Chinese typography by HanShen Chee

CHINESE TYPOGRAPHY

Evolution of Chinese Characters

CHINESE TYPOGRAPHY

Evolution of Chinese Characters

CHINESE TYPOGRAPHY History of Chinese Characters and Calligraphy

Written by: Han Shen

First Published 2015 by Blurb Australia

CHINESE TYPOGRAPHY History of Chinese Characters and Calligraphy

All right reserve. No part of this publication may be reproduced, store in a retrieval system, or transmitted photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in Australia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank those who help me on this book content, layout and typography! With out the help of them this book wont be done or Publishing on time. Thank you my dear Lecturer , family and friends!

hinese characters have evolved over several thousands of years to include many different styles, or scripts. The main forms are: Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Bronze Inscriptions, Small Seal Characters, Official Script, Regular Script, Cursive Writing or Grass Stroke Characters, and Freehand Cursive.

CONTENTS Introduction .........................................................................................13 Chapter 1:

Oracle Bone Script .............................................15

Chapter 2:

Greater Seal Script ............................................19

Chapter 3:

Lesser Seal Script ...............................................23

Chapter 4:

Clerkly Script ........................................................25

Chapter 5:

Standard Script ...................................................29

Chapter 6:

Running Script ....................................................33

Chapter 7:

Grass Script ...........................................................37

IN TRO DUCTION

INTRODUCTION

hinese characters, also known as Hanzi are one of the earliest forms of written language in the world, dating back approximately five thousand years. Nearly one-fourth of the worlds population still use Chinese characters today. As an art form, Chinese calligraphy remains an integral aspect of Chinese culture. There are 47,035 Chinese characters in the Kangxi Dictionary, the standard national dictionary developed during the 18th and 19th centuries, but the precise quantity of Chinese characters is a mystery; numerous, rare variants have accumulated throughout history. Studies from China have shown that 90% of Chinese newspapers and magazines tend to use 3,500 basic characters.

ORACLE BONE SCRIPT

his is the earliest form of Chinese writing, used from the Middle to Late Shang dynasty (approximately 1500 BCE to 1000 BCE). This script was etched onto turtle shells and animals bones, which were then used for divination in the royal Shang court, hence the name “oracle bones”. Consequently, scholars have been using oracle bones as historical documents to investigate the reigns of later Shang monarchs, and surprisingly confirming the veracity of the traditional list of Chinese emperors that was deemed mythological rather than historical. The shape of these characters are often described as “pictographic”, in that they resemble stylized drawings of objects they represent.

CUL 52 recto (left); verso (right)

racle Bone Inscriptions refers to the writings inscribed on the carapaces of tortoises and mammals during the Shang Dynasty (1600 1046 B.C.). This is the earliest form of Chinese characters. Because Oracle Bone inscriptions mainly recorded the art of divination, this script is also called bu ci, divination writings. Over one thousand of the over four thousand characters inscribed on excavated oracle bones have been deciphered.

GREATER SCRIPT

GREATER SEAL G

reat (or Large) seal script is a traditional refernce to chinese writing from before the Qin Dynasty, and is now popular understood to refer narrowly to the writing of the western and early eastern Zhou Dynasty, and more broadly to also include the Oracle Bone Script. It is only more recently that the term Greater Seal Script has been extended to refer to western Zhou forms or ever Oracle Bone Script, of witch the Han Dynasty coiner if this term were unaware. The term Large Seal Script is also sometimes traditionally identified with a group of characters from book 800B.C entitled Shizhoupian, preserved by their inclusion in the Han Dynasty lexicon, the shouwen Jiezi. Xu Shen, the author of Shouwen include these when they defered from the structures of the Small Seal Script and labelled the example. This name comes from the name of the book and not the name of the script. It is not correct to

refer to the 800B.C Zhou Dynasty Script as Zhouwen. Similarly, the Zhou graphs are merely example of Large Seal Script when the term is used in a broad sense. Large Seal Script widely use in many vassal states in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period was more regular and symmetrical than bronze ware script in writting. This stage of Chinese writing flourished from the Late Shang to the Western Chou dynasties (1100 BCE to 700 BCE). Unlike Jiaguwen, which was carved on bones, Dazhuan mainly appeared on cast bronze vessels. In fact, Jiaguwen and Dazhuan overlapped in time, and they might have been the same script but as they were inscribed on different materials their visual styles differ due to the quality of the surfaces.

Fragment of the Stone drum inscription, the earliest known text in great seal script carved on stones ever found, dated between the late Western Zhou (1046 771 B.C.E.), i.e. 8th century B.C.E., and the late Warring States period, 475 221 B.C.E.) i.e. The late 3rd century B.C.E., At The Palace Museum in The Forbidden City, Beijing.

riginally, Great Seal Script must have to be write with brush and ink or lacquer on wood or bamboo tablet or silk. The style is characterized by an austere balance of straight and curvilinear of uniform thickness ending in blunt stops.

LESSER SCRIPT

LESSER SEAL SCRIPT

his elegant script is the direct parent of the modern, unsimplified Chinese script. Not only are Xiaozhuan characters are more stylized and less "pictographic" like Jiaguwen and Dazhuan, but also exhibits systematic and extensive use of radicals much like modern Chinese. This script has survived the passage of time and continues to be used in the present age in calligraphy.

esser seal script, also called Qinzhuan, is a calligraphy developed fromDazhuan(greater seal script). It emerged in the Qin State in the late Warring States Period (475-221BC), and was prevalent in the Qin Dynasty (221-206BC) and early Western Han Dynasty (206BC8AD).

