There were different opinions about the time when Lishu was founded before a large number of bamboo slips were unearthed in Qin and Han Dynasties. The more popular saying is that the official script is the Disciples' Rules. According to "Han Shu Yi Wen Zhi", Lishu "originated from the official prison of Qin Dynasty, which was fun and relaxed and was given to disciples"; The preface to Shuo Wen Jie Zi was further developed, and the official script refers to Cheng Miao's work: "Qin Shihuang was a big official at the beginning and was promoted to garrison service. The duties of the official prison are complicated, and there are official documents at the beginning, which makes it easy to have fun ... Lishu was also written by Cheng Miao, a person. " Yang Xin of Liu Song said in "Selected Books of Ancient Energy": "Cheng Ying, a prison official of Qin Dynasty, was good at Da Zhuan, offended the former emperor, was imprisoned in Yunyang prison, increased or decreased the style of Da Zhuan, and removed its complexity, so that the former emperor was good at it, which was called official script." Zhang Huaiguan, a great calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty, also said something similar to Yang Xin's words: "The worshippers were created by Cheng Miao, a person from Xia Qin. Cen, a Miao character, started as a jailer in Yaxian County, offended the first emperor and spent ten years in Yunyang Prison. Yi Da and Xiao Zhuan Fiona Fang are official scripts of 3,000 words, and so on. In fact, the generation of a font can't be created by one person, and people can't explain it scientifically without a lot of physical data to prove its generation. It's just that someone has created a false theory, just like Cangjie's word making and Cai Lun's paper making.

Another less influential view is that Lishu originated in the Zhou Dynasty, represented by Li Daoyuan. See "Notes on Water Classics": "The Liulin people found a bronze coffin in the ancient tomb, and the official characters were hidden on the front and back, saying,' The coffin of Qi Taigong VI Sun Hugong'. Only one word is ancient, and the rest are the same as today. Prove that Li has existed since ancient times, not since Qin dynasty. " Mr. Guo Moruo believes that the official script originated in the Zhou Dynasty, and the evidence is not credible: "The public household in the Zhou Dynasty is the king of the State of Qi. His coffin inscription can't be turned by Cao, let alone' Li Zicheng'. "

We can explain the significance of naming official script from the original meaning of official script. Mr. Wu Baidian said: "Shuo Wen Jie Zi explains that' Li' means' Attached', while' The History of the Later Han Dynasty' and' Biography of Feng Yi' are taught as' Belonging', which has been used up to now, and there is the word' Cong' in modern Chinese." The previous books Biography of Wei Heng, Preface of Explaining Characters and paragraph notes all think that Lishu is beyond Sasuke's biography. So official script is the auxiliary font of Xiao Yan. "This statement is controversial. In the process of the evolution and development of Chinese characters, there have always been two opposing contradictions: simplification and simplification. Generally speaking, people always write in the direction of simplification. When a font is basically finalized, it may develop in two directions, one is to develop in a more regular direction and the other is to develop in a more grassy direction. The result of regularization makes this font completely established, and the result of Excellence is to produce new fonts. The official script was originally a so-called "auxiliary font", but it is actually a seal script (it is a big seal, not a small seal). Generally speaking, planting grass precedes stereotypes, and seal script is the planting grass of seal script, and its production should precede the cursive script of seal script. This is also the case. As early as before the biography of Qin Xiao, a simplified seal script, Gu Li (Cao Chuan), had been produced. According to the imperial seal engraved with the word "Lengxian" in Zhao Haoqi period of Qin Dynasty, the Chu silk script in the middle of Warring States Period and the inscription "Gao Nv and Shi Tongquan" in the late Warring States Period, before Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, there was a kind of writing similar to the imperial edict of Qin Dynasty, that is, the embryonic form of official script, which was later called ancient writing. Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Tianshui, Shuihudi, Mawangdui and Lushan in recent years ... provide solid evidence for us to trace the origin and formation of official script.

First, the official changes before Qin Xiao Zhuan came into being.

