The origin of Four Treasures of the Study

Four Treasures of the Study is a unique tool in China, namely pen, ink, paper and inkstone. They are part of our culture. Here is the origin of Four Treasures of the Study that I sorted out. Welcome to enjoy!

The tools and materials of China's calligraphy are basically evolved from pen, ink, paper and inkstone. People usually call them "Four Treasures of the Study", which roughly means that they are the necessary Four Treasures of the Study for a scholar to study.

Because China ancient literati can basically write and draw, or both, they can't do without the four treasures of pen, ink, paper and inkstone.

The name "study" originated from the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589 AD) in the history of China. In particular, it refers to a scholar's study, which uses pen, ink, paper and inkstone, and is known as the "Four Treasures of the Study". In addition to Four Treasures of the Study, there are also pen containers, pen containers, ink beds, ink cartridges, handrails, pens, book towns, water spoons, inkstone drops, inkstone boxes, inkpad, Yin He, knives, stamps and drums. This is also an essential product in the research.

pen

Among many pen products, the brush is a unique one in China. Traditional brush is not only a necessary learning tool for the ancients, but also has a unique power in expressing the special charm of China's paintings and calligraphy. However, because the brush is fragile and difficult to preserve, ancient pens that have been passed down to this day are rare. There are many kinds of pens in ancient times. Judging from the raw materials of the pen, there are rabbit hair, white hair, Miki Sayaka, yellow hair, sheep beard, horse hair, deer hair, musk hair, badger hair, raccoon hair, mink hair, moustache, mouse tail, tiger hair, wolf tail, fox hair, otter hair, orangutan hair, goose hair, duck hair and chicken feather. In terms of performance, there are bristles, soft bristles and double brushes.

Judging from the texture of the pen holder, there are bamboo joints, feather bamboo, spotted bamboo, brown bamboo, purple bamboo, chicken wings, sandalwood, nanmu, rosewood, fragrant wood, carved lacquer, green lacquer, snail, ivory, rhinoceros horn, horn, tortoise shell, jade, crystal and glass.

During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the brush was widely used to write bamboo slips and silk books. The writing brush of the Spring and Autumn Period was found in the tomb of Zeng Houyi in Leigudun, Suizhou City, Hubei Province, which was the earliest pen found.

Later, the Warring States pens unearthed in Zuojiagong Mountain, Changsha City, Hunan Province, the Qin pens unearthed in Shuihudi, Yunmeng County, Hubei Province, and Fangmatan, Tianshui City, Gansu Province, as well as Mawangdui in Changsha, Fenghuang Mountain in jiangling county City, Gansu Province, Xuanquanjia in Dunhuang City, Maquanwan, the Han pens in the ancient rock area of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and the Western Jin pens in Wuwei are all precious materials left by ancient times.

The earliest Four Treasures of the Study brush can be traced back to more than 2000 years ago. Although there were no objects with brushes in the Western Zhou Dynasty and above, we can find some signs of using pens from the prehistoric painted pottery patterns of Shang Dynasty and Oracle Bone Inscriptions.

The writing pen in our country originated very early. Judging from Wudao Oracle Bone Inscriptions, there were primitive pens in Xia and Shang Dynasties. Judging from the patterns on painted pottery in the Neolithic Age, the appearance of pens can be traced back to more than 5,000 years ago. By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, all countries had made and used writing pens. At that time, there were many names for pens: Wu called it Fa, Yan called it Fu, Chu called it Xing and Qin called it Pen.

After Qin Shihuang unified the whole country, "pen" became a definite name, which has been used ever since. According to legend, the brush we used was invented by Meng Tian, the general of Qin during the Warring States Period.

In 223 BC, Meng Kuo, the general of the State of Qin, led his troops to fight against Chu in Zhongshan. The two sides fought fiercely and the war was protracted. In order to let the king of Qin know the situation on the battlefield in time, Meng Tian should write the situation report regularly and deliver it to the king of Qin. At that time, people usually dipped bamboo slips in ink and then wrote on silk, which was very slow. Although Meng Tian is a military commander, he is full of literary talent.

Writing the battle report with the pen mentioned above often makes him feel that it has affected his mind. That pen is hard and hard. If you can't write a few words, you have to stop and dip. If you dip too much ink, it will drip straight down and stain very expensive silk. Meng Tianqian had the idea of changing the pen, and this time he wanted to write a lot of situation reports, and this desire became stronger and stronger.

