Graphical evolution of Chinese characters.

Chinese characters have undergone changes for more than 6,000 years. The evolution process is: Oracle → Bronze Script → Small Seal → Official Script → Regular Script → Running Script (Shang) (Zhou) (Qin) (Han) (Wei and Jin) Cursive Script and above "Jiajin Seal Script"

The seven fonts of "Kaixing" are called "Seven Types of Chinese Characters". The emergence of Chinese characters - Chinese characters, is well-documented, in the late Yin and Shang Dynasties around 14th century BC. At this time, the initial stereotyped writing, namely oracle bone inscriptions, was formed.

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Oracle bone inscriptions are both pictographs and phonetic characters, and there are still some pictographs in Chinese characters that are the same as pictures, which are very vivid.

In the late Western Zhou Dynasty, Chinese characters developed into large seal scripts.

The development of large seal script resulted in two characteristics: first, linearization. The uneven thickness of the early lines became even and soft, and the lines they drew with the actual objects were very concise and vivid; second, standardization, the glyph structure tended to be neat, and gradually left the

The original form of the picture laid the foundation for the square characters.

Later, Li Si, the prime minister of the Qin Dynasty, simplified the large seal script and simplified it, and changed it to small seal script.

In addition to simplifying the shape of the large seal script, the small seal script also perfected the lines and standardization. It was almost completely separated from the pictorial characters and became a neat, harmonious and very beautiful basically rectangular block font.

However, Xiaozhuan also has its own fundamental shortcomings, that is, its lines are very inconvenient to write with a pen, so almost at the same time, the shape of the official script was stretched to both sides to become a flat square.

By the Han Dynasty, official script had developed to a mature stage, and the legibility and writing speed of Chinese characters had greatly improved.

Later, official script evolved into Zhangcao, and then Jincao. In the Tang Dynasty, there was Kuangcao, which expresses the writer's thoughts and expresses his feelings on the pen.

Subsequently, regular script (also known as real script), which was a blend of official script and cursive script, became popular in the Tang Dynasty.

The printing style we use today evolved from regular script.

Between regular script and cursive script is running script, which is smooth in writing and flexible in use. It is said to have been made by Liu Desheng in the Han Dynasty. It has been passed down to this day and is still the font we are accustomed to using in daily writing.

In the Song Dynasty, with the development of printing technology, block printing was widely used, and Chinese characters were further improved and developed, resulting in a new type of calligraphy - Song Dynasty printing font.

After the invention of printing, the engraving knives used for lettering had a profound impact on the shape of Chinese characters, resulting in a printing font that was thin horizontally and thick vertically, eye-catching and easy to read, which was later called Song Dynasty.

There were two types of fonts carved at that time: fat and thin, the fat ones imitating Yan style and Liu style, and the thin ones imitating European style and Yu style.

Among them, Yan style and Liu style have tall and tall strokes, which already have some characteristics of thin horizontally and thick vertically.

During the Longqing and Wanli years of the Ming Dynasty, it evolved from the Song style to the Ming style with thin horizontal strokes and thick vertical strokes and square fonts.

It turns out that at that time, a kind of Hongwu style with very thin horizontal strokes and particularly thick vertical strokes and flat fonts was popular among the people. This style was used for official title plaques, lanterns, notices, private boundary stones, and the gods and master plaques in ancestral halls.

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Later, some engravers imitated Hongwu style calligraphy and created a skin outline that was neither beautiful nor European.

Especially because the strokes of this font are horizontal and vertical, it is indeed easy to carve. It is different from the four styles of seal script, Li, Zhen and Cao. It is unique and fresh and pleasing to the eye, so it is increasingly used.

It has become the main printing font that has been very popular since the 16th century until today. It is still called Song font, also called lead font.

In Chinese characters, various fonts formed in various historical periods have their own distinctive artistic characteristics.

For example, seal script is simple and elegant, official script is dynamic and decorative in its quietness, cursive script is fast-moving and compact in structure, regular script is neat and beautiful, running script is easy to read and write, has strong practicality, diverse styles and different personalities.

The evolution of Chinese characters is from pictographic pictures to line symbols, strokes adapted to writing with brushes, and printed fonts that are easy to engrave. Its evolutionary history provides us with rich inspiration for Chinese font design.

In text design, if you can give full play to the characteristics and style of various Chinese character fonts, use them skillfully and have unique ideas, you will surely be able to design exquisite works.

Since the unification of Qin Shihuang, Chinese characters have gradually embarked on the path of development. Chinese characters in each era have unique national and folk connotations. The wisdom and diligence of the Chinese people are deeply engraved in the history of Chinese characters.

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However, some people today know very little about their own languages, and they are still half-hearted about the languages ????and languages ??of other countries.

Writing is the soul of the country. In order to understand the changes of the motherland’s writing, the history of the motherland, and the soul of the motherland, we chose this topic.

In the development of Chinese characters, after the Qin Dynasty unified China, Chinese characters were continuously simplified and organized, making Chinese characters gradually standardized.

The development of Chinese characters can be roughly divided into four stages of evolution: ancient script, seal script, official script, and regular script.

Among them, seal script can be divided into large seal script and small seal script; official script can be divided into Qin Li and Han Li.

It can be seen that any new font in history was gradually formed after a long period of evolution.

Generally speaking, after the formation of regular script, Chinese characters have basically been finalized (Table 1).

(Table 1: Evolution of Chinese calligraphy styles) 1 Oracle Bone Inscriptions Before the unified writing system of the Qin Dynasty, Chinese Chinese characters were still confusing in terms of fonts and applications.