Thank you for your invitation and for your question. "Lishu became the mainstream book style of the Han Dynasty, where is it embodied"? Strictly speaking, the "Han Li" of our concept of calligraphy history cannot be considered to have become mainstream calligraphy in the Han Dynasty. Because the entire Han Dynasty has a history of 400 years. This 400-year, Lishu has a process of development and popularization. At least the Western Han Dynasty was not yet the world of Lishu, nor was it entirely official calligraphy. The official status of the seal book has not been shaken in the Han Dynasty, but after the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Lishu has indeed been used in large numbers by both the official and the people.
The emergence of the Lishu was already revealed in the late Warring States period.
Lishu is a lower-level calligraphy based on a wide range of six languages. Lishu appeared because calligraphy required a method of sketching Chinese characters. In fact, we can already see from the "Scattered Disk" of the Western Zhou Dynasty that there are some writing genes of Lishu. Because the calligraphy work "Sanshi Pan" is very different from the famous calligraphy of the Western Zhou Dynasty, such as "Mao Gongding" and "Yu Jizi White Disk", it seems to be written relatively quickly.
The very rare tombstone of the Eastern Han Dynasty", "Yuan An Stele"
The "Book of Hou Ma Meng" in the Spring and Autumn Period can obviously be seen that it is no longer like the "Scattered Plate" and the "Great Lu Ding", "Mao Gongding", and "Yu Jizi White Plate" like the great seal calligraphy.
In the middle and late Warring States period, the penmanship of the seal book obviously had the tendency of the book to be subordinate. For example, this Chu Jian is the calligraphy of the middle and late Warring States period.
Therefore, in the era of seal books, in the Chinese character system, the emergence of Lishu is a historical necessity. Because the text needs standard words, it also needs a fast way to write.
Since the writing was not very popular before the Western Zhou Dynasty, the problem of popular writing was not very prominent. Therefore, in the seal writing system, there is no "xingshu" and "cursive writing". With the advent of lishu, there were "xingshu" and "cursive writing" of writing.
After Qin Shi Huang unified the Six Kingdoms, he implemented the written policy of "writing with text", and Li Si was responsible for presiding over the unified transformation of seal books. Li Si composed "Cangjie Chapter", Zhao Gao composed "Calendar Chapter", Taishi Ling Hu Wujing wrote "Erudite Chapter", these children's enlightenment reading materials, equivalent to the later "Three Character Classic", "Hundred Family Names", "Thousand Character Text", but also did play a role in the unification of words. Because, the teaching materials are grasped from the dolls, with a certain degree of foundation and continuity.
After the establishment of the Han Dynasty, it continued to inherit the legacy and achievements of Qin Shi Huang's writing reform, and the official script of the Western Han Dynasty was still a seal book, but it was only a small seal promoted by Qin Shi Huang.
However, since the Warring States has been popular at the grassroots level, the Qin Dynasty is popular in the lower level, archaeology found that the Liye Qin Jian is a document written from the Qin Dynasty. Therefore, Lishu also became more and more popular in the Han Dynasty. So much so that unless it is an official document, it is generally written in affiliation. This is the basis for the popularity and development of lishu. Because the lishu is more time-saving and labor-saving than the seal writing.
In the past, it was believed that the Lishu was matured in the Eastern Han Dynasty, but in fact, the Lishu of the Western Han Dynasty was already very mature. It may be that the Lishu of the Early Han Dynasty could not be used for official documents, which is close to the Lishu of the Qin Dynasty. However, some of the lishu of the Han Wudi era are no different from the standard lishu of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Is it that Emperor Wu of Han has already used the Lishu for official documents, and has not yet unearthed physical evidence of this? We are very much looking forward to such facts.
Generally speaking, at the end of the Western Han Dynasty and the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was relatively common for lishu to be used in official documents.
The culture and economy of the Eastern Han Dynasty were fully restored, the country was strong, and the people were rich, so the wind of thick burial became more and more intense.
An important symbol of thick burial is the rise of the wind of tombstones. According to the excavated tombstones, the Eastern Han Dynasty has the most tombstones, and most of them are written in libi, which shows that the lishu has been completely popularized.
Then, Lishu became the symbol of Han Dynasty calligraphy, which is the universal use of real life.
Therefore, in terms of time, the full popularization of the use of Lishu can be traced back to the late Western Han Dynasty to the early Eastern Han Dynasty (8 AD). From the popularity of Lishu, the Han Dynasty has been popular since the Western Han Dynasty.
At present, most of the tombstones of the Han Dynasty Lishu that have been handed down are from the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Moreover, the Han Dynasty is beautifully written, and almost all of the calligraphy works are concentrated in the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty.
The most famous ones are the "Huashan Temple Stele" in the eighth year of Emperor Huan (165), the "Shi Chen Stele" in the second year of Jianning (169), the "Cao Quan Stele" in the second year of Zhongping (185), the "Zhang Qianbei" in the third year of Zhongping (186), and so on. Among them, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Xiping Stone Classic, written by Cai Yong, is considered to be the standard calligraphy of Lishu.
This is because Cai Yong was a scholar of the Eastern Han Dynasty and a great calligrapher.
In fact, Lishu has not had a unified standard style style, but the style style is colorful and colorful.
There are both the merits of the calligraphy creators in the lower levels, and the confusion that the calligraphy is not unified. Therefore, for nearly 800 years from the Han Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Lishu was the mainstream of Chinese calligraphy.
On the basis of the Lishu, a system of letters was gradually formed. Since the calligraphy system was eventually unified with Wang Xizhi's calligraphy system, hanzi's calligraphy eventually achieved true unification.
Today, from the perspective of the social use of writing, the text is more and more unified, which is convenient for cultural exchanges. However, from the perspective of calligraphy art, it will be lifeless and more rigid.
Therefore, in the late Qing Dynasty, a "jinshixue" calligraphy revived the art of calligraphy, adding some artistic nutrition to the thesis calligraphy from the Lishu and Wei tablets.
Because, in the ocean of calligraphy, there are indeed colorful calligraphy art genes, which are worth absorbing the essence.