Chapter 9 Section 5 Seal margin

The margin is the inscription that falls outside the printed surface.Most of the content is the name, alias, alias, age, date of engraving (mostly used to record the year), place, or who engraved it, relationship with the seal owner, source of learning, source of seal, and engraving intention of the seal engraver. etc., there are also those that express the author's artistic opinions and feelings, or engraved poems and patterns. The use of seal side inscriptions is borrowed from the inscriptions on ancient bronze wares.The inscriptions on bronze objects are also called "Zhong Dingwen".The concave characters, that is, Yinwen, are called "kuan", and the protruding characters, that is, Yangwen, are called "knowledge".

There are many boundless styles on the ancient seals, which may be because the seals at that time were made of copper and jade, which were too hard and difficult to chisel.Besides, the seals at that time were all made by professional workers, and there was no need to engrave them.However, on the back of the official seal of the Sui Dynasty, there are already chiseled year numbers.Most of the official seals of the Song Dynasty are also engraved with the year and casting mechanism on the back of the seal, and the inscriptions of private seals are also very exquisite.The popularity of borders came after people widely used stone materials for printing.

After the Yuan Dynasty, the use of stone to make seals brought convenience to literati seal carving. They began to write seal characters and carve seals by themselves.At this time, the seal is not only for personal use, but also as a gift for friends and friends.The seal has become a medium for literati to communicate with each other, which requires inscription on the engraved seal. In the Ming and Qing dynasties when the art of seals was shining in the literary world, side inscriptions have become an integral part of the art of seals.In a seal, the relationship between the margin and the printed surface is as indispensable as the inscription in calligraphy and painting.A seal without margins is like a word or a painting without the signature of the author, and cannot be regarded as a complete work.

The appearance of borders has injected new content into the art of seals.In addition to the fonts, knife techniques, and techniques of the side inscriptions, which have become a special art with high appreciation value, judging from the seal cutting works of famous masters handed down since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the side inscriptions provide us with a physical basis for identifying these works , It also provides important textual information for the study of the life and interests of the seal carvers, as well as the society, history, and customs at that time. Some seal carvers do not know each other at all, but the margins can connect their feelings together, and at the same time they can learn from each other.For example, Wu Xizai and Zhao Zhiqian were both famous seal carvers in the late Qing Dynasty. They admired each other but never met each other.Zhao Zhiqian praised Wu Xizai in the side note of a seal, saying: "Calm your heart and calm your mind, you will be vigorous. Only Wu Xizai from Yangzhou can do this." After several years, Wu Xizai saw this in Zhao Zhiqian's seal. With a margin, the two seals of "Er Kingdie Hall" and "Zhao Zhiqian" were enthusiastically engraved and presented to Zhao Zhiqian.It is a good story in the art forest that the two seal carvers made friends with seals.

The fonts of the margins include seal script, official script, regular script, running script, and cursive script.There are also official script, regular script, running script and cursive script engraved around a seal.However, seal script is rarely used in engraved borders. This is because seal script is mostly used for printed texts, and another type of font is used for borders, which is not only beautiful, but also makes people feel different. Literati and seal carvers carved side inscriptions, mostly using Han and Wei stele fonts, and wrote them at will.The calligraphy is immature, which is quite natural.The edge engravings of the Ming Dynasty mostly followed the method of engraving steles and were engraved with "double knives".Ding Jing in the Qing Dynasty created an original method of directly engraving the border with a single knife, which saved the process of drafting with a pen on the stone seal.This method of directly engraving the margins without making a draft is equivalent to using stone as paper, using a knife as a substitute for writing, peeling and peeling, freely swaying, and the charm of fonts and knife techniques is vivid on the stone.Later, many seal carvers competed to adopt it.Huang Yi engraved the margins without making a draft. He used the "single-entry cutting knife method", holding the knife in his right hand without moving, and only turning the stone seal in his left hand. Every time a character is carved, the stone must be rotated several times.In the past hundred years, Zhao Zhiqian, Wu Changshuo, Qi Baishi and other seal carvers have also adopted this method, but Qi Baishi has gone a step further. His method of engraving the edge is: first engrave the horizontal pen, then engrave the vertical pen, and finally engrave dots, write off , Na, hook and other strokes.In this way, compared with Huang Yi's method, the number of times the seal stone is rotated is reduced, which is much simpler.

Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there has also been a kind of edge inscriptions carved in neat and beautiful Jin and Tang Xiaokai. It is also common to engrave side inscriptions in running script.The cursive script font is very suitable for engraving the margins of poetry content, as well as engraving prose or other literary works.For example, there is a Shoushan stone square seal engraved in the Ming Dynasty, about 16 cm high, with more than 300 characters in the full text of "Orchid Pavilion Preface" engraved around it, and the calligraphy style is Dingwu Lanting (Dingwu Lanting is the Lanting of Wang Xizhi copied by Tang Dynasty calligrapher Ouyang Xun Preface), the whole text is completed in one go, without losing its charm of "the best running script in the world".The six-centimeter-square seal is engraved with the sentence in the preface of Lanting that "a glass of wine and a chant are enough to express your feelings".It can be said that this is a work of art combining seal cutting with calligraphy and literary content.

