During the Western Han Dynasty, whose calligraphy had the penmanship of seal script, there were no t

Seal calligraphy penmanship is thin and straight, more curves, less straight lines, the pen has a square pen, a round pen, a sharp pen, and the pen "hanging needle" is more. Seal script is divided into: large seal, small seal, the shape of the large seal is uniform and neat, and the font is easier to write than the script; The small seal is also called the Qin seal, which is the common script of the Qin State.

Lishu is characterized by the horizontal (left and right) to take the potential, the glyph is flat, the stroke shrinks the longitudinal gesture and strengthens the horizontal division, the silkworm head, in the process of using the pen to hide (reverse) the front, at the same time, the shape of the stroke formed by the pen process is written into a shape similar to the silkworm head, the pen swallowtail, the pen is closed to the upper right obliquely after the pen is picked up to the front, the circle is square, and the arc is.

The evolution of Chinese characters from seal script to official script is called official change.

The process by which Chinese characters evolved from seal script to official script. The font becomes rectangular to square, the line becomes arc to straight line, and the strokes become complicated and simple, and the strokes are completely stroked. Libian is a watershed between ancient and modern Chinese characters.

Coriander added - Wei Heng's "Four-Body Calligraphy" said: "Those who are subordinate to the book are also the seal of the Jie." It shows that the official book is a quick writing of the seal book, and the seal book has become the official book, which the predecessors called "the official change".

Lishu is a kind of font that has been simplified and evolved into a seal script. Because of the sloppy writing of the official script and the seal script, the two styles of writing have had a long period of coexistence from the late Warring States period to the middle and late Western Han Dynasty.

Judging from the archaeological data of the Qin script, the late Warring States period was the formative period of Lishu.

In the bronze inscriptions of the Qin Xiaogong era, you can see the coexistence of the orthodox and the vulgar, after the Qin Xiaogong, with the frequent writing, the vulgar style is becoming more and more popular, in the bronze inscriptions, lacquer inscriptions, and even the seals, pottery can be seen in the vulgar characters. These fonts have changed the formal seal script and have the meaning of official script.

Judging from the existing Qin Jian written materials, Lishu was basically formed in the late Warring States period.

The change from seal script to official script is the most important change in the evolution of Chinese characters.

There are five main characteristics of subordination:

1.Dissolve the seal and change it to a straight one: Lishu no longer takes into account the pictographic principle, and decomposes or changes the lines of the ancient character "Sui Ti 诘诎" into straight strokes for writing.

2.Partial differentiation: In Lishu, there is a clear difference between the writing of independent characters and those used as lateral.

3.Partial confusion: In order to be simple, the official book changes some obscure or more strokes to a more common side with a similar shape, fewer strokes.

4.Simplified structure: Lishu often combines the two strokes of the seal script into one stroke, or merges more than two sides or parts contained in the side to change it into a simpler stroke structure.

5.The circular lines become square folded broken strokes: in order to improve the writing speed, Lishu forms strokes such as points, horizontal, vertical, pinching, hooking, and folding.

First, the changes that have occurred.

1. From the small seal to the official script, it is the biggest change in the font, and it is the turning point of the ancient script to the modern script.

The "change of Lishu" from Xiao Seal to Lishu is a major calligraphy cultural event in the history of Chinese calligraphy. The internal motivation for the change was to adapt to the requirements of social development at that time for the use of words.

The subordinate change is mainly manifested in two aspects: one is the change of the glyph structure, which is not only the transformation of the glyph structure of the traditional seal script, but also the main direction of this transformation is simplification; The second is the change in the way of writing, which is not only to change the original way of writing in the traditional seal script, but also to make it simple and convenient."

The simplification of the glyph structure and the simplicity and convenience of the writing method are not only for the improvement of the writing speed, but also because it contains the internal writing movement situation that is more in line with the physiological movement trajectory of people, so that the official script was widely used at the turn of the Qin and Han dynasties with the political replacement and finally completely replaced the seal script.

2. The glyph structure of the small seal is broken, the pictographic meaning is weak, and the symbolism is strengthened.

The small seal strokes are horizontal and vertical, round and even, and the thickness is basically the same. All horizontal and vertical paintings are equidistant and parallel, all strokes are mainly circles, the circle is round, the circle is round, the circle is round, and the circle is square, so that the circle is alive and full of fun.

Lishu is also called "Lizi" and "Ancient Book". It is a font produced on the basis of seal script to meet the needs of convenient writing. The small seal is simplified, and the uniform and round lines of the small seal are turned into straight and square strokes, which are easy to write.

The glyphs of Lishu are mostly wide and flat, the horizontal painting is long and the vertical painting is short, pay attention to the "silkworm head and goose tail", "wave and three twists and turns".

