Belief,Concept & Decorative Characters

The "pattern-characters" in this paper refer to decorative characters which include painting factors in writing or creating.During the vast period from pre-Qin,Qin and Han dynasties to Tang Dynasty,pattern-characters emerged and gradually formed a huge system in China.In this period,myths and legends,ancestor worship,political thoughts,belief concepts,philosophy of Yin and Yang and five elements,customs and enlightenment,and so on,are displayed in the characters with their corresponding graphics,and show multiple functions in specific scenes.During the Tang and Song dynasties,when the series of pattern-characters was about to fall silent in China,Japanese monk Kukai brought them back to Japan and spread them in the line of "JUBOKUDOU".Different culture has build a new shape to the original form of pattern-characters--the ancient style attached to pattern-characters has been changed by a modern way,and the font has been transformed into pictographic strokes.This two characteristics are of great importance.In terms of its shape,the Japanese tradition is very different from Chinese,but its inner spirituality and functionality are inherited from them.Rituals and spells in Esoteric and Shinto religions are imbued with characters.The emissaries of ritual instruments,weapons of gods and natural objects "extracted" from Chinese pattern-characters are all interpreted in the system of Japanese pattern-characters.At this time,The Japanese pattern-characters had been transformed into a "literal mandala",and the corresponding "merit and virtue" such as eliminating disasters,surrendering,gaining and loving were available when corresponding graphics were drawn in the characters.The more demands there were,the more complicated the exterior decorations of pattern-characters were.It can be said that the decorative graphics in the so-called pattern-characters are in essence "containers" of belief,concept and function,either in ancient China or Japan,but the profound social conception that decorative affact of purely "good-looking".Words show more connotation than symbolic meanings in this way.After the Ming Dynasty,by the rediscovery of the 32-Seal Diamond Sutra written by Daoken,a Buddhist monk in the Song Dynasty,the rise of seal cutting by literati and the common people’s curiosity about the ancient and mysterious characters combined to revive the popularity of pattern-characters,which had been dormant for500 years in China.The social and cultural environment in Japan during the Edo Period and China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties was so similar that the birth to another large-scale eastward expansion of the system of pattern-characters actually makes sense.For a long time,the absence of the ancient seal script in Japan made the Japanese people curious and enthusiastic about the ancient pattern-characters,and they studied it as a class of ancient words.And also with the rise of seal cutting,pattern-characters almost entered every class and every household,shaping the basis of Japanese writing knowledge during the Edo to Showa period.However,at this time,the "mass culture" showed a strong pull.The broad connotation and mysterious color of pattern-characters had been replaced by strange shapes and novel visual feelings,and they even entered the daily life of Edo people in various decorative patterns.This process means that the "decorative" features of the pattern-character system gradually overwhelm and replace its functional features,and "visual" takes the upper hand.The final result was that pattern-characters were absorbed by the pattern characters that were popular in modern times,and many glyphs were transferred back to China,greatly affecting the font design of recent times.However,in the absorption of pictorial characters to pattern-characters,the complex ideological connotation of classical pattern-characters has been completely eliminated,and the graphics drawn in them only exist as decorative forms,and the visual "creativity" is dominant.The so-called "decoration" in pattern-characters is declared to be established at this time.We see that the Chinese decoration words went east across the sea twice,with the almost same content,but due to the overall environment,it revealed a decidedly different appearance.It is truely evident that text decoration and environment have relevance.It is function of beliefs and ideas behind the text decoration derivative.The Japanese pattern-characters research not only shows us development in the ancient and modern Chinese characters decoration system,also provides a lot of valuable materials and design techniques for contemporary Chinese character design,and provides a new reference system as well,so that we can re-understand the unique power that Chinese character design may have.