Seals are a phenomenon found in both Eastern and Western cultures. Seals existed long before the creation of human writing, and at that time seals were mainly based on simple graphics and mysterious symbols as the subject matter of seal expression.
7,000 years ago, cylindrical seals appeared in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq in the Middle East). Due to the development of urban civilization and commercial civilization, as well as the development of religion and the maturity of writing, people had requirements in terms of administration, commercial circulation and financial management control, so the Mesopotamians became the first people in the world to use seals in writing. The people of the two river basins used clay tablets as writing materials, the so-called "clay tablets". They used reed stalks to write standard cuneiform on clay tablets, and the seals they used were cylindrical seals made of clay. Later, the Sumerians used cylindrical seals mainly made of stone such as precious stones or marble, and by the Babylonian period, hard hematite became the preferred material.
In ancient Egypt, the god of the scarab beetle Capri mostly appeared in the form of seals, known as "scarab seals". It is a stone seal carved in the shape of a beetle, more precisely, a sigil. People wear seals carved in the shape of some strange beasts on their bodies, which not only indicates that the wearer has some kind of power, but also has the function of driving away evil and avoiding evil. Ancient Egyptian "scarab prints" are often engraved on gemstones, the most common being malachite, which exudes a mysterious blue glow, adding to its mysterious qualities and unique magic.
Early Chinese seals were also associated with clay, the so-called "sealing mud". In order to prevent those objects that need to be sealed and passed away from being opened or dismantled, the ancients tied them with ropes first, and then sealed them with mud blocks at the knots of the ropes, so that the back of the coffin was imprinted, which is the origin of the seal. After the Wei and Jin dynasties, the writing material evolved from simple to paper, the system of sealing mud was gradually abolished, and the printing method also changed to directly on the paper.
There are many kinds of seals, "seals" are shared by the humbles before Qin, since the beginning of Qin Shi Huang, for the exclusive enjoyment of the Son of Heaven, called "the emperor's six seals", the material is mostly jade, and the shape is also particularly luxurious. The oracle bone inscription already has the word "seal", which is the original text of the word "suppression", one is a noun, one is a verb, one is a seal, and one is the action of suppressing the seal. The word "chapter", from the sound of ten, ten, the end of the number, is the end of the music, and the seal is more than the end of the article, so it takes its meaning. The continuous use of "seal" began in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and has been handed down to the "seal of the captain", "the seal of the general", "the seal of the prime minister" and so on.
There are many different types of stamps for different purposes. There are official seals, private seals, there are white seals, Zhu seals, metal seals, jade seals, ivory seals, boxwood seals and other materials, the seal shape has square, round, oval, gourd-shaped, bell-shaped, ancient money shape, the content has a surname seal, a year tooth seal, a family lineage seal, a calligraphy and painting collection seal, an animal Xiao shaped seal, etc. The early seals of China were mostly cast in metal, and the ancient official seals were mostly cast with fan mud at one time, so they were called casting seals. Some metal official seals, because they were in a hurry to worship, had no time to be cast, so they had to be hurriedly chiseled, called "urgent seals". Non-metallic lithographs, which cannot be cast, are generally directly chiseled with a knife, which is called chiseling.
Therefore, for the development of Chinese art, the most important thing is that after the Song and Yuan dynasties, with the rise of literati calligraphy and painting, the alias seal of the Zhai Pavilion gradually became a trend in calligraphy and painting works, which is the turn of the seal from official and private seals and practical seals to literati seals and art seals. Since most of the seal characters were not restricted by the popular calligraphy style at that time, the seal script was mostly used in the printing. However, there are very few people in the Yuan Dynasty who know how to transfer the law, and the seals engraved by craftsmen are "weak in seal law, more arbitrary, and unwritten" (Deng Sanmu).
Calligrapher Zhao Mengfu personally wrote the seal and then asked the craftsman to engrave it. He also personally copied 340 square meters of ancient seals and compiled them into the "History of India". Zhao Mengfu and Wu Qiu Yan at that time were good at "iron wire seals", "its writing is round and charming, so it is called 'round Zhu Wen'." Its wind spirit flows, like spring flowers dancing, light clouds out of Xiu. (Qing Dynasty Chen Lianyu) Wu Qiu Yan felt that the Yuan Dynasty seal altar "ancient law gradually declined", compiled the "Ancient Edition", committed to the construction of seal carving theory. Zhao Mengfu took the restoration of the fine tradition of the Han seal as his own responsibility, and Wu Qiu Yan strongly advocated the study of "Shuowen" as the foundation of seal carving art. Their exploration not only opened the precedent of literati seal carving after that, but also directly inspired the later genre seals of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The literati of seals is one of the most important events in the history of late Chinese art. Most of the Indians are calligraphers, painters, and scholars, who have quite a deep and comprehensive artistic accomplishment, and the combination of poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing has become the most dazzling badge of Chinese art history during the Ming and Qing dynasties.