Mawangdui Bamboo Slips. Laozi

Author: Editing Group of "Selected Calligraphy from Bamboo Slips and Silk Manuscripts"
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-12-01
Features: Before the invention of paper in ancient China, people primarily used tortoise shells, animal bones, pottery, metal and stone, bamboo and wood, as well as silk and hemp, as materials for recording and engraving. Due to the popularization of culture and social progress, from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States Period, and then to the Qin and Han dynasties, people increasingly used bamboo slips, wooden tablets, and silk manuscripts as writing media for social communication and cultural dissemination for the convenience of material acquisition and reading. The "Laozi" manuscripts unearthed from Han Tomb No. 3 at Mawangdui consist of two versions: the Jia manuscript copied in seal script and the Yi manuscript written in cursive script with red ink. The Jia manuscript is severely damaged with many missing characters, while the Yi manuscript is less damaged and its text is mostly clear. Laozi was a famous philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period and the founder of Taoism, who proposed the Taoist doctrine of "purity and inaction." His simple dialectical thinking greatly influenced the development of ancient Chinese philosophical thought. The appearance of two manuscripts of "Laozi" in the same tomb, with different scripts (seal script and cursive script), and with different avoidance of the names of Han Dynasty emperors, suggests that the Jia manuscript was created earlier. Since the original manuscript had already been widely circulated during the Western Han Dynasty, its composition must have been even earlier. The discovery of the Jia and Yi manuscripts of the silk "Laozi" has also provided invaluable primary artifacts for the study of Chinese textual studies and the evolution of calligraphy art. The two silk manuscripts of "Laozi" from Han Tomb No. 3 at Mawangdui show that the Jia manuscript, copied in seal script, is slightly earlier than the Yi manuscript, copied in cursive script, as determined by the avoidance of Han Dynasty names. Particularly, the discovery of the cursive script Yi manuscript has once again compensated for the long-standing lack of actual works in the transition from Qin dynasty seal script to Han dynasty cursive script. The Yi manuscript of the silk "Laozi" belongs to the early Western Han Dynasty cursive script. Although the script still retains some characteristics of seal script, the brushwork has shifted from rounded to the angular turns of cursive script, with horizontal strokes slightly inclined to the upper right, showing slight wave-like features. The thickness of the brushes varies, with red ink used in some areas, especially the heavy and forceful downstrokes, which already exhibit the (gǔzhuó pǔzhì) style of early cursive script. Furthermore, the spacing between characters is irregular yet balanced, with well-structured calligraphy, demonstrating an excellent overall composition, making it a выдающийся ( выдающийся) masterpiece of early Western Han Dynasty cursive script works.