What is the background and significance of the official change?

Background and significance of official change

Evolution of Chinese characters from seal script to official script. Fonts become squares, lines become straight lines, and strokes become complicated and simple. The change of official script is the watershed of ancient and modern Chinese characters and the most important change in the development history of Chinese characters. Wei Heng's "Four-style Calligraphy" said: "Lishu is also a quick writing of Lishu, and its predecessors called it' Lishu Change'.

According to the archaeological data of Qin language, Lishu was formed in the late Warring States period. In the bronze inscriptions of Qin Xiaogong era, we can see the coexistence of normal and vulgar characters. After Qin Xiaogong, with frequent writing, vulgar characters became more and more popular. They can be seen in bronze inscriptions, lacquerware inscriptions, seals and Wen Tao. These fonts have changed the conventional writing of official seals and brought official characters.

The change from seal script to official script is the most important change in the evolution of Chinese characters. The change of official script mainly has the following five characteristics:

1. Dissolve the seal script and change it into a straight pen: Li Shu no longer cares about the pictographic principle, but decomposes the lines of the ancient Chinese character "Suishi" or changes it into a straight pen.

2. Radical differentiation: In official script, there are obvious differences between independent writing and radical writing.

3. Radical confusion: In order to simplify the official script, some uncommon radicals or radicals with more strokes are changed into similar radicals with fewer strokes.

4. Simple structure: Li Shu often combines two strokes of seal script into one stroke, or combines more than two radicals or components contained in it into a simpler stroke structure.

5. The line that keeps turning around has become a broken pen: in order to improve the writing speed, Lishu has formed strokes such as point, horizontal, vertical, press, hook and fold.

Before the bamboo slips were unearthed in Qin and Han Dynasties, there were different opinions about the creation of official script. The more popular view is that official script is just an official script. According to "Hanshu Shangshu: Lishu", which started in Qin Dynasty and was full of prisons, it was fun and relaxed, so it was applied to Lishu. The preface to Shuo Wen Jie Zi further developed Lishu, quoting Cheng Miao's works: "Qin Shihuang was a big official at the beginning and was promoted to garrison service. The responsibilities of the official prison are complicated, and the official script was first made by Cheng Miao under the command of Qin Shihuang. "The name in Xin's" Taking the Name of Rare Books of Ancient Books "is Lishu." Zhang Huaiguan, a great calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty, also said something similar to Yang Xin: "The person who worships Lishu was also created by Cheng Miao, a native of Qin Xia. The word Cen, originally a jailer in Yaxian County, offended the first emperor. He spent ten years in Yunyang prison and thought about three thousand words. " And so on.

Another view, with little influence, holds that Lishu originated in the Zhou Dynasty, with Li Daoyuan as the representative. See "Notes on Water Classics": "The man who was near the tomb got a bronze coffin, and the front and the back were hidden in official script, which was called" the coffin of Qi Taigong VI Sun Hugong ". The only word is ancient, and the rest are the same as today's script. Prove that Lishu originated in ancient times, not the Qin Dynasty. " Mr. Guo Moruo believes that official script originated in Zhou Dynasty.

As for the significance of naming official script, it can be explained from its original meaning. Mr. Wu Baidian said: "In Shuo Wen Jie Zi, the official script means' attached', while the biography of Feng Yi in the later Han Dynasty is taught as' subordinate', which is still in use today, and there is the word' subordinate' in modern Chinese." It is also believed that official script is inferior to Sasuke's seal script, so official script is the auxiliary font of Xiao's seal script. "This statement is controversial. In the evolution and development of Chinese characters, simplification and simplification have always existed. Generally speaking, people's writing always develops in the direction of simplification. When a font is basically finalized, it may develop in two directions, one is a more regular direction. One is to develop in a more grassy direction. The result of normalization is that this font is completely established, and the result of specialization is the generation of new fonts. At first, official script was a so-called "auxiliary font", but it was actually a seal script (it was a big seal script, not a small seal script). Generally speaking, grass precedes regularization, small seal script is the regularization of big seal script, and official script is the grass of big seal script. It existed before the cursive script of Xiao Zhuan. This is also the case. Long before the writing of Qin seal script, a simplified seal script, Guli, which is easy to write, was published. According to the imperial seal engraved with the word "Lengxian" in the Qin Dynasty unearthed from the tomb of the Phoenix Mountain in Jiangling, the Chu silk book in the middle of the Warring States Period, and the "Gao Nv He Shi Bi Tong" written by the Qin State in the late Warring States Period. We can know that before Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, there was a kind of writing similar to the imperial edict of the Qin Dynasty, which was the embryonic form of Cao Zhuan and Lishu, and was called ancient writing by later generations. In recent years, Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Tianshui, Shuihudi Qin bamboo slips, Mawangdui silk slips and Yinhuan Mountain bamboo slips ... provide conclusive evidence for us to trace the origin and formation of official script.

