Liu Jiang's 100 Seal Carvings in Oracle Bone Script

Author: Liu Jiang
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2000-01-01
Features: In the early years of the Guangxu reign, local farmers in the ruins of the ancient Shang capital (now Anyang, Henan) accidentally discovered some tortoise shells and animal bones inscribed with strange symbols while plowing. Soon, these oracle bones were sent to a pharmacy and sold as medicine. In the 24th year of the Guangxu reign (1898), an antiquities dealer transported the oracle bones to Beijing. The following year (1899), Jinshi scholar Wang Yirong identified the oracle bones as important ancient artifacts and preliminarily confirmed their historical value. In 1903, Liu E, the author of Old Man Zan's Journey, published the first collection of oracle bone inscriptions, Tieyun Zanggu, which is regarded as the starting point of oracle bone research. In 1904, Sun Yixiang wrote the first work on oracle bone divinations, Examples of Oracle Bone Script. From this, inspired by the research of scholars such as Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei, the study of oracle bones continued from the modern era to the contemporary period, gradually forming a new discipline—oracle bone studies. Oracle bones are remnants of ancient divination practices. During the Shang Dynasty, due to low levels of social culture and productive forces, the dominant ideology was the Shang worship of ancestors and natural gods. When people faced difficult decisions, they often sought divine guidance through divination, burning oracle bones or tortoise shells to examine the cracks and determine auspiciousness or inauspiciousness. The diviner, the divination process, the signs revealed, and the final outcome were all meticulously recorded on the oracle bones, known as divination inscriptions or the symbolic script we see today on the oracle bones. Most of these inscriptions are divinations by the Shang king, known as "king divinations," while a few are divinations by Shang nobles, known as "non-king divinations." The content of the inscriptions is quite rich, providing a comprehensive reflection of the political affairs of the Shang Kingdom and the lives of the royal and noble families, supplementing the gaps in the historical records of the Shang and Xia dynasties and corroborating existing written materials. They help people understand the social structures, customs, and historical and geographical changes of the ancient period, making them of great value to social history, the history of science, and paleography. Perhaps for this reason, for a long time, people's study of oracle bone script has been largely limited to its social significance, overlooking the form itself—the unique aesthetic and artistic value of the script's lines. Among the extant recognizable Chinese characters, oracle bone script is the oldest, yet it already possesses the basic principles of the traditional "Six Arts of Writing" and has developed into a relatively advanced system. The structural design of oracle bone script retains many elements of pictographic representation, and during the writing (carving) process, modifications are often made based on the habits of the writer and the convenience of composition, with radicals and strokes added, deleted, or adjusted in position and length. Combined with the description in the preface to Examples of Oracle Bone Script—"Since the writing was done with a knife, it is rugged and ancient, with sharp and unrefined lines"—it exudes a sense of profound antiquity and natural elegance, which is deeply admired and emulated by many oracle bone calligraphy enthusiasts. The earliest known figure to incorporate oracle bone script into artistic creation was Luo Zhenyu, followed later by Jian Jinglun, who combined oracle bone script to create oracle bone seals. Since then, the practice has grown, continuing for decades and gradually becoming a trend, with particular contributions from the members of the Xiling Seal Society. Now, our society is launching the "Xiling Seal Society's Calligraphy—Centennial Passing the Torch: Oracle Bone and Seal Script Calligraphy and Seal Carving Collection," which includes one volume of "Shang Divination Collection of Couplets (with Poetry)" by Ding Fuzhi, one of our society's founding members, as well as one volume each of "One Hundred Oracle Bone Calligraphy Works" and "One Hundred Seal Script Couplets" by Liu Jiang, and "One Hundred Oracle Bone Seal Carvings" by Liu Jiang. Liu Jiang has long been dedicated to the creation and study of calligraphy and seal carving. For this occasion, the best selections from his years of creation are published, which is a great event for calligraphy and seal carving enthusiasts and will also greatly benefit those who wish to learn. Ding Fuzhi's "Shang Divination Collection of Couplets (with Poetry)" was published in the 1940s and is now being reprinted to honor the readers. As the saying goes, "When you drink water, remember the source," and we express our gratitude and reverence for our predecessors and scholars through this effort.