Evolution of Chinese Characters 3 汉字演化-篆书
Jan 12th 2011 23:27
In the later days in Zhou Dynasty, we sectioned it in the Spring and Autumn Period(770BC-476BC) and the Warring States Period(475BC-221BC)（/The latter part of the Zhou Dynasty is divided into the the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period） , It's an important age in China history that many changes occurred(/ This is an important age of transformation in Chinese history.), the well known Confucius(551BC–479BC) and Sun Tzu(544BC-470BC) etc, are in this period(/belong to this period).
During this period, the royal court of Zhou lost control to its kingdoms, there were more than a hundred mergers amongst its feudal states until finally only seven of the strongest remain, we call them Seven Powers in the Warring State Period(战国七雄). Finally the Qin country defeated the other six countries and united China again, establishing the Qin Dynasty(221BC－206BC).
Though The Qin Dynasty only lasted 15 years, it was a very important dynasty in Chinese histry. It laid the foundation for a unified China for much of history, in comparison with Europe which for the most part, was divided.
The other achievement of the Qin Dynasty is to united the written language, also the currency, the measuring system etc(/was the establishment of a common written language, currency, and measuring system etc.) And by the way, Qin Dynasty started to built the Great Wall(/Building of the Great Wall also started during this dynasty).
In Zhou Dynasty, after hundreds of years chaos, different countries derived different written languages, we can consider them as all kinds of 大篆. After united all countries, Qin integrated all the seven countries's characters and work out the universal characters, which was named 小篆.(Qin integrated the individual characters and created the universal characters, which was named 小篆) Modern Chinese characters were all derived from 小篆.
Even though 小篆 has nearly 2,000 years of history, it still appear in many situations today, especially in art design or calligraphies and paintings.
Every Chinese calligraphy and painting needs an inscription, and sign and stamp seals, one of the which must be the 小篆 seal. In fact, the seal itself is regarded as form of Chinese art, called 篆刻.
==
篆书（zhuàn shū） is the general term of 大篆 and 小篆. 大篆 was used in Zhou Dynasty (1046BC-256BC). Broadly speaking，甲骨文(Oracle bone inscriptions) and 金文（bronzeware script characters） both belong to 大篆.
At the latter day in Zhou Dynasty, we sectioned it in the Spring and Autumn Period(770BC-476BC) and the Warring States Period(475BC-221BC), It's an important age in China history that many changes occurred, the well known Confucius(551BC–479BC) and Sun Tzu(544BC-470BC) etc are in this period. During this period, the royal court of Zhou lost the control to it's kingdoms, there are more than a hundred of seigneurs annex each other, at last, only remained seven strongest countries, we call them Seven Powers in the Warring State Period(战国七雄). Finally the Qin country defeated all the other six countries and united China again, establish the Qin Dynasty(221BC－206BC).
Though Qin Dynasty only lasted 15 years, but it was a very important dynasty in China histry. It lay the foundation of the mostly unitive status of China in history, compared with Europe most of the time it was separated.
The other achievement of Qin Dynasty is to united the written language, also the currency, the measuring system etc. And by the way, started to built the Great Wall.
In Zhou Dynasty, after hundreds of years chaos, different countries derived different written languages, we can consider them as all kinds of 大篆. After united the all countries, Qin integrated all the seven countries's characters and work out the universal characters, which was named 小篆. Modern Chinese characters were all derived from 小篆.
Even 小篆 has nearly 2,000 years of history, it still appear in many situations today, especially in art design or calligraphies and paintings.
Every Chinese calligraphies and paintings needs to inscription, sign and stamp seals, one of the seals must be the 小篆 seal. In fact, the seal it self also be regard as a kind of Chinese art, named 篆刻.