During the war, Meng Tian liked to go hunting in the wild. One day, he shot some wild rabbits and returned to the barracks. Because the rabbit has been hit many times, it is very heavy in his hand. There is a rabbit's tail on the ground, and the blood is dragging winding traces on the ground. When Meng Tian saw it, he couldn't help but move: "Isn't it better to write with rabbit tail instead of ordinary pen?"

After returning to the barracks, Meng Tian immediately cut off a rabbit's tail and put it on a bamboo tube, trying to write with it, but the rabbit's hair was shiny and didn't absorb ink, and the words written on the silk were intermittent. Meng Tian tried several times to no avail, and a silk was wasted. In a rage, he threw the "rabbit brush" into the rock pit in front of the door.

Meng Tian was not willing to fail, so he took the time to consider other improvement methods. A few days passed, but he still didn't find a suitable method. On this day, he walked out of the barracks and wanted to breathe some fresh air. Walking through the rock pit, he saw the "rabbit brush" he had thrown away. Meng Tian picked it up, pinched the rabbit hair with his fingers, and found that the rabbit hair was wet, and the color became whiter and softer. Meng Tian was greatly inspired and immediately ran back to the barracks to dip in ink. At this time, the rabbit's tail became very obedient, absorbed enough ink, wrote smoothly, and the font became round. It turns out that the water in the rock pit contains calcium, and the rabbit hair becomes soft after being soaked in alkaline water. Because this pen is composed of a bamboo tube and rabbit hair, Meng Tian added a "bamboo" prefix to the popular pen name "Yu" at that time and called it "pen".

black

The impression of ink seems a little simplistic, but it is indispensable in ancient Chinese characters. With the help of this original material, the fantastic artistic conception of China's paintings and calligraphy can be realized. The world of ink is not boring, but rich in connotation. As a consumable, ink can be presented intact today, which is very precious. The production of ink is very particular, the materials are pure, the processing is fine, and the first-class ink is extremely delicate and mellow. The fineness mainly depends on the number of times of pestle processing, and the more times of tamping, the more delicate it is. It is said that there are hundreds of thousands of small bags in a mortar.

Before the invention of artificial ink making, natural ink or semi-natural ink was generally used as writing material. Prehistoric painted pottery patterns, Shang and Zhou Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bamboo slips, silk paintings and so on have left traces of original ink everywhere. According to documents, ink was also used in ancient ink punishment (face painting), ink rope (carpenter's use) and ink turtle (divination). After this long course, in the Han Dynasty, artificial ink finally began to appear. This kind of ink raw material is taken from pine smoke, which is first kneaded by hand and then molded, and the ink quality is solid. According to Ying Shao's "Han" in the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Shang Shuling, Servant Shooting, Cheng Lang, give a large amount of ink and a small amount of ink every month." Bai Weiling is located in Qianyang County, Shaanxi Province, near Zhong Nanshan Mountain. There are many Gu Song Mountains in Bai Weiling, which are famous for the tobacco used to make ink.

From the production to the final product, there are many processes such as glue injection, blending, steaming and baking, and there is also a molding process. Ink carving is an important process and also an artistic creation process. The shapes of ink are generally square, rectangular, round, oval and irregular. Ink mold is generally composed of front, back, top, bottom, left and right six pieces, while circular or idol-shaped ink mold can be synthesized only by four or two pieces. Built-in ink, close the hammer and smash the finished product. Most of the nib is engraved on the side, so that the ink mold can be easily replaced when it is reused. There are various forms of ink appearance, which can be divided into natural color ink, lacquer-wrapped ink, gold-washed ink and lacquer-edged ink (it must be ancient grinding ink or special black ink).

paper

Paper is one of the four great inventions in ancient China. Even in the prevalence of machine-made paper today, some traditional handmade papers still reflect its irreplaceable role and glow with unique brilliance. Ancient newspapers can still get a glimpse of him in Gu Shuhua. For a long time before the invention of paper, what did people use as notes? According to the literature and physical data, the earliest people used knots to take notes. When something happened, they tied a knot and solved it when they were finished. Later, he carved words on the bones of tortoise shells, which was called "Oracle Bone Inscriptions". After the bronze wares were produced, they were engraved with inscriptions, namely "Bronze Inscription" or "Zhong Dingwen". After that, write the words on the pieces cut from bamboo and wood, which are called "bamboo slips". For example, a wide piece of bamboo is called a "bamboo slip". At the same time, some of them are also written on silk fabrics. In the pre-Qin period, in addition to the above materials, words carved on stones were also found, such as the famous "Shi Guwen".

