Chinese Seals
To the Chinese, a seal was for many centuries a symbol of power. The emperor's seal was called Xi, and it gave authority to all his inferiors, and governments at different levels all issued orders under official seals. In other words, the seals stood for different levels of government and their corresponding powers. Nowadays, the central Chinese government officials use brass as a rule while local offices wood seals. The History of the Seal The art of seal-engraving can be traced back more than 3,000 years to the Yin Dynasty when the cutting of inscriptions on tortoise shells were the only way that the ideas of human being could be recorded. It developed rapidly in the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC) when people engraved their names on utensils and documents to claim ownership or for verification in social contacts.
Wen Peng (1489-1573), the son of Wen Zhengming, a famous Ming Dynasty calligrapher and painter, is known as the "father of seal engraving art". But seal engraving really came to age only in the 19th century when a group of famous engravers came to the fore.
Some present-day engravers in China are professionals, but most are amateurs. The Xiling seal- Engravers' Club in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province was founded in 1986 by Wu Changshuo, a renowned painter and engraver. It is China's biggest national engraver's organization today.
The success of a seal is very much determined by the engraver's speed and strength of his wrist and finger movements, as well as the particular tool he uses. Also he should be very familiar with the various materials- jade, gold, brass, stone, wood and etc-so that he can apply his tool with the right exertion and rhythm.
Today, stone is the most widely used material in seal engraving. Among all the stones, Shoushan stones, which come from the northern outskirts of Shoushan County, Fuzhou City, are the most famous. The most valuable for engravers is Tianhuang Stone, a kind of Shoushan stone. It is said that the emperors of the Qing Dynasty used to put a piece of Tianhuang on the table for wealth and good luck when they held a ceremony to worship heaven. Another less precious stone is called "Chicken's blood" stone, which comes from Changhua County in Zhejiang Province. The "Chicken's blood" stone contains cinnabar which makes it look like blood splashed on the stone in a free pattern. Though seals and paper are inseparable today, the invention of paper-making came a lot later, during the Eastern Han Dynasty (24-220AD). So how did people use seals before the invention of papermaking?
The official or private letters were written on bamboo or wooden slips that were rolled up and bound with rope. In order to keep them confidential, the rolls were usually sealed with a piece of wax into which the writers' names had been impressed. Nowadays, seals are still widely used, and the art of seal-engraving has become more, not less, popular than ever before. More note-worthy is that many foreigners are now able to appreciate this art form, which for a long time has been considered uniquely Chinese.
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