The ancient engraved borders all have a certain position, which is for the convenience of stamping and avoiding the text of the stamp from being overturned.If the number of words on the side is small and only occupies one side, it should be engraved on the left side of the seal.The number of words must occupy two sides, starting from the front of the seal (that is, the side facing itself) and ending on the left side.Engraved on three sides, starting from the right side of the seal and ending on the left side.The four-sided border style starts from the back of the seal, passes through the right side, the front side, and ends on the left side.The order of the five sides is the same as the four sides and ends at the top.In short, the position of the engraved border is mainly on the left side, no matter how many sides are engraved, the end of the border should be on the left side of the seal.There are also side models that are only engraved on the top, and most of them are flat without buttons.

There is also a certain position for the side of the seal engraved with a button.For tiles, bridges, noses, buckets, altars, etc., the left and right are determined by the position of the perforation; for lions, tigers, turtles and other animals, the front is determined by the position of the tail of the animal. For the engraved seal, the printed text is left on the paper by stamping with ink pad, and the method of showing the margin is rubbing.Rubbing art has a long history in China, and many artifacts and inscriptions in ancient times were handed down through rubbings. The method of rubbing side stamps is the same as rubbing stele, rubbing jade and other utensils, but the tools used are smaller and the quality is finer.

The material needed for the rubbing style is thin rice paper (in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, there was a kind of rice paper called Liuji Mianlian, which was as thin as a cicada's wing, and it was most suitable for rubbing small objects, which is rare now), and the tool used was rubbing bag. , Palm broom.Auxiliary supplies need bletilla striata [ji and], pen, ink, copy paper and small dish. Tubing is made of cotton and silk.The production method is: knead new cotton into a small ball about the size of a sanitary ball, wrap it with a layer of thicker cloth, preferably wool serge, and then wrap it with a layer of silk, preferably soft satin, and tie it tightly with thread. It became a package.Tubing should be small rather than large, with a diameter of about three or four centimeters.A rubbing bag can be used many times. After each use, it should be dipped in clean water and rubbed on waste paper repeatedly. After dipping the ink on the rubbing bag, put it away for the next use.If the bag is not used frequently, you can also wash and dry the outer satin material wrapped in cotton, and tie it again when you use it.The method of making this kind of small rubbing bag is very simple. Since its use is limited to rubbing, it is not sold in stores.The palm broom used in the extension style is generally available in stationery stores.If you can do it yourself, it will be more convenient to use.

The production method of the brown broom is: select thin brown silk, remove the thick part, arrange and roll up the brown silk, tie it tightly with thin iron wire, and then use a sharp knife to cut the brown silk evenly before use.The shape of the broom is flat or round, and it can be made into a broom that can be used for both ends of the brown silk. Bletilla striata is a traditional Chinese medicine that stops bleeding and promotes body fluids, and it can be bought in traditional Chinese medicine stores.Bletilla striata is used for rubbing for bonding and lubrication.If you use clear water to coat the rubbing surface, it's okay, but it's not as easy to rub as bletilla striata water.The method of using bletilla striata is: put about 10 pieces of bletilla striata in a small bowl, brew it into thin sticky water with boiling water, and then use it.

The edge-extruding style has to go through several processes of cleaning the surface, brushing bletilla striata with water, papering, beating the paper, and inking.First clean the printed surface and its surroundings, use a clean brush to brush a layer of bletilla water on the side to be rubbed, cut the thinner white rice paper into the size of the rubbed surface, and lay it flat on the rubbed surface brushed with bletilla water, and the bletilla water is soaked For rubbing paper, if the moisture of the rubbing paper is not enough, use a clean brush dipped in water to wipe the paper surface lightly, then cover a layer of copy paper on it, and press firmly with your hands to prevent the rubbing paper below from wrinkling.After a little dry, use a palm broom to pat the paper evenly, and you must master the proper hand strength so as not to break the rubbing paper.After beating until the literal paper is sunken in the hollow and the handwriting is fully revealed, the copy paper can be removed and ink can be applied.Pour a little ink into a small dish, lightly dip the ink with a rubbing bag, and rub it on the waste paper repeatedly, or tap it gently on another rubbing bag that does not stain the ink until the ink is evenly distributed.Before starting rubbing, be sure to make the ink on the rubbing evenly, and there should be no spots of ink accumulation.When rubbing, use a rubbing bag to rub the paper from all sides, gradually rubbing to the place where there are characters, and repeatedly rubbing and thinning.Generally, after four or five times of extension, the displayed characters can be clear.When peeling off the paper, be careful not to break the rubbing paper, if the rubbing surface is stuck to the rubbing paper, take a breath to moisten the paper, and then lightly peel off the rubbing paper. The extension of the border has a lot to do with the climate.If the climate is too dry or too humid, it is not easy to rub it well. It is best to rub it in a cloudy day that is dry but not dry, cloudy but not wet.For example, in sunny days, it is necessary to avoid direct sunlight and wind passage openings in order to receive a good drawing effect. Rubbing is easy to make, but the quality of rubbing varies greatly, which depends on the experience of the rubbing maker.Some people have been devoted to rubbing work all their lives, and their rubbing works can also be called masterpieces of art.Today's rubbing master in China is Mr. Fu Dayou [youyou] of the Seal Carving Association.Mr. Fu is specialized in the identification of cultural relics, and also specializes in seal cutting and rubbing.An expert once praised Mr. Fu's rubbings and said: "Carving is better than writing, and rubbing is better than engraving." This is the highest evaluation of Mr. Fu's rubbing skills. Good rubbing technology can produce the smell of gold and stone that paper and pen writing does not have.In the printed score compiled into a book, the bright red stamp with the ink-colored border not only provides a proper description for the printed surface, but also the contrast between red and black is lively and calm, giving people a beautiful visual enjoyment.