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Qinzhuanâ&#x20AC;? calligraphy on stone

CLERKLY SCRIPT

CLERKLY SCRIPT C

lerkly Script. As its name implies, this script was used by government bureaucrats. While it probably appeared at approximately 500 BCE, Lishu became widely used in the Qin (221 to 207 BCE) and Han (206 BCE to 220 CE) dynasties when the bureaucrats needed a fast and efficient script to handle state matters. The marked difference between this script and the Xiaozhuan is that Li Shu characters have less strokes and a more flowing style, therefore easily adaptable to brushes and pens. Lishu is still occasionally used in the modern age. Evolution of Chinese writing after Lishu is a trend of increasingly cursive scripts. These scripts are used primarily in calligraphy. The shape of Lishu characters are identical to modern Chinese characters. Furthermore, characters were standardized to remove regional variations, and these standard characters are for the most part the same characters written in the present. Therefore, it can be said that Chinese writing reached its maturity at this time (until the 20th century).

hough somewhat square and angular, with strong emphasis on the horizontal strokes. Clerkly Script type making full use of the flexible brush to module the thickness of the line

lerkly script is the formal written language of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. 220 A.D.). Over time, curved and broken strokes gradually increased, becoming distinct characteristics of this style. Official Script symbolizes a turning point in the evolution history of Chinese characters, after which Chinese characters transitional into a modern stage of development.

STANDARD SCRIPT

STANDARD SCRIPT T

he regular script (often called “standard” script or simply kaishu) is one of the last major calligraphic styles to develop, emerging between the Chinese Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period, gaining dominance in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and maturing in the Tang Dynasty. It emerged from a neatly written, early period semi-cursive form of clerical script. As the name suggests, the regular script is “regular”, with each of the strokes placed slowly and carefully, the brush lifted from the paper and all the strokes distinct from each other.

In the regular script samples to the right, the characters in the left column are in Traditional Chinese while those to the right are in Simplified Chinese.

Standard script (kaishu) was first practiced following the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE. The balanced and clearly legible characters in this commonly used handwritten Chinese script combine distinct, individual strokes in visually sophisticated and complicated forms. Perfected in the mid-Tang dynasty (618-907), it is still the first script taught to schoolchildren, and it serves as the typeface for most modern printed The regular script is also the most easily materials. As illustrated at right, eight and widely recognized style, as it is the different types of strokes are used to script to which children in East Asian construct the Chinese character yong countries and beginners of East Asian (forever). These eight incorporate all the languages are first introduced. For learners of calligraphy, the regular script is different brush movements that are used usually studied first to give students a feel in standard script. for correct placement and balance, as well as to provide a proper base for the other, more flowing styles.

tandard Script conforms to the requirement for character standardization by typography invention and become an official chirography use in china over thousands of years till now.

Example of Kaishu

RUNNING SCRIPT

RUNNING SCRIPT X

ing Shu is usually executed with considerably more speed and freedom than Kai Shu. Each character should be done in a single breath. As the Style is based closely on Standard Script, it is best to have a good sense of proper Stroke Order, even when the Strokes are consolidated or simplified. You may think of this process of consolidation and simplification as the primary means of speeding up your writing: the brush can either press later or have an incomplete lift. The result of this is that some strokes will be alluded to, even if they are not completely executed, while others will link in to the next full stroke using a Turning Brush technique. Lines can even turn into dots in some cases (see Diagram). There are some cases in which Running Script changes Stroke order. The speed of the style is such that vertical and horizontal movements can be achieved with greater fluidity. As you can see from the Diagram, verticals are sometimes executed in advance of crossing horizontals, as in the character. In order to get strong, expressive characters in this flowing script, the first or second stroke will often flow from the top to the bottom if the stroke. This will cause an emphasis on the left side of the character, with right elements being executed or simply alluded to with dots at the end.

As you can see, there aren't a great number of hard and fast rules for writing in a Running Style.

Wang Hsi Chih, 303-361 CE and his writing of “The Preface of the Orchid Pavilion”

unning Script is a cursive style of Chinese calligraphy that developed from the Standard Script from the 1st century AD. It is easier to read that than Draft Script as the characters are not as abbreviated.

GRASS SCRIPT

GRASS SCRIPT G

Handwriting of Zhang Zhi (birth date unknown, died in 190 C.E.) in cursive script, Han Dynasty

rass script originated in China during the Han dynasty through the Jin period, in two phases. First, an early form of cursive developed as a cursory way to write the popular and not yet mature clerical script. Faster ways to write characters developed through four mechanisms: omitting part of a graph, merging strokes together, replacing portions with abbreviated forms (such as one stroke to replace four dots), or modifying stroke styles. This evolution can best be seen on extant bamboo and wooden slats from the period, on which the use of early cursive and immature clerical forms is intermingled. This early form of cursive script, based on clerical script, is now called zhangchao, and variously also termed ancient cursive, draft cursive or clerical cursive in English, to differentiate it from modern cursive. Modern cursive evolved from this older cursive in the Wei Kingdom to Jin dynasty with influence from the semi-cursive and standard styles.

Grass Script Calligraphy of Laurie Doctor, Art Institute

Grass Script is not bound by rules for even spacing, and characters need not be the same approximate size; the caligrapher thus has fullest freedom of expressive movement of life

BILIOGRAPHY Introduction to Chinese characters view 5 May 2015 http://www.brown.edu/about/administration/ international-affairs/year-of-china/language-andcultural-resources/introduction-chinese-characters/ introduction-chinese-characters Ancient script. View on 5th May 2015 http://www.ancientscripts.com/chinese.html

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