Intro ~ Styles ~ People ~ Snippets ~ My Work ~ Other Sites
All the Grace of a Snake - Seal Style
Intro ~ Styles ~ People ~ Snippets ~ My Work ~ Other Sites
Origins
Seal Style is generally divided into 2 stages, the first being Large Seal Style and the second, Small Seal Style. Curiously enough, this has nothing to do with size.
Large Seal Style was a logical offshoot from Shell Bone Style. The first changes came about because people were now writing in metalwork, not with knives. But it still wasn't standardized. The First Qin Emperor, Qin Shihuang, changed that. He's the man notorious for burning thousands upon thousands of books — a good way of wiping out the opposition of the intelligentsia — but also the act that unified China's myriad languages and scripts. His pyromania changed the rather messy Large Seal Style to a neater Small Seal Style.
It looks like this ...
Ever seen a little marbly block with a name carved in the bottom? They're seals, also called chops, and they used to be people's official signatures. Mine is at the end of each page of Caliriel, with my written signature. The script that's used for seals is traditionally Seal Style.
Seal Style characters are generally tall, and neater versions (Small Seal Style) look like they're symmetrical even if they're not. It allows for quite a bit more flexibility than Shell Bone Style — although strokes have to be the same thickness, they're curves rather than a collection of straight lines. Its effect is rather graceful, as a whole; like a lot of snakes curving and dancing.
Seal Style encompasses a whole range of development, so there are a lot of variants. The example of Small Seal Style above was written by Deng Shiru of the Qing Dynasty, a widely-acknowledged master of Seal Style.
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Prelude to Act II of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake