PRIVATE TEXT NEUROSIS

A subject which has kept my attention for at least half of my life now (and I turned fifty-five recently, so you can figure out how long that is) is the Chinese seal-script (篆書) which historically preceded the regular brush script (楷書).


SEAL SCRIPT -- ZHUÀN SHŪ

At the time when it was still in common use, that is, still developing, Chinese wrote with an instrument that resembled a modern felt-tip: a reed or hollow tube with a long wick conducting liquid pigment from a reservoir. The advantage of such an instrument was that nice formal rounded characters could be constructed, especially on the strips of bamboo which, tied together, functioned as copy books.
The great disadvantage was that it was a slow process. Writing needed to be done faster, especially on the battlefield. In one sense, Chinese script was forced to change because of war.

The image above shows the characters for seal-script (篆書) as written in seal script. Obviously there is quite a difference compared to the modern versions.

Somewhat larger, for comparison:

篆書

Angularity versus curvilinear.

First character (篆) shows the manipulation of an image or beast, with the bamboo radical (竹) on top to indicate what category the word belongs to, namely scriptural - literary - intellectual. Bamboo, because books, documents, correspondence, and legal cases were written on bamboo.

The second character (書) has a hand holding a stylus over lines that emanate, above a mouth, indicating that which was said or uttered.


By the time of the Han Dynasty, the curvy characters had been replaced by angular brush-stroke versions, written on paper or silk instead of scribed onto bamboo or carved into the molds of bronze ritual vessels. The term 'seal-script' is an English construct, indicating the most common use of the old script up to the present: personal or official seals, used as signatures, to indicate ownership, to conclude and verify documents and correspondence, to signify attainment or office.

For a brief period I earned extra money carving such seals, but I seldom do so any more. There is no fun in designing a combination of characters for people who do not really understand what it says, or why certain characters must be shaped a specific way. It's a form of calligraphy, but a very private form of that pursuit. And if you do it for other people the chances are that you will never see it again.

Playing with repeating tensed curve-lines and creating pattern-echoes, however, remains enjoyable. In some ways it is typographic. Varying line weight, direction, heaviness, solidity -- all of these reflect a mental eye.


I haven't touched my engraving blades in quite a while. But dictionaries of the ancestral forms of Chinese characters get consulted on a daily basis. Both the 正草隶篆四体字典 and the 中國書法大字典 are regularly in play, as well as 'Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification', second edition (Dover Publications), by Dr. L. Wieger, translated into English by L. Davrout.
I've worn out several copies of the 正草 over the years, and I'm working with my third copy of Wieger's wonderful work. The 中國書法大字典 is still in good condition, but I'll probably acquire another copy just in case, precisely like I've done with Mathews', the Learners Chinese-English Dictionary, 漢英小字典 (Cantonese in Yale romanization, Mandarin in Pinyin) published by the Chinese University press, and the English-Chinese dictionary of accounting terms. That last one mentioned is a rather dull work, by the way.
Quite unlike the 正草 and the 書法。
Or Dr. Wieger.


I look longingly at my brushes far more often than I use them. This apartment is an awful mess, and I have to clear space for paper and ink on the table in the teevee room, which is normally occupied by two computers and various pottery items. However I do use them once in a while.
Instead of the 硯臺 a saucer with ready made ink suffices.
But not surprisingly, I like sniffing the real stuff.
Good ink smells nice, a classical fragrance.

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