A Preliminary Study on the Form of Ancient Seal Law:Natural hair growth
Take "Military Gift Sima" as an example.
Wang Jianguo. Learning seal carving, the technique is relatively easy to solve, and how to read, recognize, and understand the seal is the key to improving yourself. In contemporary times, under the influence of Western artistic thinking such as the so-called "composition" and "space", some people use this "composition" method to interpret ancient seals, which seems to be not wrong, and can help people see the things in the ancient seals, so as to sort out and summarize a set of personal methods. This kind of interpretation is generally divided into two types: one is the summary category, such as: there are several ways to arrange rows, there are several spatial forms (such as U-shaped chapters), there are several dense forms, and what are the echoing relationships. The second is to form a form of interpretation, such as: the size of the word, the front side, the movement and static, the density, the interspersed and the red, etc.
Seal carving theory books mostly interpret the ancient seal law in this form of composition, many people's experience of reading the seal is also this way to interpret the seal law, few people really think deeply, is this interpretation really effective? How helpful is it for learning seal carving? Have we ever wondered if everyone can interpret this kind of interpretation as long as they have some basic knowledge of calligraphy? As long as there is no problem with the eyes and some contrasting forms are known, the size, positive side, movement, sparseness, etc. can be seen, and this method of reading printing is really not difficult. The problem is that everyone can parse the printed example, but very few people can enter into the creation of this interpretation.
I think this interpretation of the ancient seal is superficial, it is its external form, and I habitually call it a "corpse-cutting" interpretation, which is like a corpse-gouging, opening a person's corpse and telling you that this is the heart, this is the liver, and this is the lungs, but you don't know how they work. The forms of ancient seals are ever-changing, so that interpreting 10,000 square meters of ancient seals will have 10,000 results, but instead complicate simple things, so that you don't know why when you create. In fact, the ancients were not as complicated as you think, and to interpret the ancient seals in this way is just to impose your own ideas and opinions on the thoughts and works of the ancients.
Taking the official seal of the Han Dynasty as an example (Fig. 1), such a superficial analysis will be very complicated: the structure of the word "army" is dense, and the area is small, and the stroke of the word "division" is few, but the area is larger, and the group on the right is relatively dense and occupies a relatively narrow area.
Figure 1
I think that for the interpretation of ancient seals, maybe the ancients didn't think so much, and you shouldn't think so much for the ancients. As for the interpretation of the works of the ancients, if we interpret them in the form of "natural growth", many questions will become simple and clear.
How to interpret ancient seals in the way of "hair growth"? I try to interpret this square of the Han seal: the Han seal is generally flat, the ancients carved this square seal when the first "army" character engraved small (Figure 2), due to the Han seal of the flat type of the chapter, according to the size of the "army" character form, so that the "yu" character in the undertaking also make the corresponding glyph adjustment, why is the word "division" engraved so big? What should I do if I stay in such a large area and not engrave it?! The print surface is so big, do you have to cut off some of it? It must be carved big!
Figure 2
As for the word "horse", it is the same as the word "yu", and it is just a matter of following the trend. The small interspersing of the third line of the character "horse" is also very simple, because there is a gap in the "yu" space, and the horizontal line is carved a little longer in order to bite the space (Fig. 3). In fact, the interpretation of this seal is so simple, because of the word "army", the rest is just born naturally. As for the line changes, adhesions, breakage, etc., you don't have to worry about it, because when you understand the truth of seal carving art, you will naturally recognize its role and trade-offs. Is it really that simple to work from the ancients? The answer is both simple and complex. In the seemingly simple ancient seal, it has the understanding of the basic relationship of nature, the grasp of the basic laws of art, the ability to develop the structure and shape with the situation, and the innate understanding of the dialectical relationship, which are the most difficult.
Figure 3