In recent years, the wooden slips unearthed in Qingchuan, Sichuan Province and the bamboo slips unearthed in Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province have provided us with physical materials, which irrefutably proved that there was a transitional font that evolved from Dazhuan to Lishu before the reunification of Qin Dynasty. Qingchuan wooden slips are works in the mid-Warring States period, which are 80 years earlier than the Qin bamboo slips of Sleeping in the Tiger Land. There are glyphs that are exactly the same as those of seal script, and there are glyphs that are quite close to those of Han Li, both of which are rare. Most glyphs show strokes, strokes and strokes of official script. Compared with seal script, it reduces inflection points, simplifies complexity, turns round into square, and changes the shape from narrow to square or flat. This is an extremely important calligraphy work, and the font has evolved from seal script to official script. Qin bamboo slips of Fangmatan in Tianshui were published from the late Warring States to the eighth year of Qin Shihuang (239 BC). Its "version A" seems to have been written earlier than the "version B", and this volume was written just right, so it was careless. This is usually done by selecting short strokes and extending suffixes. What is particularly noteworthy is that when he quickly writes horizontal paintings, he naturally forms a pattern of "stopping at the beginning of the pen and lifting lightly", which is the embryonic form of Han Li's typical stroke "Silkworm Head and phoenix tail". These unknown calligraphers more than 2,000 years ago provided the most powerful evidence for the dating of the extremely important official script in the history of calligraphy in China.

Second, the official change at the same time as Qin Xiaozhuan.

More than 1 100 Qin bamboo slips unearthed in Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Land, Hubei Province, have rich and colorful styles. Written before and after Qin Shihuang unified the six countries. It is meaningful to compare seal script with it at the same time. Small seal structure is round, positive and balanced; Qin bamboo slips are stiff, sideways and sideways; There is a turning point in Xiao Zhuan and a turning point in Qin Bamboo Slips. The important difference between official script and seal script is that the round turn and square fold are at first sight; The lines of Xiao Zhuan are even and do not insist on rhythm, and Qin bamboo slips have obvious sense of lifting rhythm with pens; Small seal strokes are consistent in horizontal and vertical directions, while Qin bamboo slips are thin and thick in horizontal and vertical directions; There is no wave in seal script, and Qin bamboo slips begin to pick waves and brush ... all these show the results of the complex relationship between seal script and official script.

Third, the official changes in the early and middle Western Han Dynasty.

1973 A large number of silk books unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province show that Lishu was mature in the early and middle Western Han Dynasty. According to the female mouth fruit, the introverted structure of Qin bamboo slips still has the closed space of seal script, so Mawangdui's silk script has been transformed into an open space structure. It is difficult to find a fixed outline of each word, and the length of strokes is no longer limited to the square outline of words, which often lengthens or shortens unexpectedly. We say that the difference between seal script and official script is mainly manifested in two aspects: one is the character structure. The official script "destroyed the structure of pictographic characters with stroke symbols and became pictographic characters without pictographic characters", which proved that the silk scripts at this time were completely consistent. Of course, there are two more important differences: "The difference between seal script and official script is not only the change of pictograph into symbol, but also the difference of brushwork", which is consistent with Mawangdui's silk script. Of course, it should be noted here that the aforementioned Qingchuan wooden slips and Tianshui Fangmatan Qin slips all have the above two characteristics, so we think that the structure of official script should be reliable and correct.

So what's the difference between mature official script and transitional official script?

The seal script is circuitous with a pen, round and thoughtful, and the official script is round and square, and the arc becomes straight. Press it with a pen at will. Both the early immature official script and the later mature official script have this feature, and calligraphers have always distinguished the transitional official script from the mature official script as the main symbol. There are many bamboo slips in Qin dynasty, but there are no waves, but there are obvious waves in a large number of bamboo slips such as Mawangdui silk book, Zhangjiashan bamboo slips and Fuyang bamboo slips in the early Western Han Dynasty. As the main pen, Bozhen is more prominent, and the shape of strokes is also very uniform, so we think that mature official script has appeared in the early Western Han Dynasty. As for the bamboo slips of Juyan and Dingxian in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, they are obviously fully mature official scripts.

The appearance of Bo Zhen in Li Shu shows that our ancestors always paid attention to the beauty of decoration on the basis of practicality, which is the continuation of the tradition of "beauty consciousness" since Oracle Bone Inscriptions, especially the bronze inscription. However, this continuation is fundamentally different. The fat pens in bronze inscriptions do not conform to the norms of text application, and all kinds of decorative lines are not practical. After the unification of Xiao Zhuan, the lines tend to be standardized, but the beauty of change is lost. The appearance of "Bo Zhen" in official script is a writing change way of bronze calligraphy decoration, and it is also a rebellion against the single line of Xiao Zhuan. Therefore, it is Bo Zhen that has become the most typical representative technique of official script.

