Seal-cutting is traditionally listed along with painting, calligraphy and poetry as one of the "four arts" expected of the accomplished scholar and a unique part  of the Chinese cultural heritage. A seal stamp in red is not only the signature on a work of calligraphy or painting but an indispensable touch to liven it up.

The art dates back about 3,700 years to the Yin Dynasty and has its  origin in the cutting of oracle inscriptions on tortoise shells. It flourished in the Qin Dynasty of 22 centuries ago, when people engraved their names on utensils and documents (of bamboo and wood) to show ownership or authorship. Out of this grew the cutting of personal names on small blocks of horn, jade or wood, namely the seals as we know them today.

Seals reflect the development of written Chinese. The earliest ones, those of the Qin and Han dynasties, bear the zhuan or curly script, which explains why the art of seal-cutting is still called zhuanke and also why the zhuan script is also known in English as "seal characters". As time went on, the other script styles appeared one after another on Chinese seals, which may now be cut in any style except the cursive at the option of the artist.

Characters on seals may be cut in relief or in intaglio. The materials for seals vary with different types of owners. Average persons normally have wood, stone or horn seals, whereas noted public figures would probably prefer seals made of red stained Changhua stone, jade, agate, crystal, ivory and other more valuable materials. Monarchs in the old days used gold or the most precious stones to make their imperial or royal seals. Today Chinese government offices at lower levels wood ones.

Seals cut as works of art should excel in three aspects-- calligraphy, composition and the graver's handwork. The artist must be good at writing various styles of the Chinese script. He should know how to arrange within a limited space a number of characters-- some compact with many strokes and others sketchy with very few-- to achieve a vigorous or graceful effect. He should also be familiar with the various materials-- stone, brass or ivory-- so that he may apply the cutting knife with the right exertion, technique and even rhythm. For the initiated to watch a master engraver at work is like seeing a delightful stage performance.

Perhaps one of the conspicuous differences between Chinese and Westerners is that the Chinese do not attach much importance to signatures, preferring to use chops .From ancient imperial courts to modern government offices, and from emperors to ordinary citizens, it is common to use chops for official documents and for personal affairs .So while you are in Beijing you may want to buy one . Large hotels provide a service for carving chops . The carver can help you to choose a Chinese name to carve on the chop or you can ask a Chinese friend to give you a Chinese name . The seal makes an interesting souvenir ,or a personalized gift for a family member or friend if his /her name is carved on it. Make sure that you don't forget to buy a small box of red paste to use with your seals . The price for seals, which are made of stone, wood or metal, can vary a great deal.              

China's Traditional Opera

China has over 360 types of traditional operas and 50,000 traditional theatrical pieces. China's operas partially originate from ancient wu dances. Wu, or sorcery, became prevalent in the Shang dynasty (16th-11th centuries BC) and the Warring States period (475-221 BC) in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Sorcerers and sorceresses claimed to be ale to make the gods come out by dancing, and to be the people in charge of offering sacrifices to the gods of the Earth and Heaven and spirits of the dead, as well as practicing divination and praying for the people. Quyuan, a famous poet of the State of Chu, on the basis of wu dances and songs, which were widely popular among the Chinese people, created the Book of Songs. Many were later developed into folk dances.

During the Qin (221-207 BC) and Han (206 BC - AD220) dynasties, baixi, a general name for ancient dances, songs and acrobatics, became very popular. Baixi was handed down to the Tang (618-907) and the Northern Song (960-1127) dynasties, and at festival times baixi performances could be seen everywhere in Kaifeng, capital of the Northern Song dynasty, and the music and songs were widely spread.

Court songs and dances came into vogue during the Tang dynasty, and Emperor Xuan Zong (712-756) personally selected several hundred outstanding performers into the court for further training and performing for him. So later artists place a statue of him 

The Yuan dynasty saw the most prosperous period of China's traditional operas, and made great contributions to the development of China's dramatic and literary history. Extant works of the time amount to 150, including some outstanding ones such as "Snow in Midsummer" and the "West Chamber" which reflect the society and life of the time. There had a profound influence on Chinese dramatic art.

