What are the traditional Chinese calligraphy fonts?

Chinese characters are one of the most important and fundamental elements of Chinese culture. Calligraphy is also an ancient art in China. Chinese characters have changed from shapes to strokes, from pictograms to symbols, from ideograms to sounds, from complexity to simplicity. After thousands of years, the evolution of Chinese characters has gone through the stages of oracle bone script, golden script, big seal script, small seal script, official script, regular script, running script, cursive script, and so on. The various calligraphic features all exude the unique artistic charm of Chinese culture.

01

Oracle Bone Script

Oracle Bone Script is the "ancestor" of Chinese characters. The earliest writings were inscribed on the shells of tortoises and the shoulder blades of oxen during the Shang Dynasty, hence the name "oracle bone writing".

Content reflects the majority of divination records, divination involves all aspects of Shang society, such as politics, rituals, economy, military, climate, good luck, habits, and many other aspects of China's written history that is, from the moment of the oracle bones began, so the oracle bones is an important source of information for the study of ancient history. Oracle bone writing has been unearthed about 140,000 pieces, the total number of words about 4500. The layout of oracle bone calligraphy is from bottom to bottom, from right to left. The oracle bone inscriptions are carved with a knife, and the font is strong and powerful, with a strong sense of three-dimensionality. The lines are strict and thin, and the curvature and thickness are even. Oracle has the basic elements of Chinese calligraphy with the pen, knot, chapter, although the font size is different, but more balanced and symmetrical.

02

Jinwen

Jinwen took over the development of oracle bone inscriptions and was influenced by them. Jinwen, also known as Zhongdingwen, is mainly an inscription cast on bronze vessels.

The Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties were the era of bronze, and the smelting of copper and the manufacturing technology of bronze were very developed. Rituals represented by the "tripod", musical instruments represented by the "bell". Because copper was also called gold in ancient times, the inscriptions on the bells and tripods were called "Jinwen". Jinwen mainly recorded the life of the royal family, including rituals, gifts, conquests, hunts, and contracts. There are about 3,005 characters of Jinwen found so far. The characteristics of Jinwen are: long and thin characters, sparse and dense, rigorous structure, straight strokes, and the use of upright, hanging needle strokes. The most famous gold script is the Mao Gong Ding (毛公鼎), which was cast during the reign of King Xuan of Zhou. In addition, there are scattered disk, Jizi Bai disk, Huxuzi tripod and so on.

03

Big Seal Script

Big Seal Script refers to the script before the Small Seal Script, and is a general term for the scripts of ancient times and countries prior to the Qin Dynasty, including the Golden Script and the Precious Script, as well as the Shiku Script and the Ancient Scripts of the Six Nations. The inscriptions on metal vessels, musical instruments, weapons and various bells and tripods, the Preliminary script with its complicated and overlapping strokes, and the "Stone Drum Script" engraved on ten stone drums by the Qin Dynasty are all classic works of the Big Seal Script. In particular, the Shikuwen is the earliest stone inscription that has been handed down to the present day, and is the ancestor of stone carvings. The structure of the Big Seal Script is more regular and varied. The strokes become even and soft, with uniform thickness, mostly straight lines, but also square and rounded strokes. The technique is mainly based on hanging needles.

04

Small Seal Script

Small Seal Script, also known as Qin Seal Script, was the script used from the unification of China by Qin Shihuang in 221 BC to the early Western Han Dynasty. After the unification of the six kingdoms, the Qin Dynasty pursued the policy of "writing in the same language and on the same track", and standardized weights and measures, and ordered the prime ministers Li Si and Zhao Gao to create a unified official script for the whole country.