Li Bian is of epoch-making significance in both the history of writing and calligraphy. In terms of glyphs, Lishu got rid of the bondage of "bending with the body" which was dominated by pictographs in the early seal script system, and combined glyphs with completely abstract lines. China's writing has come to an end. Because "lines", especially those with ups and downs, have solemnly stepped onto the historical stage, and their influence on China's calligraphy art is immeasurable. "Vertical change" purifies lines and liberates the spatial structure of lines, which is a decisive step for calligraphy art. Therefore, under the premise of giving full play to the calligrapher's subjective initiative, various formal factors of unity of opposites between words and between lines and columns contained in a single form composed of strokes and structural units of Chinese characters can undergo various changes. Here, the spatial structure of characters is transferred to the spatial construction of calligraphy. In the four-level space of calligraphy appreciation, only in the fourth-level "calligraphy space" will we understand why calligraphy is so sensitive to space. It is this official change that makes Chinese characters fully possess the artistic quality and essence.

The establishment of official script also means that the spatial modeling moves from rectangle to rectangle, which means that the movement of pen gesture can be opened horizontally. It means that "form" can not only meet the needs of readability of words, but also enhance the aesthetic feeling of brushwork. It is a great change compared with the stable and upright structure of bronze inscriptions and the closed and restrained structure of Xiao Zhuan, and it is a higher-level space creation method compared with the rich and colorful early bronze inscriptions. The spatial structure of "Suishi" is restricted by hieroglyphics, which limits the subjectivity of the author to the natural form, while the official script completely enters the space with abstract lines. Although it is also restricted by the formal space of regular characters, it is mainly between words.

However, in the internal space construction of Chinese characters, such as stroke length, main sequence, oblique correction, straight correction, back-to-back, adhesion, increase and decrease, echo and concession, the opposing formal factors can produce various rich changes because of the calligrapher's subjectivity. Chinese calligraphy

The formal beauty of China space architecture has attracted unprecedented attention in official script.

The appearance of official script not only contributes greatly to the space construction, but also is the innovation of its brushwork. First of all, the pen gesture changed from curved to straight, which resulted in Fang Bi based on the round pen. Because there is a sense of rhythm in pressing and using the pen, it is called "twists and turns", so the method of "opposing people's level" appeared, and the dew front followed. When starting a pen and changing the direction of action, the different changes in speed and strength have produced flanks, and the application and changes of calligraphy have been unprecedentedly enriched here, laying the foundation for the development of calligraphy in a completely personalized direction.

Due to the richness of brushwork, such as the unity of opposing factors, such as center and flank, hidden front and exposed front, bundle and dispersion, disease and astringency, lightness and heaviness, and square and circle, China's calligraphy began to notice that the shape and changes of lines themselves, in addition to building space for fonts, are also an extremely rich vocabulary system-lines themselves finally entered the historical stage independently. From Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the earliest mature writing in China, to the bronze inscriptions in Zhu Fan, and the inscriptions on stones and heavy objects in the Qin Dynasty, font numbers often change in different styles. The differences of these styles are mainly based on the spatial structure. And the feeling of movement disappears in the perfect framework of self-sufficient individuals. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions's inscriptions, our ancestors' naivety in space construction concealed their dullness in linear motion. In Shi Guwen's period, the sense of movement changed from dullness to rigidity, and in Qin Shihuang's seal script period, this rigidity further changed into the almost disappearance of the sense of movement. Qin Xiao's absolutely unified tailoring of spatial structure makes it impossible to take into account the rich changes of lines themselves, and Xiao Zhuan has become the most "quiet and beautiful" model of all fonts. From the perspective of historical development, such "quiet beauty" is likely to stifle the artistic life of calligraphy. Fortunately, Xiao Zhuan has never been a typical calligraphy style in China's book history. Even in the Qin Shihuang period, besides amenorrhea and other official festivals, it also had its place as a writing standard, and its scope of use was extremely narrow. Xiao Zhuan has lost the support of practicality and artistic vitality. It has become a vague existence or the existence of etiquette and patterns, so as to understand the significance of the rise of official scripts in the Qin and Han Dynasties in Random Thoughts. A fundamental betrayal of Xiao Zhuan by the official script of Qin and Han Dynasties is that it completely broke the rigid spirit of Xiao Zhuan and replaced it with an open structure and moving lines. The early aesthetic focus of China's calligraphy history shifted from the construction of spatial form to the movement and change of lines themselves. If Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jin Wen initiated the "line" of China's calligraphy art, the secret lies in that the ancients gradually evolved pictographic pictures into purified abstract structures and lines, thus laying the foundation for China's calligraphy to move towards "line art", then the aesthetic content of Qin and Han dynasties' calligraphy lies in the organic combination of the flowing beauty of lines in the process of time and the architectural beauty formed in space slicing, forming an advanced art form that drives space with time and controls space with time, thus enabling China to. Therefore, in the history of calligraphy, we call the process of official change a prelude to the consciousness of calligraphy art.