Read the seal of Zhao Zhichen today. This is a controversial seal engraver, but we can't ignore him.
1. Zhao Zhichen, He Xuren also
But all the friends who take the road of seal carving or are interested in seal carving, most of them know that Xiling Seal Society, it is the most closely related to seal carving "the first society in the world", Xiling Seal Society was founded in the 30th year of Qing Guangxu (1904), is China's longest existing history of the literati society, but also the earliest established professional academic society of gold stone seal carving at home and abroad.
(Xiling Printing Agency)
Extending outward, almost all the seal engraving practitioners or enthusiasts who know the Xiling Seal Society also almost know the "Xiling Eight Families", after all, they are the representatives of the most famous genre that has influenced the Chinese printing circle for hundreds of years - the Zhejiang School;
Further on, we will think about how this centuries-old Zhejiang sect has declined, and thus we will mention Zhao Zhichen, because he is the heaviest one in the "Eight Families of Xiling" who has caused the Zhejiang faction to decline.
(Portrait of Zhao Zhichen)
"The Zhejiang faction is in the hands of Chen Hongshou and has begun to tend to the program." "Zhao Zhichen (1781-1852), zicixian, a native of Qiantang (present-day Hangzhou), Zhejiang. Seal carving worship Chen Yuzhong as a teacher, but by Chen Hongshou's influence is even greater, to engrave imitation of the Han system as a long, early and middle works are quite impressive, his side sections are also famous for neatness, but in his later years, the work flowed in the habit, every stroke has the intention of showing the marks of axe chisels, jagged swallowtails, cookie-cutter, the zhejiang school of the program has tended to shell. (Li Gangtian and Ma Shida, eds., Seal Engraving, p. 229). You see, he is a famous seal engraver who bears the guilt, and not only that, but in most of the written records of the history of seal carving, the Zhejiang school has really gone into decline in his hands.
(Zhao Zhichen's painting)
Zhao Zhichen is a seal engraver, but also a calligrapher, painter, until now there are rumors on the market is his various cultural supplies, such as ink, pen, pen holder, etc., obviously, in the cultural circle of later generations, he is at least a pure and exquisite cultural person. In fact, the reason why he was accused of the decline of the Zhejiang school was entirely a choice of history, because here, on the one hand, the Zhejiang school developed to the extreme, on the other hand, it began to have a huge impact on the creative mode of Deng Shiru, a great seal engraver who was slightly earlier than his great seal carver, "Printing from the Book". And the slightly later Zhao Zhiqian was too outstanding. To put it bluntly, I don't blame him, he is at a historical intersection that is destined to be forgotten and criticized, so we still read his seal, and as long as it is printed, we will read it.
(Sub-idle ink)
Perhaps because most of the records of the history of seal engraving do not evaluate him well, and even push the name of the decline of the Zhejiang school to his head, Zhao Zhichen's recent life has always been ignored by many seal engraving enthusiasts, in fact, for any artist who enjoys a reputation in history, we must look at it in two, in Zhao Zhichen's works, there are also extremely excellent, extremely brilliant people, such as the square seal we want to read today:
(Zhao Zhichen: Immortal Dependents)
Second, the lower part of the word "dependent" is turned horizontal into vertical
The seal of "Immortal Dependents" is Zhao Zhichen's masterpiece, engraved in 1812.
It is said that its classics first derive from its chapters, and the four words in this square seal are relatively complex, and there is basically no way to find the dense relationship (the comparison is mainly from the "dense"), so the author adopts a balanced chapter method.
But the balanced rule does not mean that there is nothing to do to engrave neatly. Looking at it, because the "God" glyph is slightly sparse, the other three characters need to move closer to its degree of density, that is to say, the number of longitudinal strokes (six articles) of the God character determines the proportion of the vertical strokes of this square seal, then, the most difficult to deal with is the "Dependent" word, the "Eye" part of the "Dependent" has only two vertical strokes, plus the left and right strokes are still only four strokes, the author's approach is to simply put the lower part of the "Eye" horizontally, turning horizontal into vertical, which is very clever and important, because as long as the vertical proportion is grasped, The visual effect will be balanced (landscape is also important, but slightly inferior to portrait). In contrast, the practice of the word "genus" is to increase the spacing between the longitudinal strokes, in order to ensure the proportion of this interval, he even let the "four" in the middle offset the left stroke of the "corpse" part, with four longitudinal strokes to increase the interval, with the other three words of the six vertical, "four with six" relatively easy to "five with six", but also relatively stable. As shown in the figure:
(Variation of the word "dependent")
There is also a point of advantage of "turning horizontal into vertical" in the "dependent" part of the word, that is, the parts between the words echo, so that after processing, the three characters of "xian, dependent, and genus" have parts of the "four" glyph, and the echo relationship between the word "dependent" and the word "xian" is more obvious, because the right half of the head of the "xian" word, the author chose the simplest seal method, and there is also a similar "four" character, (the "four" in the middle of the "genus" word is flattened for matching), at the same time, the two words have other echoing parts of the same shape.
