The origin of brush calligraphy

Symbols depicting Chinese characters first appeared on pottery. The primitive depiction symbol only represents a rough concept of chaos and has no exact meaning.

More than 8,000 years ago, magnetic mountain culture, Fiji and Khan Lee cultures appeared in the Yellow River Basin. There are many characters-like symbols on the hand-made ceramics unearthed in Fiji and Khan Lee, which are the chaotic combination of the communication function, note-taking function and pattern decoration function of the ancestors. Although these Chinese characters are unrecognizable by modern people, they are indeed the embryonic form of Chinese characters.

Immediately after the Banpo site of Yangshao culture about 6000 years ago, some painted pottery with similar characters were unearthed. These symbols are distinguished from patterns, which promotes the development of Chinese characters. This can be said to be the origin of China characters.

Then Erlitou culture and Erligang culture. In the archaeological excavation of Erlitou culture, there are 24 kinds of marked pottery pieces, some of which are similar to Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins, and all of them are single independent characters. Erligang culture was found to have a writing system. Three bones with words were found here, two with words and a cross, which seemed to be carved for practicing lettering. This has made civilization take another big step forward.

The origin of primitive characters is an imitation instinct, which is used to visualize a specific thing. Although it is simple and chaotic, it already has a certain aesthetic taste. This simple writing can therefore be called prehistoric calligraphy.

Extended data:

Five calligraphy styles

1, cursive script

Cursive script is a font of Chinese characters, which is characterized by simple structure and continuous strokes. Formed in the Han Dynasty, it evolved on the basis of official script for the convenience of writing. There are Cao Zhang, modern grass and weeds, and it feels beautiful in madness.

2. seal script

Seal script is a general term for big seal script and small seal script. Oracle Bone Inscriptions, 3000 years ago, is the earliest recognizable writing handed down, mainly used for divination. The brushwork is thin and powerful, with many straight lines. There are Fang Bi, round pen and sharp pen, and there are many "hanging needles" for writing.

Dazhuan refers to inscriptions in bronze, bronze and six languages, and retains the obvious characteristics of ancient hieroglyphics. Xiao Zhuan, also known as "Qin Zhuan", is a commonly used character in Qin State and a simplified font of Da Zhuan, which is characterized by uniform and neat glyphs and is easier to write than Wen Shu.

3. Official script

Lishu, also called Han Li, is a solemn font commonly used in Chinese characters. Its writing effect is slightly wide and flat, the horizontal painting is long and straight, and it is rectangular, paying attention to "silkworm head and goose tail" and "twists and turns".

Lishu originated in the Qin Dynasty and was compiled by Cheng Miao. It reached its peak in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which had a great influence on later calligraphy. Calligraphy is called "Tang Kai of Han Li".

4. Regular script

Regular script is also called regular script, real script and official script. Li Shu, founded by Cheng Miao, has gradually evolved and become more simplified and level.

5. Running script

Running script is developed and originated on the basis of official script, which produces a font between regular script and cursive script to make up for the slow writing speed of regular script and the fuzziness of cursive script. "Go" means "go". It is not as scrawled as cursive script, nor as straight as regular script.

Whether it is cursive or cursive in essence. Those with more patterns than grass patterns are called "running patterns", and those with more grass patterns are called "running grass".

Baidu encyclopedia-calligraphy