Seal Carving

Seal carving is a unique part of the Chinese cultural heritage. It reveals the charm of an Eastern tradition and condenses in it the Chinese aesthetics that has lasted thousands of years.
The art can be traced back to more than 3,000 years to the Yin Dynasty when the cutting of inscriptions on tortoise shells were the only way that the ideas of human being could be recorded. During the period of Spring and Autumn when the sovereign of a state delegated power to his ministers or generals, he needed an object as the token of authorization. The art developed rapidly in the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC) when people engraved their names on utensils and documents to claim ownership or for verification in social contacts. After the Han Dynasties, as paper became more popular, people started to stain seal engravings with colors, and then print them onto papers. For this purpose, red ink paste was created. Later the seal gradually departed politics. After the Tang Dynasty, it is also used in the autographs on paintings and calligraphic works and it has become an object of artistic appreciation in its own right.
Seals carving as works of art should excel in three aspects - calligraphy, composition and the graver's handwork. The artist must be good at writing various styles of the Chinese script. He should know how to arrange within a limited space a number of characters (some compact with many strokes and others sketchy with very few) in a perfect balance to achieve a vigorous or graceful effect. Like a master calligrapher, sometimes, he needs to exaggerate the thickness or thinness of a stroke, elaborately straighten or curve it, or even deliberately deform an ideogram to create an artistic effect. He should also be familiar with the various materials (stone, jade, gold, brass, wood or ivory) so that he may apply the cutting knife with the right exertion, technique and even rhythm. For the initiated to watch a master engraver at work is like seeing a delightful stage performance.
In the long-lasting Chinese culture, seals with other stationery produce an artistic atmosphere for the scholars' study. Seals, musical instruments, chess, calligraphic works and paintings together constitute the poetic environment of Chinese intellectuals' rooms.