song font is the most widely used font in the printing industry, according to the shape of the word, it is divided into book Song and newspaper Song. Song style is a printing font that originated in the Song Dynasty during engraving printing.

The glyph of Song style characters is square, the strokes are horizontal and vertical, horizontal and vertical, the edges and corners are distinct, the structure is strict and the key is strict, neat and even, and there is a strong regularity of strokes, so that people have a comfortable and eye-catching feeling when reading. In modern printing, it is mainly used in the body part of books or newspapers.

5.In the Song Dynasty, "culture and education were revived, and military affairs were suppressed", and the culture showed an unprecedented prosperity scene. The printing and publishing industry entered the first era in the Song Dynasty, engraving printing flourished, the development of the book engraving center was faster than the chain, and movable type printing was invented.

The Yuan and Ming Dynasty copied a large number of Song books, and the Song characters were established in the Ming Dynasty. The Song style characters are easy to write and engrave, and the font is beautiful and dignified, which adapts to the requirements of the printing and publishing industry, and becomes a witness to the cultural excellence of the Song Dynasty.

6.The combination of Chinese calligraphy and woodblock printing produced Song Ti characters, so Song Ti characters not only have the charm of Chinese calligraphy, but also have the charm of woodblock printing and woodblock knife engraving.