The Great Beauty of Chinese Characters -- to guide readers to appreciate the beauty of Chinese characters
2022-12-29
From oracle bone inscriptions to bronze inscriptions, to seal characters, official script and regular script, each evolution of Chinese characters is a footnote left by the development of Chinese civilization. However, ancient characters are often regarded as "Heavenly Book" in the eyes of modern people, which can not be interpreted and approached. Xu Chao, a professor of Shandong University, directly faced this problem in his Great Chinese Characters (Guangxi Normal University Press, Xinmin said), summarized the rules of Chinese character formation in a simple way, outlined the development of Chinese characters, and combined with 100 fine calligraphy works in bronze, it led readers to experience the ingenuity of the first artificial characters and appreciate the charm and charm of ancient Chinese characters. Not long ago, the results of the selection of the "most beautiful book" in 2022 were announced in Shanghai. This book, together with 25 books from 23 publishing units, won the title of "the most beautiful book" this year. Damei Chinese Characters is a book about the evolution and development of Chinese characters, which is divided into two parts: the upper part and the lower part. The first edition is specially designed for beginners, and is entitled "Introduction to Ancient Chinese Characters", with the nature of guide reading and general introduction. What does "Chinese characters are pictographs" mean? Why can the same font be used to indicate multiple meanings? How to use the meaning of Chinese character configuration components to extract common divisors and understand a cluster of ancient Chinese characters? The book gives answers to these questions. As a professional scholar, Xu Chao, like a guide, leads readers to explore the origin of Chinese characters, understand the rules of character making, sort out the laws of character development and change, and decipher the relationship between pronunciation and characters. In 50 pages, he condenses the most important knowledge of philology. The second part of the book is entitled "A Brief Interpretation of One Hundred Ancient Chinese Characters", with single characters as the entry. Each entry generally includes two items: one is the three font of the character: oracle bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, and small seal characters; Second, based on the characters of oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions, explain the formation meaning and method of each character, explain its original meaning, extended meaning, borrowed meaning and its usage in divination and inscriptions, and each entry is accompanied by the author's calligraphy works in bronze. Some of the entries also introduce a small number of other words related to the interpreted words. For example, the character "An" mentioned in the book was originally shaped like a woman sitting with her knees bent. There was a short diagonal line below the woman's buttocks, indicating that the woman's buttocks were seated at her heels, which reflected the meaning of safety and tranquility. Later, a "Lan" (mi á n) was added to this character. In ancient Chinese characters, "Lan" was a pictogram of the longitudinal section of a house. The addition of "Lan" to the original character means that women sit in the room. In the late Warring States Period, the inscriptions added "heart" to the bottom of the original characters as a symbol, emphasizing peace of mind, which further deepened the meaning. Interestingly, the short diagonal line was omitted until Xiaozhuan, which shows that the inheritance of Chinese characters is very strong, and it also shows that Xiaozhuan really has the merit of cutting down the complexity and simplifying, reflecting the development direction of Chinese characters. Damei Chinese Characters is also an "experiment" in printing and binding. The judges of the "Most Beautiful Book" in 2022 believe that the book is simple and elegant, comfortable to read, and has no unnecessary decoration. The cover is printed with special paper in spot color, and the abstract figures of bamboo slips are used for embossing. The combination of dots and lines shows relief effect, and the texture echoes the envelope. The use of classical paper and textured paper adds to the charm of ancient books in this book. The design of the whole book is restrained and has tension, and the handling of the details at the front of the book is very good, which is consistent with the theme
Edit：luoyu Responsible editor：wangerdong
Source：people.cn
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