First, the official changes before Qin Xiao Zhuan came into being.

In recent years, the wooden slips unearthed in Qingchuan, Sichuan Province and the bamboo slips unearthed in Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province have provided us with physical materials, which irrefutably proved that there was a transitional font that evolved from Dazhuan to Li Shu before the reunification of Qin Dynasty. Qingchuan wooden slips are works in the mid-Warring States period, which are 80 years earlier than the Qin bamboo slips of Sleeping in the Tiger Land. Their fonts are the same as those of seal script, and they are very close to those of Han Li. These two fonts are few. Most glyphs are characterized by strokes, strokes and strokes in official script. Compared with Lishu, it reduces the inflections, simplifies the complex, turns the square into a circle, and transforms the long and narrow shape of the glyph into a square or flat shape. This is an extremely important calligraphy work, and the font is a transitional font evolved from official script. Qin bamboo slips of Fangmatan in Tianshui were published from the late Warring States to the eighth year of Qin Shihuang (239 BC). Its "A version" is completed. You can watch the grass method when you are careless. You often choose short strokes and add suffixes to make the strokes perfect. It is particularly noteworthy that when he quickly wrote horizontal paintings, he naturally formed the prototype of Han Li's typical stroke "Silkworm Head and Phoenix Tail". These unknown calligraphers more than 2,000 years ago produced an extremely important official script in the history of calligraphy in China with new fonts that were popular and practical at that time.

Second, the official change at the same time as Qin Xiaozhuan.

More than 1 100 Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Land in Hubei Province have rich and colorful calligraphy styles. Written before and after Qin Shihuang unified the six countries. It is meaningful to compare Xiao Zhuan with them at the same time. Small seal characters are round, positive and balanced. Qin bamboo slips are stiff, sideways and sideways; There is a turning point in Xiao Zhuan and a turning point in Qin Bamboo Slips. The important difference between official script and seal script is that the round turn and square fold are at first sight; The lines of Xiao Zhuan are even and do not insist on rhythm, and Qin bamboo slips have obvious sense of lifting rhythm with pens; Small seal strokes are consistent in horizontal and vertical directions, while Qin bamboo slips are thin and thick in horizontal and vertical directions; There is no wave in seal script, and Qin bamboo slips begin to show the result of the complex relationship between seal script and official script.

Third, the official changes in the early and middle Western Han Dynasty.

1973 A large number of silk books unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province show that Lishu matured in the early and middle Western Han Dynasty. The woman said that the inward structure of Qin bamboo slips still has the closed space of seal script, so the silk script of Mawangdui has been transformed into an open space structure. It is difficult to find a fixed outline for each character, and the length of strokes is no longer limited by the square outline of words. It is often unexpectedly lengthened or shortened. We say that the difference between seal script and official script is mainly manifested in two aspects: one is the structure of characters. Lishu "destroys the structure of pictographic characters with stroke symbols and turns them into pictographic characters without pictographic characters", which is completely consistent with the silk script at this time. Of course, there are two more important differences: "The difference between seal script and official script is not only the change of pictographs into symbols, but also the difference of brushwork." We need to note that the aforementioned Qingchuan wooden slips and Tianshui Fangmatan Qin slips all have the above two characteristics, so we think that the structure of Lishu should be reliable and correct since then.

So what's the difference between mature official script and transitional official script?

The seal script is circuitous, round and thoughtful, and the official script is round and square, and the arc becomes straight, so you can press it with a pen at will. Both the early immature official script and the later mature official script have this feature. Calligraphers have always taken the difference between transitional official script and mature official script as the main symbol. There are many Qin bamboo slips, but there are no waves, while Mawangdui silk books and mature official scripts in the early Western Han Dynasty. Bo Zhen, as the main pen, is prominent and the form of strokes is also very unified, so we think that the mature official script appeared in the early Western Han Dynasty. As for the bamboo slips of Juyan and Dingxian in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, they are obviously fully mature official scripts.

The appearance of Bo Zhen in official script shows that our ancestors always paid attention to beauty decoration on the basis of practicality, which is a continuation of the tradition of "beauty consciousness" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, especially since the bronze inscription. However, this continuation is fundamentally different. The fat pens in bronze inscriptions do not conform to the norms of writing application, and all kinds of decorative lines are not practical. After the lines of Xiao Zhuan were standardized, it lost its changeable beauty and became a wave of official script.

