The ancient Chinese, along with other areas of Asia made quantum leaps when it came to script and the system of writing. Calligraphy, the Chinese ancient writing system, is still used today by more people than any other language system. They contributed many other writing necessities to Europe, who adopted most of their inventions and eventually used them to take over much of the planet.
The Chinese writing system is completely visual. It is said that the first written piece of language was performed by Tsang Chieh who was inspired by claw marks and foot prints of various creatures. He developed simple pictographs that were highly abstract but easily understood. The Chinese moved away from the realism found in hieroglphys and moved towards abstraction. They characters are "logograms", which are graphic signs representing an entire word (like the $ symbol). Interestingly, there is no relationship between written Chinese and spoken Chinese. They are both independent of one another. One is to hear, and one is to see. The Japanese adopted this idea along with the logograms.
Various artists developed different calligraphy writing styles. Eventually the they were all united under the emperor, Shih Huang Ti. Though he sacrificed thousands of lives during the construction of the Great Wall, his reign brought forward the third phase of design in Chinese calligraphy. Calligraphy is still considered the most important art form in China, even more than painting. Spiritual ideas and feelings can be expressed through this art. They consider calligraphy to have bones, meat, blood and muscle. Just like a living and breathing creature. The bones are the size, the meat is the proportion of the characters, the blood is the texture of the ink, and the muscle is the spirit of the art. Calligraphy can be dynamic and inventive. it is said to "evoke natural objects, forming movement and energy into an organic whole".
The Chinese also contributed greatly towards the use of paper. The inventor is considered to be Ts'ai Lun, a government official. He is considered to be the god of paper-makers. Before paper Chinese wrote on bamboo or wooden strips with a bamboo pen.
Printing, another important breakthrough in history, was also produced by the Chinese. The first form was relief-printing. It is argued upon how it was initially invented, although. One idea is that the usage of engraved seals used for identification eventually developed into a printing system. A second idea is that the Chinese practice of ink rubbings from inscriptions evolved and became printing. Rubbings were not only made of writings but also from stone relief sculptures carved into tombs. These resembled paintings. The oldest surviving printed manuscript is the Diamond Sutra. It contains seven pages of paper put together to form a very large scroll. Paper and printing became more widely used in the ninth century when the Chinese government began the distribution of paper certificates and paper money to use due to a shortage of iron money. China became the first culture in which an everyday person would come in contact with a printed image on a daily basis.
China's invention of all these crucial discoveries eventually spread to the West right as the Renaissance began, thus contributing greatly to European history.
Most Interesting:
What I found most interesting in Chapter 3 had to deal with the relief prints and the ink rubbings performed in China. The Chinese would inscribe upon a stone tablet and then do ink rubbings over the top. This had a downfall. One book's tablets require thirteen acres of storage space for the tablets. They were arranged in rows similar to tombstones. Thats HUGE!
No comments:
Post a Comment