III. "Three Flats and One Change" and "Three Circles and One Side"
As mentioned above, the four words in this square seal, the word "God" is relatively unique, the author of course noticed this, and even deliberately strengthened this point, the main form of expression is "three circles and one side", in the four words, "immortals, dependents, genera" have arc stroke parts, and the whole side of the word "God" forms a visual contrast, this contrast is clear at a glance, as shown in the figure:
(Arc stroke in three words)
In fact, among the four characters, there is only the word "God", there is no visual glyph component of the "four" character, it has been strengthened by the glyph itself, and the emphasis of the curved stroke is only further highlighted.
In fact, adding a curved pen to the extremely square and stable Han Miao seal is actually a big risk, because if you are not careful, the generous stability of the printing surface will be lost. He was able to do this, perhaps because he was just over forty years old, and he was young and powerful, and he was not completely trapped in the creative ideas of the Zhejiang school, not trapped in the continuous commercial creation, and had enough energy to do artistic innovation.
(Zhao Zhichen's printing surface: Lei Xi Sun Clan)
Three circles and one side, three dense and one sparse, three sparse and one dense, in fact, all belong to the means of contrasting chapters, we summarize this means as "three flat and one change", but in this square seal, the author uses this "three flat and one change" means, the advantage is to make the printing surface suddenly "alive" force, both stable enough, there are also sudden rises, "odd positive" changes, perfect.
Fourth, the magic of the boundary
We discussed the usefulness of the grid, which can either demarcate the printing surface, separate the printing surface, or strengthen the reunion, and this is the role of the boundary grid of the square seal. As shown in the figure:
(There is a visual difference between unbounded lattice)
With this realm, the printing surface is reunited, compact, and orderly; on the contrary, the order disappears and the spirit is scattered. The author can certainly squeeze these four words tightly, eliminating the cross space in the middle, and the problem comes:
As mentioned above, in order to obtain the effect of "three flat and one change", the author uses the seal method with arc-shaped lines in the three words of "immortal, dependent, and genus", which makes the stability of the printing surface broken, in order to seek stability, the use of the cross boundary grid is the solution he found: Pay attention to it, when there is this cross boundary grid, in fact, the visual center of gravity of the printing surface, just at the intersection of the cross boundary grid, the printing surface is very reunited and stable.
Of course, the readability of this square seal is more than this, at least there are: 1, the advantages of the Zhejiang school's conventional: the Characteristics of the Chinese Seal knot, the outer and inner circles of the knife method at the turn of the line, and the canggu simplicity formed by the cutting knife; 2, because of the natural destruction, the disappearing boundary further strengthens the centripetal force of the cross boundary; 3, the dense and solid side section (he first carved a poem himself, and then there are poets singing and, he all wrote in the side paragraph) Composed of miniature poetry carved stone culture masterpieces, simple and elegant. As shown in the figure:
(Side section and seal together)
Zhao Zhichen lived to be 72 years old, was a high-yield seal engraver in the late Zhejiang school, and even a prolific literary artist, and it is often possible to see works signed by Zhao Cixian in the world, although they are not necessarily genuine, but it shows his artistic influence.
(Paragraph for Zhao Zhichen's poem Meilan Four Square Huanghuali Pen Holder)
We chose one of his masterpieces to read because the seal is sufficient to represent his style of seal engraving, and it is also good enough. With this masterpiece, Zhao Zhichen should have a place in the history of seal carving, but in the entire history of printing, there are many evaluations and derogatory words for Zhao Zhichen, such as Zhao Zhiqian said: "After Emperor Zhezong's own idleness, he became a habit, although extremely ugly, he was good to everyone." ("Shu Yangzhou Wu Rang's Seal") It is estimated that the evaluation of later generations is mostly due to this, after all, Zhao Zhiqian's influence is too great, and he set the tone for his family.
The most pertinent modern evaluation is Mr. Sha Menghai, who said that Zhao Zhichen "... What is done is beautiful, and cleverness wins. On weekdays, there are the most seals, and there are many handwritings, and the swallow-tailed crane kneels, which is inevitable to criticize. "But also admits"... Some people prefer Zhao Zuo, saying that he has other qualities, so he cannot generalize. (History of Printing)
([Pudding Reading] No. 51, some pictures quoted from the Internet, copyright belongs to the original author)