==
篆书是大篆和小篆的统称。大篆是周朝(1046BC-256BC)时期的文字，广义来说，甲骨文和金文都属于大篆。
周朝的后期，我们把它划分为春秋(770BC-476BC)和战国(475BC-221BC)时期，这是中国历史上一个很重要的变革时期，著名的孔子(551BC–479BC)和孙子(544BC-470BC)就是这个时代的人。在这个时期，周王室失去了对它的诸侯国的控制，上百个诸侯国互相兼并，最后只剩下了七个最强大的国家，我们称他们为“战国七雄”。最终秦国打败了其他六国，最终重新统一了中国，建立了秦朝(221BC-206BC)
虽然秦朝仅仅维持了15年时间，但它是中国历史上非常重要的一个朝代。它奠定了中国在历史上大部分时间都是统一状态的基础，而不是像欧洲那样大部分时间都是处于分裂状态。
秦朝的另一大功绩就是统一了文字。当然还有统一了货币、度量衡等，顺便提一下，万里长城也是从秦朝开始修建的。
在周朝，经过了几百年的混乱后，不同的国家发展出了不同的文字，我们可以把它们都看成各种大篆。在统一六国后，秦国综合了七国的文字制定出了一种通用的文字，也就是小篆。现代汉字就是从小篆演变而来的。
虽然小篆已经有近2000年的历史，但它仍然出现在我们今天的许多场合中，尤其是艺术设计和书画作品中。
每一幅中国书画作品都需要题词、落款和盖印，其中有个印章一定会是篆印。事实上篆印本身也是中国艺术的一种，叫做篆刻。
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In the later days in Zhou Dynasty, we sectioned it in the Spring and Autumn Period (770BC-476BC) and the Warring States Period (475BC-221BC). It's an important age in China history that many changes occurred, the well known Confucius (551BC–479BC) and Sun Tzu (544BC-470BC) etc. are in this period.
During this period, the royal court of Zhou lost the control of it's kingdoms and there are more than a hundred of seigneurs annex each other. At last, only remained seven strongest countries and we call them Seven Powers in the Warring State Period (战国七雄).
Finally the Qin country defeated all the other six countries and united China again, establish the Qin Dynasty (221BC－206BC).
Though Qin Dynasty only lasted 15 years, it was a very important dynasty in China history.
It layed the foundation of the mostly unitive status of China in history, it was compared with Europe most of the time it was separated.
The other achievement of Qin Dynasty is to united the written language, the currency, and the measuring system etc.
And by the way, Qin Dynasty started to built the Great Wall.
After uniteing all countries, Qin integrated all the seven countries's characters and work out the universal characters, which was named 小篆.
The latter part of the Zhou Dynasty is divided into the Spring and Autumn Period(770BC-476BC) and the Warring States Period(475BC-221BC). This is an important age of transformation in Chinese history. The well known philosophers, Confucius(551BC–479BC) and Sun Tzu(544BC-470BC) belong to this period.
During this period, the royal court of Zhou lost the control to it's its kingdom, there were more than a hundred mergers amongst its feudal states until finally only seven of the strongest remain, we call them the Seven Powers of the Warring State Period(战国七雄).
Finally the Qin country defeated the other six countries and united China again, establishing the Qin Dynasty(221BC－206BC).
Though the Qin Dynasty only lasted 15 years, but it was a very important dynasty in Chinese history.
It laid the foundation for a unified China for much of history, in comparison with Europe which for the most part, was divided.
The other achievement of the Qin Dynasty was the establishment of a common written language, currency, and measuring system etc.
Building of the Great Wall also started during this dynasty.
After uniting all seven countries, Qin integrated the individual characters and created the universal characters, which was named 小篆.
Even though小篆 has nearly 2,000 years of history, it still appears in many situations today, especially in art design or calligraphies and paintings.
Every Chinese calligraphy and painting needs an inscription, and signature and stamp seals, one of which must be the 小篆 seal.
In fact, the seal itself is regarded as a form of Chinese art, called 篆刻.
If it's a serie, I would look forward to following ones.
I'm intersted in 行楷。