Chao Hou Xiao Jun Can Bei

Author: Shanghai Shuxue Publishing House
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-06-01
Features: The Han Dynasty was the golden age of Chinese calligraphy history. The Han Dynasty inherited the system of the Qin Dynasty, with official documents primarily written in seal script, while the common script among the populace and lower-ranking officials was clerical script. Due to its simplicity and ease of writing, clerical script was widely used in imperial decrees, inscriptions on stone and metal artifacts, and official documents, promoting the development of writing and making it the dominant script of the Han Dynasty. The clerical script preserved from the Han Dynasty can be divided into two main categories: one is ink rubbings, written on silk, bamboo, and wooden slips, spanning the entire Western and Eastern Han periods. Notable examples include the silk manuscript of the Laozi unearthed from the Mawangdui tombs in Changsha, Hunan, the Sun Bin’s Art of War found in Yinque Mountain, Linyi, Shandong, wooden slips from Fenghuang Mountain in Jiangling, Hubei, and tens of thousands of characters in bamboo and wooden slips from Juyan, Wuwei, and Dunhuang in Gansu. The other category is stele inscriptions, with writing dates including the Yiying Stele, Shichen Stele, Liqi Stele, Zhangqian Stele, Hua Shan Stele, Caoquan Stele, and Shimen Song among others. Before 1900, as ink rubbings of Han bamboo slips had not yet been unearthed, the stele inscriptions of the Eastern Han Dynasty could best represent the achievements of clerical script. Qing Dynasty scholar Wu Shu once remarked: "The Han Dynasty reached its peak, with each stele presenting a unique charm, none being identical."
The Zhaohou Xiaoshou Canbei, also known as the Xiaoshou Canbei, lacks a recorded date of inscription. It contains fifteen lines of clerical script, with fifteen characters per line, and ten characters remaining on the back. Discovered in Chang’an, Shaanxi, in the thirtieth year of the Xuantong era (1911), the stele was once owned by Zhou Jin and is now housed in the Palace Museum in Beijing. The stele is fragmented, and due to the presence of the characters "Zhaohou Xiaoshou" in one line, it is named accordingly. Qin Wenjin’s inscription on the stele reads: "The script style falls between the Konghou Stele and the Shichen Stele, less robust but sharper, a fine carving indeed." The stele primarily uses round brushwork, with minimal variation in line thickness, resembling seal script in its structure. The characters are square but slightly oblong, with expansive brushstrokes. In the stele, characters like "yi" and "xiang" are entirely in seal script style. Among characters composed of multiple horizontal strokes, such as "ci," "zhen," "zai," "yan," "lao," "jin," and "yue," two to three "swallow tail" strokes appear, differing from the "swallows do not fly in pairs" phenomenon found in most Eastern Han steles but aligning more closely with the clerical script on bamboo slips from the late Western Han and early Eastern Han periods.
The style of Han steles is distinctive, offering valuable insights for calligraphers. This book presents the stele’s brushwork, which primarily uses round brushwork with little variation in line thickness, resembling seal script in structure. The characters are square but slightly oblong, with expansive brushstrokes. Characters like "yi" and "xiang" are entirely in seal script style, while characters like "ci," "zhen," "zai," "yan," "lao," "jin," and "yue," composed of multiple horizontal strokes, feature two to three "swallow tail" strokes, differing from the "swallows do not fly in pairs" phenomenon in most Eastern Han steles but resembling the clerical script on bamboo slips from the late Western Han and early Eastern Han periods. Each Han stele has its own unique style, from which calligraphers can draw inspiration. This book is printed with exquisite craftsmanship, accurately reproducing the original works, making it an excellent reference for calligraphy enthusiasts.