We have discussed Wu Rangzhi before, and now that we are ready to seal the carving operation, we must mention Wu Rangzhi again.
Why is it necessary to mention Wu Rangzhi? Because of the entire history of seal carving, if you want to give the proficiency of the seal carving knife in the first row, Wu Rangzhi can be ranked in the top seat, yes, Wu Rangzhi is the "first person to use the knife" in the entire history of seal carving. This is the first thing we have to learn from Wu Rangzhi: skilled knife techniques!
Where did Wu Rangzhi's skillful sword technique come from? From his long experience of seal carving. We understand Wu Rangzhi's experience in learning to print, mainly from his own printing book self-prologue:
Let the weak age be easy to get, and like to engrave the seal. At the age of fifteen, he saw the Han people do it and carefully imitated it for ten years. All who are to be famous workers in modern times should also ask Xiao Naiji. After another five years, I first saw the White Mountain people do it, and abandoned what they learned and learned it.
In the autumn of this year, Wei Jiasun came from Minzhong and asked for the remaining manuscript, so he told him that in sixty years, he had carved tens of thousands of dollars, never left a single score, and knew that he was not enough to save er, so he printed it for self-use in order to seek correction, and it was not worth a laugh. In July, the Chronicle of Jean.
Wu Rangzhi began to engrave the seal from a very young age, carved until he was about fifteen years old, first saw the Han seal, from then on, he could not receive it, and from then on began to "carefully imitate ten years", therefore, he had a very solid foundation of the Chinese seal, and also had a long period of sword practice; after about twenty-five years old, he began to turn his head to visit the famous family seal, this time, it was another five years, at this time, he was already a real master of sword techniques, but after the age of thirty, he met Deng Shiru again, so he began to highly recognize Deng Shiru. He then gave up everything and unswervingly studied Deng Shiru.
Counting, Wu Rangzhi's engraving lasted for sixty years, and no less than 10,000 pieces were engraved, so long and numerous sword practices allowed him to practice a skilled sword technique. Therefore, when we establish confidence and intend to learn seal engraving, we must set our minds, and keep carving and carving in the practice of knife techniques, whether it is copying or creating, in short, we must carve and engrave, and good works will naturally choose our knives.
(Wu Rangzhi's printing surface: Wang's eight points)
Second, Wu Rangzhi has a very clever seal calligraphy. He learned Deng Shiru, and the premise of "printing from the book" was that he had enough superb seal calligraphy skills. In fact, since Deng Shiru, the famous seal engravers are all seal calligraphers, therefore, learning seal carving, can not only be biased towards the knife method, but also in the brush calligraphy, the process of fine calligraphy, in fact, is the process of mastering the seal law, mastering the seal method, it is possible to really use the seal character into the printing, do as you want, promote the fine products. Therefore, the second point we should learn from Wu Rangzhi is to exert efforts in the direction of the study of seal books and penetrate through them. We are not saying that we must learn Wu Rangzhi's style of seal calligraphy, because Wu Rangzhi's style is not suitable for everyone, but we must learn to practice seal calligraphy with our own style like Wu Rangzhi. In fact, it also takes time and effort.
(Part of Wu Rangzhi and his seal book Wu Junti)
In short, if you really do the above two, it is enough. Below we say that the seal of Wu Rangzhi on one side is his own seal "Wu Xi Zai Seal", as shown in the figure:
(Wu Rangzhi and his self-use seal "Wu Xi ZaiYin")
Under normal circumstances, a seal engraver's self-use seal often best reflects his seal carving level and seal carving style. This square seal also reflects Wu Rangzhi's level and style.
This is a four-character seal of Han and Bai chinese, but if you examine it carefully, this is not a "standard" Han and Bai seal of one side, because its inscription is not a standard seal, at least it can be said to be a seal book with a small seal style. There are a few details:
1. The seal of the word "Xi". In this square seal, the seal method of the "Xi" character is very exquisite, it does not use the corresponding seal method in the Chinese seal, but uses Wu Rangzhi's own handwriting style, so that the "巳" part retains the flowing arc pen, which not only increases the dynamic, avoids rigidity, but also forms a clever diagonal response with the oblique arc pen of the "load" character (compared with other strokes, they are not straight up and down, all are arc pens, all are dynamic).
