We decided to read the seal of Qian Song again, as mentioned above that the contemporary seal engraver Han Tianheng had a very high evaluation of him, in fact, in Qian Song's time, the Indians had a very high evaluation of him, so we need to add some more information:
Zhao Zhiqian's friend, Wei Xi, the most famous seal engraving critic of the Qing Dynasty, once wrote a long poem at the end of "Qian Uncle's Stamp Notation", the most classic passage is:
"In the recent printing of Yu Yu, the most obedient person is Mr. Qian Shugai. Mr. Shanshui, Gong Calligraphy, especially fond of jinshi, dedicated to the seal, its engraving is Based on Qin and Han as the sect, and enters and leaves the kingdom of Ding (Jing), Jiang (Ren), Huang (Yi), Chen (Yu Zhong, Hongshou), Xi (Gang), Deng (Shi Ru) and other families. At the same time, Zhao Weng was idle, Fang was famous, and Mr. Fang rose up with a different army and went straight out of it..."
Zhao Zhichen, who is also one of the "Eight Houses of Xiling", commented on him:
"This Ding (Jing) and Huang (Yi) are the last ones, and the former Mingwen (Peng) and He (Zhen) families are not as good as they are."
Zhao Zhiqian, a genius master of the "Anhui-Zhejiang Horizontal Station", does not have an evaluation of Qian Song in the indian theory, but it is mentioned in the side paragraph of the "He Chuansu Seal" seal:
The wonderful place of the Han copper seal is not mottled, but thick. If you are thick in learning, you are full of wrist strength. The stone is brittle, the force is everywhere, and the more clumsy it is, the more ancient it is. It seems ordinary, but it is not easy to look. This matter is related to the comrades, Hangzhou Qian Shugai alone. Shu Gai takes the momentum by acting lightly, giving the task as deep, the law is slightly different, and its achievement is also the same. However, it is because it is beneficial that it does not dare to engrave it for people, so that there is little reason.
"This matter is only the same as that given to comrades, Hangzhou Qian Shugai alone", obviously, Zhao Zhiqian also recognized and approved of Qian Song, at least, their efforts in the development direction of seal engraving are consistent.
(Qian Song's side and rough)
Since Qian Song is older than Zhao Zhiqian (11 years older), we believe that Qian Song is the origin of the "Anhui-Zhejiang Horizontal Station" in the history of seal carving. That is to say, he was the forerunner of the zhejiang school's breakthrough transformation, and it was only because of his early death that the name of the first person of the "Anhui-Zhejiang Horizontal Station" fell on zhao Zhiqian's head.
Qian Song is also a little stronger than Zhao Zhiqian, that is, his works are enough, only Qian Song for his friend and disciple Hu Zhen has carved more than a hundred, which is completely prolific for Zhao Zhiqian, who has only left less than four hundred square seals in his life, and the "Ding Ugly Nose Mountain" read in this article belongs to Qian Song's seal given to Hu Zhen:
(Qian Song "Ding Ugly Nose Mountain")
Hu Zhen (1817-1862), the character listening to incense, the word Bo fear, not afraid, Tsufu, nobishan, nickname Hu nose mountain people, Fuchun Daling chief, Qing Dynasty Fuyang Qinghuli (now Huanshan Township) people. Zeng Qiao lived in Shanghai, liked seal carving, and was greatly surprised to see Qian Song's works, so he worshiped Qian Song as a teacher, because he was one year older than Qian Songshang, so Qian Song taught him the art of seal carving on the one hand, and on the other hand, he made friends. The "Ding ugly" here refers to Hu Zhen's birth year 1817, obviously, this is Qian Song's private seal for Hu Zhen's birth year, which is a double-sided seal, and the other side is a white text print "Hu Zhen Bo Fear".
(Hu Zhen calligraphy with this square seal)
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As we said, the four-character seal of "three sparse and one dense" is the most difficult to engrave, because the three words evacuated by the glyph are easy to cut a large number of irregular blanks on the printing surface, which will make the printing surface lose order and therefore appear messy. But this seal is one of the classic prints to solve the problem of "three sparse and one secret", at first glance, we will feel that this seal is stable, generous, the seal is reunited, and the order is orderly, why?
The first reason: diagonal echoes. This square seal echo is more difficult, Qian Song arranged cleverly, the use of "Ding" and "mountain" in the glyph "reflection" relationship to form a diagonal echo, not only increase the aesthetic elements, but also make the printing surface reunion powerful, no loose feeling, the only independent of the "sticking" outside the "mountain" word, both appear upright, but not at all prominent, it is precisely because its bottom side is parallel to the horizontal line of the edge of the print. It is not conspicuous because the "reflection" echoes, which not only makes it visually related to the diagonal "zigzag", but also makes the two words equally echo in the spatial division. As shown in the figure:
(The glyph echoes the diagonal of the blank)
In fact, after the "ugly" word changed the seal law, the four blank spaces in the upper part were completely "squareized", and it echoed with the "nose" word on the blank, because the "nose" word also changed the seal law, and the upper "self" changed to "tian", which not only achieved the reunion of the printing surface, but also made the "ugly" word empty tendency to the rule, thus avoiding the sense of instability brought about by the "three omissions". This change of the seal law to achieve spatial "squareization" is one of the important means to resolve the irregularity of the blankness of the glyph. As shown in the figure:
(Echo of changing the formation of the seal law)
The second reason: sticky (sticky) connection. There are two kinds of adhesion of the printing text, one is the adhesion with the printing edge, and its purpose is mostly to seek the support of the printing edge for the words with unstable words on the printing surface (that is, words with more arcs and unstable words), because the printing edge is either horizontal or vertical, which is the most stable coordinate reference. One is the adhesion between words and words, the purpose of which is to make two or more words support each other, forming a "plate", thus achieving relative stability (like many small boats connected together, the stability on the surface of the water will increase).
In this seal, both kinds of adhesions exist, as shown in the figure:
(Adhesion)
Adhesions 1 and 2 belong to the adhesion between the inline characters, and their role is to strengthen the connection between the left and right sides of the printing surface, so that the printing surface is more reunited, of course, because of the existence of the above echo relationship, the two adhesions are only slight. Adhesion 3 is the adhesion between the word and the border, and its role is to dissolve the "swaying feeling" of the "D" word, in fact, the adhesion 1 and 2 also play a role in dissolving the "swaying feeling". Adhesion 4 and 5 are respectively the adhesion of the text and the text and the border, and its role is to strengthen the sense of integrity of the "ugly" word (the "ugly" word is not easy to engrave), especially the long tail pen of the "ugly" word is extended to the left side, so that the printing surface is full of vitality, and its adhesion with the border finds support for the "ugly" word and makes it more correct.
The word "mountain" is very independent, as mentioned above, it is upright in itself, does not need the help of other words, and it echoes the word "D", it is not visually "lonely".
Of course, this square seal is still a classic Zhejiang school print, and the characteristics of the Zhejiang school are still obvious, such as: completed with a cutting knife (Qian Song's original existence of a small amount of "cutting"), the lines are square and round, and the outer square and inner circle at the turning point are round. But these are the common features of the Zhejiang school's prints, and they will not be emphasized here.
([Pudding Reading] No. 79, some of the pictures come from the Internet, the copyright belongs to the original author)