When the earliest brush characters and the most beautiful ancient characters on the mainland come into view at the same time, how amazing, the "Vertical and Horizontal Elephants - Hou Ma MengShu and Zhongshan Three Instruments Character Art Exhibition" that is being exhibited at the Hebei Museum will give the answer. The Book of Hou Ma Meng and the Zhongshan Three Instrument Inscriptions, as living specimens, fully demonstrate the rich cultural connotation of ancient Chinese writing art.
"Shijiazhuang people more than 2,000 years ago, how did they come up with this font" "It is worthy of being the most beautiful ancient script in China" ... "There are vertical and horizontal elephants - Hou Ma Mengshu and Zhongshan Three Instruments Character Art Exhibition" is being exhibited at the Hebei Museum, and the ancient characters of a thousand years ago have attracted many visitors, especially the Zhongshan Three Instruments inscription unearthed from the tomb of the King of Zhongshan in the Warring States of Shijiazhuang, which makes the public particularly stunning. The exhibition will be on view until March 14 and will be open to the public free of charge.
The earliest brush characters meet the most beautiful ancient characters
From 1965 to 1966, more than 1,000 pieces of jade and stone mengshu were excavated from the houma Jinguo ruins in Shanxi, and more than 650 pieces of recognizable characters, more than 200 words and as few as 10 words. The Book of The Huma League is a letter of covenant between zhao martingale, the ruler of the Jin dynasty, and a political ally, and is also a complete chapter written by the ancients with a brush at the earliest archaeological discovery, which is of great value for the study of the history of the Jin State, the ancient oath system and ancient scripts.
Hebei, the land of Yanzhao in ancient times, but most of the area of Shijiazhuang today belonged to a mysterious country called "Zhongshan" during the Warring States period. In the 1970s, a large pyramid-like mound called "Tomb No. 1" (Tomb of the King) in Sanji Township, Pingshan, Hebei Province, unearthed tens of thousands of precious cultural relics, of which three bronzes such as iron-footed copper dings, copper square pots, and copper round pots were named "Zhongshan Three Instruments", because they were engraved with long inscriptions, a total of 1124 words. Among them, the iron-footed bronze ding is the first of the nine dings excavated from the tomb of the King of Zhongshan, and it is the bronze ware of the Warring States period with the longest inscription found at present. The inscription records the historical facts of Sima Gan, the prime minister of zhongshan, who led an army to attack the Yan state and expand the territory. Nowadays, many people collectively refer to these inscriptions as "Zhongshan Seal" and are praised as the most beautiful ancient chinese characters because of their upright and superior font.
"Vertical and Horizontal Elephant - Hou Ma MengShu and Zhongshan Three Instruments Of Character Art Exhibition" is divided into three parts: "Zhu Writing Spring and Autumn", "Sword and Pen Casting Huazhang" and "Ancient Seal Exhibition New Posture", through the photos of Hou Ma Meng's book, Zhongshan Three Instruments text rubbings, contemporary seal engraving seals, calligraphy works, etc., to introduce the historical origin and artistic characteristics of Hou Ma Meng's book and three instrument inscriptions. "During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, with the division of princes and the expansion of the scope of use of writing, calligraphy also appeared a strong local color. The Hou ma MengShu of the Jin Dynasty and the Zhongshan Three Instrument Script of the Zhongshan Kingdom are living specimens of the history of the development of Chinese characters in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, and are also treasures of the ancient writing art. Hao Jianwen, curator of the exhibition and research librarian of the Hebei Museum, said that the exhibition aims to learn from the past and the present, present the beauty of writing art: "Take everyone to understand the indiscriminate characters of the Spring and Autumn Warring States, feel the rich cultural connotation of ancient Chinese writing art, and draw spiritual nourishment from traditional culture from the art of calligraphy." ”
There are still many golden sentences with high appearance value of the three inscriptions
Hao Jianwen was born in Pingshan, and the distance between his hometown and the tomb of the King of Zhongshan is only 5 kilometers, and he has always felt that he is related to this mysterious kingdom. At the age of 17, he was admitted to the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics as a draftsman, and studied archaeological drawing and calligraphy with Zhang Shouzhong, a compiler of ancient script reference books. At that time, many cultural relics unearthed in Zhongshan in the Warring States were carefully examined and carefully measured and drawn, and he fell in love with the three inscriptions of Zhongshan at first sight. Over the years, Hao Jianwen has been copying and writing Zhongshan Seals, and is quite famous in the industry.
"You know what? Zhongshan Seal is still very fashionable and vital today. Hao Jianwen said that Zhongshan Seal has a kind of magical charm, not only in the shape, but also in the charm of the bones, has always had a large number of "iron powder". Among them were well-known scholars, calligraphers and painters, and Xu Wuwen, a famous scholar, paleographer, and calligrapher and seal engraver, saw the inscription rubbings of zhongshan's three instruments in the magazine that year, and he was amazed at the beauty of the calligraphy of Zhongshan's beautiful and abstract decorations. "Of course, there are also a lot of non-professionals, all over the country, even overseas." Hao Jianwen remembers that a middle school teacher in Guizhou accidentally saw the Zhongshan Seal he wrote on the Internet and tried every means to contact him and exchange calligraphy experience with him.
