In the seal engraving circle, as long as the cutting knife is mentioned, almost a person with a little common sense will think of the "Zhejiang School", think of the "Xiling Eight Families", and thus think of the Zhejiang Sect's Kaipai Sect Grandmaster Ding Jing, but in fact, the cutting knife is used for seal carving, the earliest is not Ding Jing, but a master-level figure in the Ming Dynasty, this grandmaster is the real ancestor of the cutting knife method, his name is Zhu Jian.
(Portrait of Zhu Jian)
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > introduction</h1>
Zhu Jian (1570-1625 later) was a character xiuneng, a deformed minister, and later changed his name to Wen. He is a native of Xiuning, Anhui (another master of seal carving in Anhui, how hard the foundation of the Hui Sect is, everyone will know it by looking at this). The date of his birth and death is inferred, because there is no detailed description of the exact year of his birth and death, so it can only be roughly inferred from the records of his teachers and friends. From this inference, it can be seen that the period in which Zhu Jian lived was the golden age of the development of seal engraving:
In the front, Wen Peng pioneered the literati seal carving, He Zhen promoted the literati seal carving, and su Xuan, who was seven years older than him, popularized the literati seal carving, and when Zhu Jian was alive, the "Collection of Ancient Seals" had been printed in the world, and it had become a common practice for the literati in the world to hand cast swords and seal carvings. More importantly, Zhu Jian himself also had the material conditions to devote himself to seal carving, and he came from a solid family, according to his teacher Chen Jiru in the preface to the "Prints", he abandoned his home to "beautiful countryside" and traveled far away to learn poetry and seal carving. According to himself in the Purana:
"Taste from Mr. Chen Meigong in the clouds, get Gu (Gu Congde) and Xiang (Xiang Yuanbi) two family treasure copper jade seals, Yue Yue on the true spectrum of more than 4,000 squares. And in Wumen Shen Congxian, Zhao Fanfu (宧光) 疁城李長蘅, Wulin Wu Zhongfei, Sea Pan Shicong, Huating Shi Shuxian, Qingxi Cao Chongfu, Eastern Yue Chen Wenshu, Wuxiang He Lord, Ding Nanyu and other families, they have gathered no less than 10,000 yuan."
Chen Meigong, that is, Chen Jiru, the great Confucian of the world, Zhu Jian followed the teacher to enter the home of the great collectors Gu Congde and Xiang Yuanbian to observe their family collection of copper seals, and also to contact many contemporary calligraphy and paintings, and of course, to see the seal collection of these calligraphy and paintings.
That is to say, the conditions for Zhu Jian to become a seal engraver are sufficient: 1, he himself is interested, there are sufficient economic conditions; 2, he has the opportunity, he caught up with the golden age of seal engraving development since ancient times; 3, he has the opportunity to make friends with famous artists and broaden his horizons. With these conditions, Zhu Jian has stood at a higher starting point since the beginning period. As a result, he became "a portal of his own... A kind of heroic over the popularity of indelible, strange and not out of the right, one of the seals to change also " seal engraving everyone.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > outstanding achievements</h1>
Zhu Jian has several important achievements:
1. He is the proposer of the seal engraving genre theory. The concepts of Wen Peng's Sanqiao School, He Zhen's Snow Fishing School, Su Xuan's Surabaya School, and other genres we mentioned earlier came from Zhu Jian's "Seal Classic", and Zhu Jian even classified all the Indians in the Ming Dynasty into their respective schools one by one. In addition to the Indians of the above three factions, he also classified some Indians into the "Don't set up a camp and called Bo Zhixiong." "Independent Indians, but for the Ming Dynasty Indians, there are two important Indians who have not been classified into the genre, one is the Wang Guan we will talk about in the next section, that is, the Loudong school; the other is zhu Jian himself who is talking about today. The reasons are normal: (1) For whatever reason, Zhu Jian did not classify himself; (2) Wang Guan was an Indian of his contemporary or a little later than his Indian, and he could not classify it.
"Genre theory" is very important, because with the "genre theory", the printing altar with many printers and different styles has a clear clue according to the characteristics of creation, and it also makes later scholars have a clear standard when choosing a creative style, and the "genre theory" still has its positive significance until the later Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China and modern seal carving.
2. He pioneered the knife cutting method of chopping Xu Jin. Now when we mention the knife method, we generally say punching knife, cutting knife; even if it is not a punching knife or a cutting knife. In fact, the cutting knife started from Zhu Jian here.
(Knife handling action of the knife cutting method)
In fact, this knife method is to stand the knife rod upright and "cut" the line little by little (that is, the so-called "broken") in the form of a knife. This knife method first began with Zhu Jian, this knife method makes the line present a wave of pen and ink interest, but also makes the printing surface effect more ancient, short and fine cut "personalized knife method" makes Zhu Jian unique in the Ming Dynasty where long-range punching knives are prevalent, and also has a huge impact on future generations.
3. He started the precedent of "printing from books". Now when we talk about "printing from the book", we will generally say that it is Deng Shiru, but in fact, it is Zhu Jian who first introduced the pen and ink timing of calligraphy into the seal carving and explored the presentation of calligraphic characteristics in the seal carving. Zhu Jian clearly stated:
"My so-called knife technique, such as the pen has ups and downs, there are turns, there are slow and urgent, each completes the meaning of the pen, not MengLang, not carved carving, blunt as ancient, broken as a strange knife also." The knife method is also the one, so the pen method is also passed. (Treatise on the Essentials of seals)
In fact, Zhu Jane's cutting knife is not a cutting knife that is strange for breaking, but a cutting knife that shows penmanship. When we look at his large number of prints, it is already obvious that there is a hidden edge at the beginning and end. For example, Zhu Wen's "Zou Di Guangyin":
(Zou DiGuangyin)
Pay attention to the beginning and end of each stroke; there are also obvious calligraphic timing characteristics. For example, the white text "Tang Xianzu Seal":
(Tang XianzuYin)
In addition to observing the Tibetan front treatment at the end of the pen, this square seal should also pay attention to the cross pen of the "silk" part of the lower part of the xianzi, Master Zhu did not completely engrave the cross pen, but processed it into a chronological feature with precedence and succession, which is completely different from the previous Qin and Han seals.