The change of official script is of epoch-making significance in the history of writing and calligraphy. In terms of glyphs, Lishu got rid of the bondage of "bending with the body" which was dominated by pictographs in the early seal script system, and combined glyphs with completely abstract lines. The development of China's character appearance has come to an end. Because "Xing", especially its ups and downs, its influence on China's calligraphy art is immeasurable. "Vertical change" purifies lines and liberates the spatial structure of lines, which is a decisive step for the art of calligraphy. As a result, all kinds of formal factors of unity of opposites, such as monomer, word-to-word, line-to-column, contained in strokes and structural units of Chinese characters can undergo various changes on the premise of giving full play to the subjective initiative of calligraphers. Here, the spatial structure of characters is transformed into the spatial structure of calligraphy. Only by moving to the fourth level of calligraphy appreciation, "calligraphy space", can we understand why calligraphy is so sensitive to space. It is the official change that makes Chinese characters fully possess the artistic quality and essence.

The establishment of official script also means that the spatial modeling moves from rectangular to flat, which means that the movement of strokes can be opened horizontally. It means that "shape" can no longer only obey the needs of readability of words, but can enhance the aesthetic feeling of writing techniques in strokes. Compared with the stable and upright structure of the big seal and the closed and restrained structure of the small seal, it is a major change. Compared with the early bronze inscriptions, which are colorful but still follow the body, it is a higher level of space construction. The spatial construction of "Suishi" is restricted by pictographs, which limits the author's subjectivity to the natural form, while the official script completely enters the spatial construction with abstract lines. Although it is also restricted by the formal space of regular characters, it is mainly between words.

However, in the internal space construction of Chinese characters, such as stroke length, main sequence, oblique correction, straight correction, back-to-back, adhesion, increase and decrease, echo and concession, the opposing formal factors can produce various rich changes because of the calligrapher's subjectivity. Chinese calligraphy

The formal beauty of China space architecture has attracted unprecedented attention in official script.

The emergence of official script, in addition to the great contribution to the construction of space, is more important in the innovation of brushwork. First, the brushwork changed from curved to straight, and Fang Bi appeared on the basis of round pen. Because of the frequent use of pressing, the pen has a sense of rhythm, which is the so-called "twists and turns", which leads to the "anti-human" brushwork, and the dew front also follows.

Due to the richness of brushwork, such as the unity of opposing factors, such as center and flank, hidden front and exposed front, bundle and dispersion, disease and astringency, lightness and heaviness, and square and circle, China's calligraphy began to notice that the shape and changes of lines themselves, in addition to building space for fonts, are an extremely rich vocabulary system-lines themselves finally entered the historical stage independently. From the earliest mature characters in China to the bronze inscriptions in Zhu Fan, as well as the inscriptions on carved stones and weights in the Qin Dynasty, the font numbers are often different. These styles are mainly based on the creation of space, while the feeling of movement disappears in the framework of individual self-sufficiency and perfection. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the childishness of the ancestors in the construction of space concealed their insensitivity to linear motion. In Shi Guwen period, the feeling of movement changed from dull to dull, and in Qin Shihuang's Xiao Zhuan period. This rigidity is further transformed into the near disappearance of the sense of movement. Qin Xiao Zhuan's absolutely unified tailoring of spatial structure makes it impossible to take into account the rich changes of lines themselves, and Xiao Zhuan has become the richest example of "static beauty" in all fonts. From the perspective of historical development, such "quiet beauty" is likely to stifle the artistic life of calligraphy. Fortunately, Xiao Zhuan never became a typical calligraphy style in the history of China, even during the Qin Shihuang period. In addition to official festivals such as closing the door and Zen, as a literal norm, it also has its place and its scope of use is extremely narrow. Xiao Zhuan has lost the support of practicality and artistic vitality, and has become an empty existence, or the existence of etiquette and patterns, so that we can understand the significance of the rise of official scripts in the Qin and Han Dynasties in Random Thoughts. A fundamental betrayal of official script in Qin and Han Dynasties is to completely break the rigidity of Xiao Zhuan. Instead, it is open structure and moving lines. The early aesthetic emphasis of China's calligraphy history has shifted from the construction of spatial form to the movement and change of lines themselves. If Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jin Wen pioneered the "line art" of China's calligraphy, the secret lies in that the ancients gradually evolved pictographic picture simulation into refined abstract structures and lines, thus laying the foundation for China's calligraphy to "line art". Then the aesthetic content of calligraphy in Qin and Han Dynasties lies in organically combining the flowing beauty of lines in the process of time with the architectural beauty formed by space slices, forming an advanced art form in which space is driven and controlled by time, thus making China's calligraphy "the soul of various plastic arts and expressive arts in China". Therefore, in the history of calligraphy, we call the process of official change a prelude to the consciousness of calligraphy art.