Chapter 6 Section 5 The Art of Calligraphy in the Han Dynasty

During the Han Dynasty, Qin Zhizuo [zuo Zuo] was practiced for more than 400 years. During this period, calligraphy art has formed an unprecedented prosperous situation, and it has also built a perfect and solid foundation for the development of calligraphy in later generations, and has become an important source of calligraphy development in later generations. . Why evaluate the Han Dynasty in this way?It is mainly the various fonts of Chinese characters in our country, which have come out together in this era.Dazhuan and Xiaozhuan are still seen from time to time, official script is flourishing, and has become a representative of a generation of fonts, Zhangcao and Jincao have become popular hand scripts, and there are even germinations of running script and regular script.In terms of fonts, no new fonts have appeared since then, but they have become more mature and standardized on this basis.

Although the fonts of the Han Dynasty were complicated and diverse, the official script was the representative of the popular fonts of the era.It inherited the official script of the Qin Dynasty, strengthened the change from round to square fold, and made full use of the zhe fold in the bamboo slips, so the official script was finalized.Because the government pays more attention to education and other aspects, and even allows "good script" to enter official positions, the official script flourishes and becomes the canon of a generation of fonts. The shape of the font is established, but each person's writing is different, and there is still a problem of unifying the standard; naturally, solemn and serious writing should be used as the representative of the standard, so the characters published in stone and included in the stele have become the standard of official script.We know that there are few inscriptions in the Western Han Dynasty, and the heyday of tree steles was during the Huan and Ling periods of the Eastern Han Dynasty.It should be said that the official script at this time was relatively mature, with various calligraphy styles.

The strokes in seal script are only horizontal, vertical, dotted and curved. In addition to the strokes in official script, there are so-called "waves" and "square folds". The most prominent feature is the horizontal strokes. The posture presents a "silkworm head and wild goose tail".Today, "Yiying Stele" is a typical example. According to records, Wang Cizhong at the end of the Han Dynasty once wrote regular rules.The "regular script" mentioned here does not necessarily refer to today's regular script, but we have indeed seen some official scripts, where the characteristics of the waves and wild goose tails have gradually decreased, and the transition to regular script has begun.Taking "Zhu Junchang Inscription" as an example to analyze, its official meaning has been completely indifferent, and it can be said that it has the embryonic form of regular script.

In order to write "conveniently" and "quickly and quickly", the "cursive script" that is not carefully written and has no time to be detailed came into being.Its characteristics are "deletion is difficult and complicated, damage and recovery are single, and it is easy to know and easy to do", and "it is appropriate to deal with the situation".Li's grass is called "Zhang Cao", and Kai's grass is called "Jin Cao".Zhang Zhi was known as the "Sage of Grass" by the people at that time because he was good at Zhang Cao and pioneered the current grass.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "running script" also appeared.Zhang Huaiguan of the Tang Dynasty said in "Ten Ti Shu Duan": "The running script was created by Liu Desheng of Ying (ying Ying) Chuan in the later Han Dynasty, that is, the small error (e goose) of the regular script (regular script), and it is simple,..." Although It is unfair to attribute the creation of the font to one person, but Liu Desheng was at least a representative of running script at that time.It is a pity that his works have not been preserved. The prosperity of calligraphy art in the Han Dynasty was not only the inevitable result of historical accumulation, but also closely related to the promotion of calligraphy theory, technological progress in papermaking and other aspects, and the overall progress of social culture at that time.In short, it should not be too much to say that it was an era of unprecedented prosperity and laid the foundation for the future.