Qin simplified the original seal script used throughout the pre-Han period, abolished the variant characters used by the other six states, and standardized the writing of Chinese characters. It was popular until the Western Han Dynasty when it was gradually replaced by the official script, but was always favored by calligraphers because of its beautiful font. The characters of the Small Seal Script are long, with smooth and simple strokes, emphasizing symmetry. The structure of the characters is regular and harmonized, the strokes are rounded and neat, and the lines have become gentle, making them more aesthetically pleasing in a general sense. The Small Seal Script also includes Mu Seal Script and Han Seal Script. The Mu Seal is the script on seals of the Han Dynasty, while the Han Seal is the inscriptions on tablets of the Han Dynasty. In the history of Chinese calligraphy and Chinese characters with epoch-making significance of the small seal script, many celebrities and scholars have left their masterpieces. For example, Li Si's work "Huiji engraved stone", "Cangjie chapter", "Luangya Terrace engraved stone", "Taishan engraved stone", Zhao Gao's work "爰历篇", Hu Shao work "erudition chapter" and so on.

05

Classical Script

Classical Script is the watershed of ancient and modern writing. Because the character shape of the official script is very similar to the regular script, before the official script belongs to the ancient script, after the official script belongs to the modern script.

Because the seal script was complicated to write, the prison officials invented the simpler official script. Initially popular among the people, the official script was later recognized by the government and became the official script. It reached its peak during the Eastern Han Dynasty, and is known in the calligraphy world as the "Han Scribe and Tang Regular Script". In terms of character structure, the Scribe Script is slightly broad and flat, with strokes developing horizontally, long horizontal strokes and short vertical strokes, emphasizing the "silkworm head and swallow tail". The "one wave and three twists" is also a representative stroke of the official script. Seal Script changes the rounded strokes into square folds, so there is a saying that "Seal Script is round and Clerical Script is square". The masterpieces of the calligraphic art of official script include Cao Quanbei, Zhang Qianbei, E Yingbei, Ode to Fenglong Mountain, and Hengfangbei.

06

Regular Script

Regular Script evolved gradually from the Official Script, which was formed at the end of the Han Dynasty and flourished in the Sui and Tang dynasties. The earliest Regular Script was created by Wang Jizhong and matured through the transformation of Zhong Yao and Wang Xizhi. The Regular Script is more simplified, with a well-proportioned structure and a square form, and the "three folds and twists" of the Official Script have been changed to "flat and straight". The Regular Script is the most popular handwritten form of Chinese characters in modern times. The script is serious and dignified, the strokes are smooth and heavy, the structure is rigorous, and the strokes are neat. The Four Great Masters of Regular Script is a collective name given to four calligraphers in the history of calligraphy who are famous for their Regular Script. They are: Ouyang Xun (Ou Style) of the Tang Dynasty, Yan Zhenqing (Yan Style) of the Tang Dynasty, Liu Gongquan (Liu Style) of the Tang Dynasty, and Zhao Meng (Zhao Style) of the Yuan Dynasty. The classic masterpieces of the Regular Script that have been handed down for centuries include the Duo Bao Pagoda Stele, the Sweet Spring Inscription of the Jiucheng Palace, the Yan Qinli Stele, the Xuan Secret Pagoda Stele, and the Divine Strategist Stele, to name a few. Zhong Cao promoted the development of the regular script, especially the small regular script, and had a profound influence on the calligraphy of later generations, who honored him as the "originator of the regular script" and called him "Zhong Wang" along with the Sage of Calligraphy Wang Xizhi. The masterpiece of Zhong Yao's Regular Script is "Declaration Table".

For more exciting content, come to pay attention to Chinese Taixue Education

Chinese Taixue: let the Chinese language spread to every corner of the world.

7

4

5

Everyone is searching for

Chinese character calligraphy information 50 words

History of Chinese CharactersChinese Character Calligraphy Information

What are some of the Chinese Character Calligraphy

What are some of the Chinese Character Calligraphy

History of Chinese Characters in about 100 words

Handwriting of Chinese Characters Calligraphy information 400 words research paper

Various water parks, I did not expect to buy the equipment with just this money!

Blue Tide water park equipment Advertisement

Zhao Wenmin running script "Luoshen Fu" authentic, calligraphy and literature of the "double wall" of the beauty, there is no pandering