Chinese calligraphy : an introduction to its aesthetic and technique : with 6 plates and 155 text illustratons

CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY

considerably less complex than ours: its outstanding features were the facts of nature, such as climate, warmth and cold, flood and drought, or personal property—horses, cows, dogs, pigs. Later the system was elaborated, further combinations of the primary symbols being made by such means as doubling

一 一 一 ae

the groups == == ==, andsoon. During the 12th century

B.c. Wén-Wang (% =), the first king of the Hsi-Chou ( 西 周 ) dynasty, worked out sixty-four combinations.

In its later forms Pa-Kua provides very deep philosophical problems. The classical ‘ Book of Changes’ is devoted to them. But that is not a subject with which we are concerned in this book ; what has to be noticed is the advance made from knotted strings, which were only an aid to the memorizing of events and could be easily confused, to a method of directly representing human thought.

The first kind of picture-writing is traditionally ascribed to the invention of Ts‘ang-Chieh (4 #§), official recorder to the semimythical Yellow Emperor, Huang-Ti (i& iff) (2679-2898 B.C.). Obviously neither sources nor dates can be relied upon ; we can only say that, whether or not Ts‘ang-Chieh was responsible for them, they were definitely established in his time. Ts‘angChieh is said to have devised a primitive form of deed, which was used for official counting, simple business transactions, and affairs of like nature. The object he invented was something like the English tally, and was called Hsii-Ch% (# 32), Notchedstick. It consisted of a piece of wood engraved with a symbol. The two people or parties concerned in the transaction would divide it between them. Ts‘ang-Chieh, if certain ancient books are to be believed, observed the marks of birds’ claws and

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