(Seal of the Xi character)
Obviously, it is different from the "Xi" character seal method contained in the "Miao Seal Rhyme" and "Chinese Seal Character Signs", and Wu Rangzhi chose such a seal method for the reasons mentioned above.
2, the obvious "writing" meaning. The meaning of "writing" here is to say that the lines in the print have retained obvious pen and ink meanings, and the single line has a change in thickness, often expanding and thickening in the middle, like a spread pen. This line can be seen everywhere in Wu Rangzhi's seal, and in this square seal, the lines that stand out are shown in the figure:
(Horizontal line that expands in the middle of the line)
Note that most of the expansion in the middle of the line is selected in the horizontal line, and after the horizontal line is thickened and expanded, the "vertical potential" brought by the small seal is reduced (the small seal is naturally the vertical length of the golden ratio), so that the whole India still shows a square visual effect.
Of course, it is not that other lines do not have "expansion" treatment, because it has a more important role, that is, to reduce the "scissor angle" (that is, irregular red) formed by the small seal round pen, if this is not done, the printed text is unstable, because there are too many irregular reds, unlike the miao seal, the red is also square. In fact, this point is Wu Rangzhi's greatest contribution to the entry of the small seal into the white seal (Deng Shiru did not solve the problem of the small seal into the white seal, and wu Rangzhi solved it here).
3. "There is pen and ink, there is a knife and a stone." After the creation method of "printing from the book" matured, many Indians regarded the printing surface as a small piece of calligraphy, and as a result, the printing surface was biased towards pen and ink, and ignored the knife and stone, and the printing was thick as "book volume qi", but the "golden stone qi" was weakened. However, in Wu Rangzhi's works, there are often both "pen and ink" and "knife stones". As mentioned above, this square seal "pen and ink flavor" is thick, the middle of the line is thicker, is only one of the characteristics, more importantly, it is reflected in the handover and discontinuity of the strokes, and the printed text seems to be written with a pen "a stroke, a stroke", as shown in the figure:
(Details at stroke junction)
At the junction of the two strokes, the junction of the previous stroke and the latter stroke, there are ups and downs, there are beginnings and stops, and the receipt of the previous stroke and the beginning of the latter stroke have left "handover traces", which are clear and clear. Coupled with the paving in the middle of the line, this is the sense of writing, which is the so-called "pen and ink"; but not only that, the printed Chinese characters, in many details, but also left a knife cutting axe cutting style of smooth cross-section, both like the "turning pen" in calligraphy, but also like the "vertebral chisel" traces during carving, and even at the beginning and end of some strokes, there are obvious traces of "Gui angle", full of knife flavor. As shown in the figure:
(Knife-flavored details)
With these details, this is the work of "there is a knife and a stone". This square seal is a work of "equal emphasis on knife and pen".
There are also regular highlights, such as the chapter method of "diagonal echo" of the printing surface area, the elongated "Xi" and "Zai" each occupy a corner on the left and right, and the flattened "Wu" and "Yin" each occupy a corner on the left and right, interlacing echoes, and the aesthetic interest is greatly increased:
(Diagonal echo of the placeholder)
There are also variations in the circle of the same stroke. For example, the three small paws of the word "Yin", although the trend is similar, but the starting and closing circles have varied, which adds aesthetic interest (no longer pictured above).
As we said, Wu Rangzhi's sword technique is completely different from Zhao Zhiqian's (Wu is "Huizong", Zhao is "Zhejiang Zong"), the printing surface presentation effect is also completely different, Zhao Zhiqian uses the knife affirmation, the blade is vertically printed, and the result of the line presentation is also affirmative and clear; Wu Rangzhi uses the knife to be simple, the blade slashes the printing surface obliquely, and the result of the line presentation is simple and vague. Because it is simple and round, so the text lines are more "three-dimensional", learning Wu Letzhi, this "cloaking" knife method is a difficult point.
([Pudding Reading] No. 109, some pictures from the Internet)