As we all know, paper was invented by Cai Lun in the Eastern Han Dynasty. However, archaeological excavations have questioned this. These ancient papers are named after the place where they were unearthed. According to the chronological order of ancient papers, they can be arranged as follows: Fangmatan Paper in the early Western Han Dynasty, Baqiao Paper, Xuanquan Paper, Maquanwan Paper and Juyan Paper in the middle Western Han Dynasty, and Dry Beach Slope Paper in the late Western Han Dynasty. These papers not only predate Cai Lun paper, but also have ink fonts on some papers, indicating that they have been used to write documents.

In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, politics was stable, ideology and culture were very active, and the demand for communication tools was very strong. As a new writing material, paper came into being. From the archaeological findings so far, the invention of papermaking was not later than the early Western Han Dynasty. The earliest unearthed ancient paper in the Western Han Dynasty was discovered in 1933 at Noergu beacon tower in Lop Nur, Xinjiang, not later than 49 BC. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cai Lun improved papermaking and popularized writing tools, which made outstanding contributions to the spread of world culture. With the progress of archaeological work along the Northwest Silk Road, many sites and tombs of the Western Han Dynasty have been discovered, including many paper cultural relics.

inkstone

Although Yan Tao's "Lezun Kaidong" inkstone ranks first in the ranking of "pen, ink and paper inkstone", to some extent, it is in a leading position, led by the so-called "Four Treasures of the Study" inkstone, which is solid in texture and can be passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, in today's Four Treasures of the Study, inkstone is the most common and popular. When was the earliest inkstone in China formed? What's the difference between it and the inkstone we use? Archaeologists once found a set of tools used by primitive people to draw pottery in a primitive social site in Jiangzhai, Lintong County, Shaanxi Province. Among them, there is a stone inkstone with a cover, a slightly concave surface, a stone pestle in the recess, and a few black pigments left beside the inkstone. Obviously, this is the shape of an early inkstone in which our ancestors used a pestle to grind pigments. Because this site belongs to Yangshao culture in matriarchal clan period, the actual life of this inkstone has exceeded 5000 years. When did the shape of the pestle or stone mill inkstone begin to change, that is, when it approached the inkstone instead of the pestle or stone mill? Until the Han dynasty. Since manual ink making was invented in Han Dynasty, ink can be ground directly on inkstone, so it is not necessary to grind natural or semi-natural ink with pestle or stone. From this point of view, the grinding pestle or grinding stone gradually disappeared in the long course of more than 3 thousand years in prehistoric times and Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Although it is no longer used, its contribution to the spread of culture is still indispensable.

Inkstone, also known as "Inkstone", was praised by the ancients as "the first in Four Treasures of the Study". Because ink can only be called by adding water to grind it, and the stone punishment for sending ink is inkstone. Among them are pottery, clay, bricks, metals, lacquerware, porcelain, stones and so on. The most common is inkstone. There are many stones that can be used as inkstones. China is vast in territory and abundant in natural resources, with famous mountains and rivers everywhere. Where there are stones, there must be masons, so the origin of inkstone is all over the country.

The most famous Yan Tao inkstone platforms in Four Treasures of the Study are Duanyan inkstone in Zhaoqing, Guangdong, Sheyan inkstone in Anhui, Yan Tao inkstone in Gansu, Luyan inkstone in Shandong, Weilong inkstone in Jiangxi and Chengni inkstone in Shaanxi. The stress of inkstone is: fine texture, moist and pure, crystal clear and smooth, beautiful texture and color, easy to send ink but not absorb water. Some have breasts, some have eyes, some have belts, some have stars, and the production is better where there are mountains and water. For example, this inkstone was taken from an axe bathed in Jiang Wei's mine in Duan Xi. Although they come from the same place, their rocks are also different, such as blue and white, azure, banana leaf white, fish brain jelly, ice flower Venus, rib, eyebrow pattern, HongLing, swallow, purple stone, turtle stone and so on. Shi Jia has yet to improve, and the carving of inkstone platform has already formed an art, which can convey its ingenuity from taking stones, cutting materials, modeling, grooving, polishing and carving. Some exquisite inkstones are no longer practical. Because of its preciousness, it can only be used for antique appreciation and collection, rather than indulging in pen and ink. The preciousness of inkstone includes valuing stones, making them, using them by celebrities and so on.

The inkstone needs to be cleaned frequently and cannot be polluted. Every kind of ink must be clean and fresh. In Mo Ding, the older the better. As time goes on, its glue will naturally dissolve, but water can't be stored and must be replaced. If you are afraid of oil, you can wash it with lotus flowers or old tea leaves. It is best to add water at a slight temperature, and do not add it to the boiling water value to prevent it from bursting. Therefore, calligraphers should not only use inkstones, but also raise them.