With a history of more than 3000 years, Chinese character has become popular among people from all over the world. When learning Chinese calligraphy, you'd better learn something about the development of these mysterious characters, which will be helpful for you.
With a history of more than 3000 years, Chinese character has become popular among people from all over the world. When learning Chinese calligraphy, you'd better learn something about the development of these mysterious characters, which will be helpful for you.
Chinese Character, just from jiaguwen, used in Shang Dynasty (about the 16th –11th century B.C.), has a long history of more than 3000 years. Generally, people regard jiaguwen as the oldest character because it is the earliest, mature and systematic Chinese Character found today. In the long history, Chinese Character comes down in the continuous line, although the scripts change as the times. The scripts of Chinese Character are made up of jiaguwen, jinwen, xiaozhuan, lishu, caoshu, xingshu, kaishu and so on, but kaishu and xingshu are used often, now.
Jiaguwen
This kind of Chinese character is the one discovered from the remains of Shang Dynasty. Because these Characters were carved or written on the tortoise shells and the bones, so it was called jiaguwen. The square turning is the main way of writing (or carving), and smooth turning is rare. Its lines are thin mostly.
Jinwen
Jinwen is the one mainly used in Shang Dynasty, and Zhou Danasty and sometimes in Han Dynasty. It was discovered on the bronze wares, so it was named jinwen. These verses cast on the ancient zhongs(bells) and dings (the ancient Chinese cooking vessels with two loop handles and three or four legs) were almost the ones to put down the contributions of the kings and their officials in those times, so this kind of script has another two names, zhongdingwen and mingwen( the script of inscriptions). The style of jinwen is the same as jiaguwen, but neater and more well-balanced, and its lines are thicker, too.
Xiaozhuan
After the union of ancient China in the Qin Dyansty, the character used by Qin kingdom was sorted out and simplified and used in the united country, and the other (six) kingdoms' characters were banished. This reformed character was named xiaozhuan or Qinzhuan which was originated from the former characters, but its lines are the neatest and most well-balanced, and the shapes of it are even firmer. It is very important, for it is the end of the ancient Chinese characters (jiaguwen, jinwen, xiaozhuan) and the beginning of the modern Chinese characters (lishuu, caoshu, xingshu, kaish).
Lishu
Lishu was developed from xiaozhuan in Qin Dynasty, and mainly used in Han Dynasty and Wei Dynasty. Compared with xiaozhuan, the strokes of lishu are straighter and squarer, and it removes the feature of picture of Chinese character. Since then, the shades of Chinese characters have almost been stabilized. Of course, there are some differences in different scripts.
Caoshu, Xingshu and Kaishu
Caoshu is from lishu in Han Dynasty, and grown up in Jin Dynasty. It is the fast writing form of lishu, called zhangcao first. Its developed type is called jincao (modern caoshu).
Xngshu and kaishu are also developed from lishu in Han Dynasty and are popular in Wei Dynasty, Jin Dynasty and South-north Dynasty. They are very practical, and used widely till today.