Seal carving studies

Author: Deng Sanmu
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-08-01
Features: The Art of Seal Carving, a treatise on seal carving. Written by the modern seal carver Deng Sanmu. Deng Sanmu has authored numerous works, and The Art of Seal Carving is one of them. The initial draft of this book was derived from the lecture notes Deng Sanmu used when teaching seal carving to his students in the 1930s. It was originally printed using a mimeograph machine. After several revisions and additions, it took its final form. The author had originally intended to continue revising the book but passed away due to illness, leaving this wish unfulfilled. The book is divided into two parts, with a total of nine chapters. The first part narrates the history of seal carving. The Art of Seal Carving is the posthumous work of Deng Sanmu (1898–1963), a renowned seal carver and calligrapher. He dedicated his life to the art of seal carving and calligraphy, and this book is a distillation of his decades of practical experience and insights. The text discusses the origins of seals, various schools of seal carving, composition, and carving techniques, providing detailed yet concise explanations. It particularly offers unique insights into the analysis of composition. Moreover, the book is richly illustrated with elegant calligraphy, making it not only a specialized treatise on seal carving theory and techniques but also a model for practicing seal carving and calligraphy. The initial draft of The Art of Seal Carving was based on the author’s lecture notes on seal carving and art from the 1930s in Shanghai, which underwent multiple revisions and additions to reach its final form. The author had planned to further revise and proofread the book but passed away before completing this wish. The original manuscript is now published in facsimile. In some places, the manuscript contains handwritten additions in pen, and there are pen annotations in the margins of certain chapters, indicating revisions the author intended to make but did not finish. In the section on "Training the Knife," the author noted "should be entirely deleted." To preserve the original form of the posthumous work, these changes were not made, leaving them for readers to reference. The manuscript has missing punctuation in nearly one-third of the text, and there are occasional errors in the illustrations and text, which were corrected and supplemented by Deng Sanmu’s family member, Deng Guozhi.