Zhongshan seal also has a large number of acquaintances abroad, this exhibition has a Japanese Oura Boat people's Zhongshan seal work, "He is a retired middle school teacher, in the 1980s the Warring States Zhongshan cultural relics were exhibited in Tokyo caused a sensation, Oura boat people accidentally bought this exhibition catalogue, since then there is a special love for The Zhongshan Seal, he said that the Zhongshan Seal has a strong modern atmosphere." ”
In order to facilitate the copying and learning of this kind of book style for zhongshan seal lovers, in the past two years, Hao Jianwen has compiled and published the "Warring States Zhongshan Three Instruments Inscription" and "Warring States Zhongshan Three Instrument Inscription Images", which are very popular. The editors of the publishing house were a little surprised: they thought that this book was unpopular, but they did not expect that there were many people who pursued it. "Usually, we can't stop seeing the figure of Zhongshan Seal, which is in the food bag logo of a chain supermarket in Shijiazhuang, and some people have incorporated this font into the poster design." Hao Jianwen said.
It is worth mentioning that in the "Hou Ma Meng Shu and Zhongshan Three Instruments Character Art Exhibition", many visitors, especially teenagers, were amazed not only by the high appearance of the Zhongshan Seal, but also by the many golden sentences in the three inscriptions. "Do not be big and wanton, do not be rich and proud, do not be proud of the crowd", "worry about the family", "do not have the same heart", "only against the calamity, only the blessing of the good, only the virtue of the people, only the righteousness can be stretched"... In the earnest words of the ancestors of Shijiazhuang, there is their ambition, wisdom and faith, which are still shining through the years of 2,000 years.
Who was the initiator of the Zhongshan Seal?
Is the Zhongshan Three Instrument inscription cast or engraved? Who pioneered it? ...... There are still many mysteries to be solved in Zhongshan.
"Is it cast or carved?" A panel in the exhibition sparked a heated discussion among visitors. Hao Jianwen said that the inscription is to use sharp tools to carve out the text on the surface of the bronze; the inscription is to make the text on the pottery fan in advance when making the bronze pottery fan, and then inject the melted copper water into the pottery fan, and the inscription on the bronze when the artifact is formed is naturally there. At present, the industry is more convinced that the Zhongshan three-instrument inscription is an inscription, and some experts say that taking the bronze round pot foot "Thirteen Ancestors" as an example, later than the age of the production of the utensils, it can be verified that the text on the pot should be engraved later. There are also some scholars who prefer to cast inscriptions, and Hao Jianwen is one of them.
"Under macro lens, I found that some inscriptions had slight bulges at the edges of the mouths, and the bottom of the grooves was smooth and smooth, without a trace of knife marks. If it is inscribed, this is obviously inconsistent with common sense. "Hao Jianwen once shot the inscriptions of the three instruments verbatim with a macro lens, and he noticed that some of the inscriptions in the lower part of the body of the square pot were abnormal." By zooming in on the computer, it was found that those inscriptions had traces of secondary processing (re-engraving). Some have been re-engraved for the entire inscription, some have been supplemented for a certain part of the inscription, and some have cast line traces on the outside of the lines of the strokes. The lines of the supplemental engraving and the cast lines are obviously misaligned, and the quality of the lines is poor," Hao Jianwen said, adding that the warring states Zhongshan three-instrument inscription is about 2 centimeters high each, and to the naked eye, the glyphs are beautiful and the lines are smooth, like a graceful and colorful girl. However, after zooming in 10 times and 20 times on the computer, you will find that some inscriptions are not completed in one stroke, there are pick-ups, there are supplementary strokes, and even some strokes have used two kinds of thickness and thin "pens". Some pens are cleverly connected to the pen, very natural, but some are stiff. Based on the above situation analysis, he believes that the Warring States Zhongshan Three Instrument Inscriptions are cast inscriptions as a whole, but the individual inscriptions that have not been cast have been supplemented.
Many visitors wondered, which master created the Zhongshan Seal? Hao Jianwen said that zhongshan seal and Hou MaMeng's book are in the same line, and both belong to the Jin script. "The ancient Chinese script is rich and colorful, and the three-instrument inscription still gives people a sense of standing out from the crowd in it, and it is highly decorative." In fact, the Zhongshan Sanji character belongs to the official font of the Zhongshan Kingdom, which is the orthographic character used on solemn occasions, "carefully produced by skilled craftsmen." The glyph adjusts the proportion of length and width, so that it presents a slender and elegant posture; its structure is delicate and ingenious, using the abstract treatment of insects and snakes to form a proper bending deformation; the lines are curved and transformed, rigid and relaxed, solemn and gorgeous, representing the artistic aesthetics of the aristocratic class at that time. Some netizens asserted that the founder of Zhongshan Seal is a proper master even now, and it takes talent, wisdom and courage to create this timeless beauty.
There are also Zhongshan seal enthusiasts who ask, are more than a thousand Zhongshan three-instrument inscriptions finalized? Hao Jianwen said that after the unremitting exploration of experts and scholars, the vast majority of texts have now been conclusive, "but there is also room for discussion, for example, there are characters that were once identified as 'Zong', and now it is recognized as 'Lord'." ”
Text/Yanzhao Evening News Rong Media Reporter Huang Ying
Photo/ Yanzhao Evening News Rong media reporter Wang Jianguo
Photo: Hao Jianwen
Editor Kaka Editor Old Ke