4. He pioneered the criticism of seal engraving. Seal engraving needs to be appreciated, both appreciation, there will definitely be criticism, seal engraving developed to Zhu Jian here, although the development of seal engraving criticism can not be said to be completely zero, but completely unsystematic and very fragmented, the development of seal engraving art, the need for objective critics, this critic should have a high level of theory and practice, Zhu Jian has such conditions, his work "Prints", is a typical seal engraving criticism work, in this book, he thinks that the "false imprint" side of the list, for this, His attitude was very clear and purposeful, and he was determined to do so
"Purify the mind and make a book of prints, so that it should be written by the ancients, and the ancients should be deposed and zhijian; the flawed Yu are listed separately, and those who want to come are revealed in the heart and wrists after practicing the forgery, and even more so in the early times."
In this work, Zhu Jian is not superstitious about authority, he even took out the works of Wen Peng, He Zhen and other masters who were regarded as guiding lights by posterity to pick faults, of course, criticism is more or less bound to have some personal prejudices, and his evaluation of these works is not necessarily the golden rule (aesthetics itself is pluralistic, subjective, and has no fixed standards), but since Zhu Jian began to finally embark on the stage of seal engraving history, it began to play its due role.
(Inner page of Zhu Jian's "Seal Of The Scriptures")
It was under the influence of Zhu Jian that the criticism of printing appeared in large numbers in the late Ming Dynasty, and the art of seal engraving, which has a history of thousands of years, was revived after a long period of decline from the Tang to the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and the Ming and Qing dynasties also developed into the second peak period after the Qin and Han Dynasties.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > works</h1>
Let's take a look at Zhu Jane's work:
(Protum)
This "hostage father" is actually completely different from the Zhu Wenyin that appeared in the previous life, and the text in the seal is a seal book with calligraphic meaning, but it is different from the Han Zhu wen and the Yuan Zhu Wen.
(Chen Jiruyin)
Although this is only a Han-Bai indian seal in the traditional sense of one side, we should pay attention to the sense of stroke timing in the "Ling" part of this party seal, which is Zhu Jian's exploration of "entering the printing with books", which eventually promoted Deng Shiru's theory of "printing from books".
(Old Man Xilu)
This "old man of Xilu" is not at all the regularity of the Han Zhu Wenyin style, and even the seal is not a standard miao seal or a small seal. The characteristics of the big sparse and dense in this square seal, the vastness of the "old" character, are almost printed in the style of the later Wu Changshuo printing style. Freehand printing style, there are already mature works here in Zhu Jian.
(And heavy on cultivation)
The square seal of "and heavy to cultivate energy", the six characters are evenly printed, which is a typical chapter method of Han bai wenyin, but Zhu Jian is anti-white as Zhu, which is Zhu Jian's exploration, of course, there is also an accurate depiction of calligraphic characteristics in the process of stroke completion.
(Wang Shuo Dengyin)
This "Wang Shuo Dengyin" is an imitation Of Han works, but the difference is that Zhu Jian used a cutting knife when he finished, retaining a large number of calligraphic elements in the completion of the strokes. Pay attention to zhu Baiwen's different completion methods.
(Miwan Chung Seal)
This "Miwan Chung Yin" is a work imitating Han Zhu Wen, but the style is Zhu Jian's style, cutting knife, slightly freehand, stroke completion with writing characteristics.
(Library Room)
When we think of "Great Sparseness and Great Secret", we often think of Deng Shiru, think of Zhao Zhiqian, think of Wu Changshuo and other later masters, but in fact, in addition to the dense relationship in the Han Seal, this kind of great sparse and dense chapter has mature works here in Zhu Jian. The red ground in the upper left corner of this square seal is particularly conspicuous, which is exactly where the "color" of this square seal is.
(Open)
This square seal is Zhu Jian's private seal carved by the great poet Feng Mengzhen, the chapter method is wide open, the knife is vigorous and unrestrained, and the freehand is full of meaning, which is the work of no ancients before.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > summary</h1>
You see, Zhu Jian is such a master who dares to innovate and is good at innovation, and it is precisely for this reason that Zhu Jian and his followers have a place in the five major schools of seal engraving in the Ming Dynasty, in view of his sword technique characteristics, we simply gave his school a name, called "Cutting Knife School", and his position in the history of the entire seal engraving school is as shown in the picture:
(Zhu Jian's position in the seal engraving genre)
Zhu Jian is important because he has left too many theoretical works. His seal engraving works have been passed down from generation to generation, called "Xiuneng Seal Notation"; he has the theoretical works of seal science " On the Essentials of Seals "Collection of Han G Seal Characters", "Seal Books", "Seal Scriptures", etc., as well as the above-mentioned seal engraving criticism monograph "Prints". He was a master with rich theory and practice, and a truly unprecedented (or even unprecedented) alternative master.
("Zero Foundation Seal Engraving" No. 17, some pictures quoted from the Internet, copyright belongs to the original author)