Ding Jing is one of the "node" figures in the history of Chinese seal carving, and similar to him are Deng Shiru and Zhao Zhiqian.
Ding Jing is said to be a "node" because Ding Jing was the first person in history to truly open up Chinese printing from the three generations (Xia, Shang, Zhou) to the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and at the same time he was the first person to soberly realize that the characters in the "Commentaries on the Interpretation of Texts" are words from the perspective of philology, and the characters in The Chinese Seals are words from the perspective of art, and he is also a person who has found the "magic" from the Zhu Wenyin of the Six Dynasties and the Tang and Song Dynasties with the concept of "abandonment", and applied it to the practice of seal engraving. Of course, his greatest contribution was the creation of the "Zhejiang School", a school of seal engraving that influenced the Chinese printing altar for three hundred years (from the late Qing Dynasty to modern times), which is why the Xiling Seal Society has been standing on his seated statue.
(Seated statue of Ding Jing in the Xiling Printing Society)
He's so good! In fact, we can say this: to learn seal engraving, we must not miss the Zhejiang school, and to learn the "Zhejiang school" seal, we must learn Ding Jing. Then think again, how do we learn from Ding Jing? There are no more than two things: 1. Learn his "innovative" ideas; 2. Find wonderful works from his seals and learn his seal engraving techniques.
Learning from Ding Jing and inheriting the concept of "innovation" from him is the most important, because Master Ding Jing has become a generation of masters thanks to "innovation".
Regarding innovation, there are two more: 1. The "Yinzong Qinhan" that began with Zhao Mengfu and Wu Yan made the Indians completely imprisoned in the ancient seals of the Qin and Han Dynasties, completely ignoring the "wonderful" places in the Zhu Wenyin of the Six Dynasties and the Tang and Song Dynasties. Seeing the Tang and Song Miao of the Six Dynasties, He Zeng kept the Han family text. Seal engraving is the art of combining "square" and "circle", it is he who noticed the beauty of the circular lines in the Zhuwen seal of the Six Dynasties, Tang and Song Dynasties, and introduced it into the seal carving, which greatly enriched the formal language of the seal carving, and used this to guide people's aesthetic vision from the Qin and Han seals to a broader aesthetic world.
(Ding Jing's Zhu Wenyin)
2. When people are obsessed with taking the method from the "Shuowen Jiezi", it is also Ding Jing who shouts "Saying That the Seal of The Saying Text is carved from its own division", clearly pointing out that the text contained in the "Shuowen Jiezi" is a text from the perspective of "Philology", and it is inappropriate to put the text seal method in the "Shuowen Jiezi" directly into the seal, and the argument is also strong, because the text in the Chinese seal is not the same as the text in the "Explanation of the Text", of course, now we have clearly known that the Miao Seal in the Han Zhu Seal Style and the Small Seal Zhu Wen in the Yuan Zhu Yin Style are completely different. However, these are actually derived from Master Ding Jing's "unique dharma eyes".
Regarding the copying of his wonderful works, our series of articles on reading and printing has selected two parties, and this article introduces the seal of the third party Master Ding Jing, which is this side:
(Ding Jing "Sugiya Yin Notes" and side paragraphs)
This is a party Zhu Wenyin, the printing surface is 2.5cmX2.6cm size, and the side paragraph says: "Xin Wei Dong carved a gift to The cedar house, honoring the memoirs." Obviously, this is a badge that Master Ding Jing carved for his friend.
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1. Reasonable placeholding of printed text
This square seal, the four characters on the printing surface, according to the Chinese seal style occupies a corner, but if you look closely, you will find that the position of the four characters is not completely equally divided on the printing surface, but according to the glyph, slightly place difference. As shown in the figure:
(Placeholder of the four characters on the printing surface)
The words "fir" and "yin" in the upper part are relatively wide because they are left and right structures, while the words "house" and "note" in the lower part are relatively high in vertical positions because they are upper and lower structures. In order to achieve this placeholding difference, the upper two words are slightly interspersed and bite, although not obvious, but the horizontal relationship between the two words is very close, and the lower two words are vertically higher, so a relatively wide gap is formed in the middle of the two words, so the spatial pattern of this square seal is basically a "Fu" shaped pattern, so it is not loose, but it still has enough ethereality. If we mark the gap in the middle of the lower two words, we will find that the lower two words are also bited, the word "house" sticks out of the lower left part, and the "bamboo" part of the word "note" protrudes to the right. This bite promotes the stability of the rules. As shown in the figure:
(Bite of the lower two words)
2. The text is cleverly connected to the edges to seek stability
The four characters on the printing surface of this square seal are bordered. We said that in the Yuan Zhu WenYin, in order to seek a small seal with more round pens to stand firm on the printing surface, often using the way of connecting edges, the four words in this square seal have arc lines, a little attention, it will lose balance, therefore, the master let each word have at least one stroke on the border, in order to seek the stability of the text. If you analyze it carefully, you will even find that the master makes the longitudinal text horizontally connect the edges (that is, overlap on the left and right borders), such as the bottom horizontal of the "house" word, the "bamboo" head of the "note" word, and the middle horizontal of the "Ge" part; let the horizontal and wide text connect the longitudinal edges (that is, overlap on the upper border) such as the "wood" part of the "shan" character, and the head of the "present" part of the "yin" character. These means, in fact, like the above-mentioned text bite, are all for the sake of printing surface stability.
3. The center of gravity of the text is staggered to survive
In fact, the four words of this square seal, the center of gravity is not on the left and right two center lines, why, in order to seek "live" in the board, because too many arrangements have been made in stability, the four words on the printing surface will appear sluggish if not processed, Master Ding adjusted the center of gravity of the four words, and retained enough "living" interest for the printing surface with a "jagged" arrangement. That is to say, the four characters on the printing surface, the center of gravity of the word "shan" is on the left, and the center of gravity of the word "house" is staggered on the right; the center of gravity of the word "yin" is on the right, and the center of gravity of the word "note" is on the left, and it forms a stagger. The four characters on the printing surface, the center of gravity line forms an interlaced rhythm, full of vitality, not dull.
(Four-word line of gravity)
In fact, there is also a set of echoing elements in this square seal, that is, the small circle in the middle of the word "house", which echoes the "mouth" part of the word "yin" forming a similar part (all of which are closed circles). It's just that it's not so important compared to the three points mentioned above.
Some of the seemingly inconspicuous seals of the masters are actually their meticulous and carefully arranged wonderful structures, which are their "two sentences and three years, one groan and two tears". Most of the time, we can't understand the imprint of a famous artist because we haven't found an aesthetic entry point that resonates with it.
([Pudding Reading] No. 81, some of the pictures are from the Internet, the copyright belongs to the original copyright owner)