China's traditional opera is a comprehensive art of literature, music, dance, martial art, painting and acrobatics. Poetic dram was formed in the Ming the Qing dynasties, mainly depicting stories of supernatural, human feelings, ways of the world and social life. During this period various local operas appeared, with Peking opera as the most representative type.                                        

Peking Opera

Peking Opera was formed in Beijing about 200 years ago mainly on the basis of Hui (of Anhui Province) and Han (of Hubei Province) operas, but also absorbing some good points from other local operas, such as Kunqu and Shaanxi types. The latter half of the 19th century and the early of 20th century were an important period in the development of Peking Opera. China then had over 1,000 traditional Peking Opera pieces, of which about 400 were frequently performed. Most of the plots were taken from historical episodes, folk legends, classical novels and fairy tales.

During the development, Peking Opera gradually formed an unique style in singing, dancing, music, characters, performing skills and costumes, and to a certain extent influenced other types of Chinese opera. It has often been introduced abroad as a representative type of China's traditional operas.

Unlike Western opera which mostly has only singing and not dance, ballet which only dance but not singing, or straight plays with only dialogue, Beijing opera is a comprehensive art, mixing the four performing techniques of singing, dialogue, mime and acrobatics with facial make up and costume, but little scenery or props. Performance of Peking Opera is entirely different from that of modern drama and film, which stress realism. It represents very fluid changes in time or space by means of symbols or symbolic gestures. Although there is not a single stage property in the above scene, the audience is helped to ''see'' the door, house, tables, chairs, etc.

Usually a dialogue, singing and acting follow these rules: singing is always used to express people's moving feelings or when the opera plot reaches a critical moment; acting and singing are simultaneously used to fully express people's inner world; dialogue is used to tell ordinary plot turns and the background of story. Of the four performing techniques of Peking Opera, dialogue is most suitable for the expression of a person's gift of expression, quick-wit and humor. That is why a clownish character always stresses dialogue.

Body postures and gestures in Peking Opera originate from life but are artistically enhanced. In the foot movement, for instance, in the case of female character role, the body is always kept erect, the walk is smooth and fluid, with very short steps and hands often hidden in sleeves. All these movements imitate those of ancient Chinese women. Acrobatics is used to represent fights, together with some prop weapons when necessary.                                                                      

Chinese Calligraphy (click here to see more pictures)

Calligraphy is understood in China as the art of hand with the brush. In the history of Chinese art, calligraphy has always been held in equal importance to painting. Chinese calligraphy began with the hieroglyphs and, over the long ages of evolution, has developed various styles and schools, constituting an important part of the heritage of national culture. In traditional Chinese art, calligraphy, seal and painting are all thought as parts of a complete artistic work.

Chinese scripts are generally divided into five categories: the seal character (zhuan), the official or clerical script (li), the regular script (kai), the running hand (xing) and the cursive hand (cao).

Zhuan Script  The zhuan script or seal character was the earliest form of writing after the oracle inscriptions, which must have caused great inconvenience because they lacked uniformity and many characters were written in variant forms. The first effort for the unification of writing, it is said, took place during the reign of King Xuan (827-782 B. C.) of the Western Zhou Dynasty, when his taishi (grand historian) Shi Zhou compiled a lexicon of 15 chapters, standardizing Chinese writing under script called zhuan. It is also known as zhouwen after the name of the author. This script, often used in seals, is translated into English as the seal character or as the "curly script after the shape of its strokes.

When Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified the whole of China in 221 B. C, he ordered his Prime Minister Li Si to sort out all the different systems of writing hitherto prevalent in different parts of the country so as to unify the written language under one system. What Li did, in effect, was to simplify the ancient zhuan (small seal) script.

Today we have a most valuable relic of this ancient writing in the creator Li Si's own hand engraved on a stele standing in the Temple to the God of Taishan Mountain in Shandong Province. The 2,200-year-old stele, worn by age and weather, has only nine and a half characters left on it.

