Research On The Transmutation Of Cognitive Concept Of Qin Seal

The Qin Dynasty existed only for a short time.The seals of this period serves as a connecting link between the Warring States Time and the Western Han Dynasty,so they have special significance and value in the history of the development of Chinese seals.Since the development of seal study in the Song and Yuan Dynasties,the number of unearthed seals from Qin Dynasty is not much,and the expression of Qin seal often appears in historical records,works on seal study,seal book,Preface and postscript of‘Yin Pu’,and the margin of seal cutting works of the seal engravers inscribed.Moreover,the cognitive concept expressed in documents is constantly evolving with time.Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties,people still had a certain ambiguity and one-sidedness in the understanding of the Qin seal,and there are some misunderstandings over the style of the Qin seal.Until the turn of the 20 th century,with the increasing number of unearthed Qin seals,the academic world has established a scientific identification standard for Qin seal.However,there is a certain deviation between the contemporary cognition of Qin seals and the cognition since Yuan,Ming and Qing Dynasties.Therefore,based on the cognition of Qin seal in different periods,this paper discusses and clarifies how the cognition of Qin seal generated and evolved since Yuan,Ming and Qing Dynasties.Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties,as seal engravers had a vague understanding to the Qin seal,most of the them called the ancient seals of the Warring States Time ‘Qin seals’,and called the Qin seals ‘Han Jie Ge Seal’.Therefore,under the influence of the ideological background of ‘Esteem the seal of Qin and Han Dynasties’,‘seal springs from calligraphy’,‘seeking seal outside seal’,which period exactly does the ‘Qin’ mean? What is the specific point of ‘Esteem the seal of Qin and Han Dynasties’ in the real sense?After collecting and analyzing relevant literature,it is found that the concept of ‘Esteem the seal of Qin and Han Dynasties’ is one of the concepts proposed by the seal engravers in Ming and Qing Dynasties when studying the ancient seals.Due to the vague understanding to Qin seal at that time,what they said ‘Qin’ contained part of ancient seals in the Warring States Period,while the real "Qin seals" were included to the seals in Han Dynasty,which caused differences in cognitive concept.Currently,there is a scientific identification of the Qin Dynasty and a specific direction of the Times,but it is hard to avoid discussing the idea of ‘Esteem the seal of Qin and Han Dynasties’ in the context of the present times,so we should study this idea based on the historical context,from which testifies that ancient people advocated ‘Seal learning ancient seal’ in certain time and engraving practices.On the basis of the above analysis,this paper cognitively reframes the misunderstandings existed in the cognitive concept of Qin seal under the view of the Time context,and re-discuss the background when ‘the worship of ancient arts’ generated.First,before the popularity of papermaking in the Eastern Han Dynasty,the aesthetics of seals in the Qin Dynasty was based on three-dimensional aesthetics on the clay seal,while since the Ming and Qing Dynasties,the aesthetics of seals was based on two-dimensional aesthetics on affixing the seal on the paper.Second,many collections of ancient seals are engraved on jujube and pear wood,but the wood cutting version lost the erosion effect that the original version embodied,which inevitably led to some misinterpretation of the Qin seal.Through the comparative study of the two cognitive concepts in different periods,based on the the effects of printing exuviate,inkpad and the presentation of the seal displayed,this paper explores the aesthetic differences of different times through analyzing the Qin seals compiled in seal books and these three kinds of effect.In addition,this paper expands the conclusion and observes Qin seal from many aspects of Qin seal’s cognitive concepts,and it can supplement the whole content of the paper,for example,the relationship between Qin seal,Seal and inkpad,and the reason why few Qin Seals handed down from the past and unearthed,which also includes accessories seals,auspicious seals,burial seals and so on.Under different views,this paper clarifies the causes and evolving process of the cognitive concepts and evolution on Qin seal since Song,Yuan,Ming and Qing Dynasties and since 20th century.