Stone Drum: One of Greater Chuan's 4 styles
Dear friends,
The second important category in the Greater Chuan is the STONE DRUM style: This style has been one of the most influential styles. It was discovered in the early part of the T'ang dynasty (7th A.D.). Scholars have been debating its original date, but it is generally attributed to the Ch'in state around the 8th century B.C.
There are ten stones in the shape of drums, their height ranging from 45 cm. to 90 cm. (see Fig. 17). They are now on display at the Confucius Temple in Beijing. Originally, there were 700 words, but owing to wear and tear, today there are about 450 readable words.
This style is considered classical, for it was derived from the traditional Chou style. In Stone Drum, each word is well balanced; at the same time, its structure is not at all stereotyped. The lines are almost identical in width, a consistent evenness that was traditionally typical. Also traditional is the structure of the characters, which emphasize the vertical order. This style marks when the brush first began to dance.
The brush work in Stone Drum is not labored, and therefore there is a greater freedom in the execution of the strokes; the lines are fluid. Stone Drum is easily identified by its fat, round and soft fluid lines; there is no harsh, angular edge to a line in Stone Drum. It is an imposing style, whose influence is seen even in the work of famous contemporary artists, such as Wu Ch'ang-Shuo (see Fig. 18)
Chu Chien (Writing on Bamboo Tablets)
The ancient Chinese wrote mainly on tablets of bamboo, this practice probably starting in the remote past (before Shang) and lasting until the Han dynasty (200 A.D.) when paper was invented by Tsai Lun. A few hundred of these bamboo tablets have been recovered from ancient tombs, most of them lists or records of the objects which were buried with the dead.
The two tablets illustrated in Fig.19 were among the 43 bamboo strips excavated from a Chu of the Warring States period (ca. 400 B.C) at Yang-Tien-Hu, outside the southern gate Ch'ang Sha City in July 1953. The pieces measure, on average, 22 cm. in length, 1.2 cm. wide, and 0.1 cm. thick. On each tablet there range from two to twenty-one words, written in black ink.
Chu Chien marks a transition between Greater and Lesser Chuan styles. The brush work on these bamboo tablets had improved much over its predecessors, notably the Stone Drum. First, the quality of line is much livelier, and the handling of the brush is more skillful. There is a kind of rising and falling movement to the shape of the line, i.e., the beginning of each stroke is usually heavy and rounded, and the end, light and pointed. The brush is no longer a device merely to make an even line, but a tool to be manipulated in different ways -- high or low, fast or slow, etc. -- hence the result is more vigorous.
On the whole, this tablet style of writing is quite sophisticated and decorative and its free spirit of expression may have been inspired by the decorative Shang metal style. Its gay and romantic spirit is undoubtedly the chief characteristic of Chu art.
Writing on Chu Silk
In 1934, a fragment of writing on silk (c. 4th B.C.) was found in an ancient Chu tomb near Ch'ang Sha. It measures 47 cm. x 38.7 cm. There are about 750 characters on it. The style of writing is Greater Chuan, closer to the Bamboo Tablet style, since the shape of the words is horizontally stretched. The silk is so worn that the words can hardly be deciphered. Fortunately, through scientific means, particularly ultraviolet photography, a clear reading was made available; Fig.20 is a copy thus made.
Undoubtedly, since very early times, the arts of painting and calligraphy must have developed side by side, although no ancient paintings survive to prove this contention. However, this panel is the oldest evidence of the union of the two arts. In analyzing the calligraphy, it is evident that this type of writing, Greater Chuan, was used for records or documents. The lines of writing are so regular that it is certainly reminiscent of the early Ta Ko Ting (Fig. 13b). It is obvious that the writing in this piece was not meant to be decorative. Each character is so regular that it almost seems like print, a feature that perhaps foreshadows the growth of the Kai style in the 3rd century.
-- Kwo Da-Wei