Lishu Script The lishu (official script) came in the wake of the xiaozhuan in the same short-lived Qin Dynasty (221 - 207 B. C.). This was because the xiaozhuan, though a simplified form of script, was still too complicated for the scribes in the various government offices who had to copy an increasing amount of documents. Cheng Miao, a prison warden, made a further simplification of the xiaozhuan, changing the curly strokes into straight and angular ones and thus making writing much easier. A further step away from the pictographs, it was named lishu because li in classical Chinese means "clerk" or "scribe". Another version says that Cheng Miao, because of certain offence, became a prisoner and slave himself; as the ancients also called bound slaves "li", so the script was named lishu or the "script of a slave".

Kaishu Script The lishu was already very close to, and led to the adoption of, kaishu, regular script. The oldest existing example of this dates from the Wei (220-265), and the script developed under the Jin (265-420). The standard writing today is square in form, non-cursive and architectural in style. The characters are composed of a number of strokes out of a total of eight kinds-the dot, the horizontal, the vertical, the hook, the rising, the left-falling (short and long) and the right-falling strokes. Any aspirant for the status of calligrapher must start by learning to write a good hand in kaishu.

Caoshu Script  On the basis of lishu also evolved caoshu (cursive handwriting), which is rapid and used for making quick but rough copies. The first of these emerged at the time the Qin was replaced by the Han Dynasty between the 3rd and 2nd centuries B. C. The characters, though written rapidly, still stand separate one from another and the dots are not linked up with other strokes.             

Traditional Chinese Painting (click here to see more pictures) 

An important part of the country's cultural heritage, the traditional Chinese painting is distinguished from Western art in that it is executed on xuan paper (or silk) with the Chinese brush, Chinese ink and mineral and vegetable pigments.To attain proficiency in this branch of art calls for assiduous exercise, a good control of the brush, and a feel and knowledge of the qualities of xuan paper and Chinese ink.

Before setting a brush to paper, the painter must conceive a well-composed draft in his mind, drawing on his imagination and store of experience, Once he starts to paint, he will normally have to complete the work at one go, denied the possibility of any alteration of wrong strokes.

Xuan paper, as discussed in a previous article, is most suitable for Chinese painting. It is of the right texture to allow the writing brush wet with Chinese ink and held in a trained hand, to move freely on it, making strokes varying from dark to light, from solid to hollow. These soon turn out to be human figures, plants and flowers, birds, fish and insects, full of interest and life.

Many a Chinese painter is at the same time a poet and calligrapher. He will often add a poem in his own hand on the painting, which invariably carries an impression of his seal. The resulting piece of work is usually an integrated whole of four branches of Chinese art-- poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal-cutting.

Chinese paintings are divided into two major categories: free hand brushwork (xieyi) and detailed brushwork (gongbi) . The former is characterized by simple and bold strokes intended to represent the exaggerated likenesses of the objects, while the latter by fine brushwork and close attention to detail. Employing different techniques , the two schools try to achieve the same end, the creation of beauty.

It is difficult to tell how long the art of painting has existed in China. Pots of 5,000-6,000 years ago were painted in color with patterns of plants, fabrics, and animals, reflecting various aspects of the life of primitive clan communities. These may be considered the beginnings of Chinese painting.

China entered the slave society about 2000 B.C. Though no paintings of that period have ever come to light, that society witnessed the emergence of a magnificent bronze culture, and bronzes can only be taken as a composite art of painting and sculpture.

In 1949 from a tomb of the Warring States Period (475-221 B. C.) was unearthed a painting on silk of human figures, dragons and phoenixes. The earliest work on silk ever discovered in China, it measures about 30 cm long by 20 cm wide.

From this and other early paintings on silk it may be easily seen that the ancients were already familiar with the art of the writing or painting brush, for the strokes show vigour or elegance whichever was desired. Paintings of this period are strongly religious or mythological in themes.

Paintings on paper appeared much later than those on silk for the simple reason that the invention of silk preceded that of paper by a long historical period.

In 1964, when a tomb dating to the Jin Dynasty (265- 420 A. D) was excavated at Astana in Turpan, Xinjiang, a colored painting on paper was discovered. It shows, on top, the sun, the moon and the Big Dipper and, below, the owner of fan in his hand. A portrayal in vivid lines of the life of a feudal land-owner, measuring 106.5 cm long 47 cm high, it is the only known painting on paper of such antiquity in China.           

Paper Cutting