The Chinese tiger culture has a long history, and it has long been one of the totems of China. In writing, language, poetry, literature, sculpture, painting, opera, folk customs, and more extensive folklore, mythology, stories, children's songs and other traditional cultural fields, the image of the tiger is ubiquitous, occupies a very prominent position in China's historical development for thousands of years, often called together with the dragon, and plays a major role in many aspects.
In the text of "Zhou Yi Qiangua", there is a saying: "The cloud follows the dragon, and the wind follows the tiger". Because the dragon flies in the sky and the tiger walks on the ground, the combination of the tiger and the dragon becomes a symbol of majesty and strength and a typical form of beautifying authority, and is the object of worship and fear. Sometimes it also plays the role of chasing demons, cowardice, and towning, constituting a national customs and cultural characteristics full of vitality and vitality, and has become an indispensable part of Chinese civilization.
Chinese characters are pictographs, and Chinese calligraphy pays attention to the homology of calligraphy and painting. The character "tiger" was first seen in the Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscription and the Shang Dynasty gold inscription, which belongs to pictographs. It depicts the shape of a tiger with colorful patterns on its body, with a tiger's head on the upper part and a tiger's body and feet and tail on the bottom. The word "tiger" in the oracle bone inscription is simply a left-hand view of the tiger, a holistic depiction of the animal tiger. This word should be ** in the picture, and the Neolithic Yinshan rock painting on the tiger is very similar, the comparison can clearly see the relationship of its inheritance. In the later period of the Yin Shang Dynasty, the tiger character had some very simple and economical writing, with a single line to represent the body with patterns, which became the basic form after entering the Zhou Dynasty. The claw shape was gradually omitted in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the hind leg shape was omitted in the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty, and the long tail was no longer upturned, and the tiger head seemed to be a side humanoid shape. In the middle and late Warring States period, the Qin script was broken into two pieces, and the lower part had two forms: first, from the late Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period, it became a "human" shape, and the small seal followed; Second, it became an "A" shape, and Qin was subordinate to it. In the early Spring and Autumn Period, you can still see the form of the hind legs of the Chengxi Zhou Dynasty, and the Warring States and Jin Dynasty scripts still have this residual vein. After the Qin Dynasty, the two Han Dynasty to Wei Lishu are inherited from Qin Li, and although the word "tiger" in the regular script is not in the Han Dynasty, it is based on the small seal. The Tang Dynasty Zhengding text, with "tiger" as the main body. The calligraphers of the past dynasties wrote the word "tiger", with the different tiger postures of each dynasty, although the form is different, but see the tiger's head standing high, the tiger's tail is vigorous, quite a tiger roaring mountain wind, sweeping the power of a thousand jun. In fact, these "tiger" characters are still embodied in the "qi" of traditional Chinese culture. The text has a "literary atmosphere", the book has a "scholarly atmosphere", and the "tiger spirit" in calligraphy is the spirit of the king, the spirit of Haoran, and the spirit of masculinity of the Chinese nation. The fact that a piece of calligraphy contains such a profound cultural connotation shows the breadth and profundity of Chinese calligraphy art. Next, please follow the author to appreciate the word "tiger" written by famous masters in the past dynasties.
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