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Chinese Research and Bibliographic Methods for Beginners: Calligraphy

History

Oracle Bone Inscriptions (甲骨文, 14th -11th centuries BC)

  • "incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which were animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China (青铜时期)"

Bronze Script / Bronzeware Script (金文, c. 1300 - 219 BC)

  • "writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on Chinese ritual bronzes such as zhōng bells and dǐng tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (商) to the Zhou dynasty (周) and even later"

Seal Script (篆书)

  • It evolved organically out of Bronze Script arising in the Warring State of Qin (秦). The Qin variant of seal script became the standard and was adopted as the formal script for all of China in the Qin dynasty, and was still widely used for decorative engraving and seals in the Han dynasty (汉).

Clerical script (隶书)

  • "An archaic style of Chinese calligraphy which evolved in the Warring States period (战国) to the Qin dynasty (秦), was dominant in the Han dynasty (汉), and remained in use through the Wèi-Jìn (晉) periods."

Block Script (楷书)

  • "The newest of the Chinese script styles, appearing by the Cao Wei dynasty ca. 200 CE and maturing stylistically around the 7th century, hence most common in modern writings and publications after the Ming and sans-serif styles, used exclusively in print."

Cursive ("Grass") Script (草书)

  • Cursive script is faster to write than other styles but difficult to read for those unfamiliar with it.

Semi-Cursive Script (行书)

  • a cursive style of Chinese characters. Because it is not as abbreviated as cursive, most people who can read regular script can read semi-cursive.

 

An introduction of Chinese Calligraphy History by 德藝書法網

An Example of Chinese Calligraphy