3. The small seal has become a official script, and the basic pattern of modern character strokes has been formed.

The small seal and the official script are actually two systems that mark two major stages in the development of Chinese characters. In the Han and Han dynasties, Lishu not only eventually formed its own independent character and aesthetic characteristics through the process of subordination, but also had an overall tendency to develop in the direction of sloppiness and standardization.

On the one hand, in the extreme of overemphasizing the convenience of writing, Lishu gradually departed from the original practical position of Lishu, and then in the process of continuous drafting, due to the different movement of writing, it finally formed what we call Zhangcao and Jincao. On the other hand, it shows the normative construction of the original writing form of Lishu, and this normative construction is premised on the establishment of formal order. This is because the stability of the formal order of writing has a direct impact on the smooth flow of national cultural exchanges and social progress.

Second, the origin of the small seal and the official book.

1. Small seal. The small seal was in charge of Prime Minister Li Si, and on the basis of the original Great Seal script used by the Qin State, it was simplified, the other six languages were abolished, and a unified Chinese character writing form was created. The small seal remained popular in China until the end of the Western Han Dynasty (c. 8 AD), when it was gradually replaced by Lishu. However, due to its beautiful font, it has always been favored by calligraphers.

2. Lishu. Lishu, there are Qin Li, Han Li, etc., it is generally believed that it is developed from the seal book, the glyph is mostly wide and flat, the horizontal painting is long and the vertical painting is short, pay attention to the "silkworm head and goose tail", "a wave of three folds". According to the excavated slips, Lishu originated in the Warring States period. Legend Cheng Miao was a li, Han Li reached its peak in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and had a non-negligible influence on later generations of calligraphy, and the calligraphy world is known as "Han Li Tang Kai".

The representative works of seal script include "Stone Drum Text" (big seal) and "Yishan Tablet" (small seal); Representative figures include Li Si of the Qin Dynasty, Li Yangbing of the Tang Dynasty, Deng Shiru and Wu Changshuo of the Qing Dynasty.

Lishu's representative works include "Zhang Qian Tablet", "Cao Quan Tablet" and other Han monuments, the representative figures of the Han Dynasty have been unexaminable, the Qing Dynasty's Jin Nong, Deng Shiru and so on.

The representative calligraphers of Lishu are: Shi Weize, Han Zemu, Cai Youlin, and Li Chao, four famous families in the Tang Dynasty. Since the Tang Dynasty, the good subordinates are often not known for their official letters, and this situation has continued until the Qing Dynasty.

In the Qing Dynasty, there were many seal books. Such as Gui Fu, Wu Dawei, Deng Shiru, Qian Kun.

The small seal evolved into (Lishu) in the late Western Han Dynasty.

After Qin Shi Huang unified China (221 BC), the small seal implemented the policy of "the same text for the book, the same track for the car" and unified weights and measures. It remained popular in China until the end of the Western Han Dynasty (about 8 AD), when it was gradually replaced by Lishu. However, due to its beautiful font, it has always been favored by calligraphers.

And because of its complex strokes, the form is ancient, and can be added at will, the seal engraving, especially the official seal that needs to be anti-counterfeiting, has been using the seal script until the fall of the feudal dynasty, and the emergence of new anti-counterfeiting technology in modern times. Most of the characters in the modern Kangxi dictionary are also marked with small seal writing.

It became a relatively simple official book.

Yes. It is true that the inscriptions of the Western Han Dynasty were relatively rarely influenced by the stuffy liquid script. The Western Han Dynasty was an important period in the development of Chinese calligraphy, and many outstanding calligraphers and famous inscriptions appeared.

During this period, small seal script was the main form of writing, but in the calligraphy and inscriptions of the Western Han Dynasty, the influence of seal script style was relatively rare. It is mainly manifested in the following aspects:

1. The rise of Lishu. During the Western Han Dynasty, Lishu gradually became the mainstream form of writing, which was characterized by thick strokes and simple structure, and was more suitable for writing long articles and official documents than the slenderness and complexity of small seal scripts. Therefore, calligraphy and inscriptions in the Western Han Dynasty used more of the writing form of official script.

2. Founding regular script. During the Western Han Dynasty, some calligraphers began to try to combine the characteristics of seal, official and cursive scripts to form a new form of writing, regular script. The regular script is not only more regular than the official script in the glyph structure, but also has a great change in the thickness and structure of the strokes.

3. Diversification of inscription styles. Although the small seal script was the main form of writing in the Western Han Dynasty, in the inscriptions of the Western Han Dynasty, in addition to the small seal script, some other writing forms also appeared, such as official script, cursive script and regular script. These different forms of writing influenced each other and borrowed from each other, forming a variety of inscription styles.

Therefore, the inscriptions of the Western Han Dynasty were relatively less influenced by the seal script, mainly because in the Western Han Dynasty, the rise of the official script and the establishment of the Kai lead annihilation script, as well as the diversification of the inscription style, made the status of the seal script in calligraphy and inscription gradually declined.