What are the four fonts in China?

Song Style, Regular Script, Cursive Script, Official Script and Running Script.

1. Song Style

Song Style, a font of Chinese characters, emerged to accommodate the printing press. The strokes are thick and thin, and are generally horizontal and vertical, with a decorative part at the end (i.e., "foot" or "serif"), and the strokes of point, apostrophe, stroke and hook have tips, belonging to serif fonts, which are commonly used in the body layout of books, magazines, and newspaper printing.

The Song Dynasty was characterized by a flourishing culture and tremendous development in the printing industry, and from the Southern Song Dynasty, fonts similar to the printing style began to appear in the printing workshops in Lin'an and other places, which were later called Imitation Song Style.

During the Ming Dynasty, the literati sought out Song-engraved books, so the engravers thickened the vertical lines and the ends of the strokes to resist the wear and tear of the engraved plates, but they still called it "Song Style". The modern so-called Song style is basically this molding.

2, Regular Script

Regular Script is also called Regular Script, True Script, and Regular Script. By the gradual evolution of the official script, more simplified, horizontal and vertical. The Dictionary explains that it is "square in form, with straight strokes, and can be used as a model". This kind of Chinese character font is upright, is the modern popular Chinese character handwritten orthographic characters.

The Regular Script is one of the most popular calligraphic styles in China's feudal society from the Northern and Southern Wei Dynasties to the Jin and Tang Dynasties. The Regular Script has a square shape, straight strokes, and can be used as a model." Hence the name Regular Script.

Began at the end of the Han Dynasty, and has flourished since then. The Regular Script, closely following the rules and regulations of the Han Clerical Script, and the pursuit of the further development of the beauty of the form.

Toward the end of the Han Dynasty and during the Three Kingdoms period, the writing of Chinese characters gradually changed from waves and limbs to skims and presses, and there were "sidesteps" (dots), "swipes" (long skims), and "pecks" (short skims), "Tee" (straight hook) and other strokes, so that the structure is more rigorous.

3. Cursive script

That is, as a specific typeface. Formed in the Han Dynasty, it was evolved on the basis of the official script for the sake of writing simplicity. Characterized by the structure of the provincial, continuous strokes.

Cursive Script is divided into Zhangcao and Jincao, and Jincao is divided into Da Cao (also known as Wild Cao) and Xiao Cao, which feels beautiful in its wildness.

4. Clerical Script

Clerical Script, such as Qin Clerical, Han Clerical, etc., is generally considered to have developed from Seal Script, with broad and flat characters, long horizontal strokes and short vertical strokes, and emphasizing the "head of the silkworm, goose, and tail" and "one wave, three twists and turns".

According to unearthed documents, the official script was first created in the Qin Dynasty, and legend has it that Cheng Miao made the official script, and the official script of the Han Dynasty reached its peak in the Eastern Han Dynasty, bearing the tradition of the seal script on the top, and opening up the Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties on the bottom, which had a great influence on the calligraphy of the later generations, and the calligraphy circles have the name of "Han Clerical Script and Tang Regular Script".

Clerical Script is another representative calligraphic style that emerged after the Small Seal Script. The creation of the official script was a major revolution in Chinese characters, and its significance lies not only in the fact that Chinese characters have since been symbolized.

More importantly, it changed the way Chinese characters were written and their aesthetic tendency, thus laying the foundation for the creation of the Regular Script, which in turn opened up a wide world for the development and prosperity of Chinese calligraphy.

5. Running Script

Running Script is a kind of font between Regular Script and Cursive Script, which was created to make up for the slow writing speed of Regular Script and the difficulty of recognizing Cursive Script. The word "Xing" means "walking", so it is not as scribbly as Cursive Script, nor as upright as Regular Script.

In essence, it is the cursiveization of regular script or the regularization of cursive script. Those with more regular script than cursive script are called "Xing Kai", and those with more cursive script than regular script are called "Xing Cao".

Running Script is both practical and artistic, while Regular Script is a symbol of words, which is both practical and skillful; in contrast, Cursive Script is highly artistic, but relatively less practical.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Script