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

CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY

Chia-Ku-Wén ( 3c), Shell-and-Bone Writing. About 800 B.C. an Imperial Recorder named Chou (/#) drew up a system of characters which was called Chou-Wén (f§ 3c) or Ku-Wéen G& 3c) and was usually engraved on bronze. Later these characters came to be known by philologists as Ta-Chiian (K #), Great Seal. About 213 B.c., under the famous Ch‘in ShihHuang-Ti (3 43 = #7), who perpetrated the ‘ burning of the books ’, the Prime Minister Li Szu (4: #7) drew up an official index of characters and fixed the written form for the use of scholars. This, which was known as the Hsiao-Chiian (/)) %), Small Seal, contained more than 3,000 characters. It was an extremely important step in the history of our calligraphy. Li Szu led the way to the easy method of character-formation by phonetic combination, for in all cases he merely combined a primitive picture-character with a phonetic. As the need arose for new characters, scholars added to Li Szu’s list by the method he had invented, with the result that by A.D. 200 the number had increased to over 10,000. At the present day it has reached half-a-million.t And while increasing in number, the characters underwent many changes of form, some of which were for the sake of higher speed of execution, some for aesthetic reasons, some through the improvement in writing materials.

The first standard work on Chinese etymology, the ‘ ShuoWeén-Chieh-T ziti’ (% 3C f¥ =), was the work of a scholar named Hsii Shen (st) who was born about 86 B.c. It was not printed until about A.D. 120. This contains the first classification by radicals, radicals being the modern forms of the primitive

1 The reader must not, however, be deterred by this from learning Chinese. In order to read and speak with facility one need remember only atout 4,000 or even less.

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