The Reasoning And Influence Of Zhao Zhiqian's Side Carving

The origin seal,as a symbol of authority,normally represents a person's certain standing and power.The side carving indicates the inscriptions carved on the side of the seal,which owned comparatively simpler form and content at the very beginning.It was not until the Yuan dynasty that the prosperity of seal carving emerged as an art event with the modified stone material and the participation by literati.Zhao,ZhiQian was a man full of spirit on exploration and innovation,who learnt widely from others' strengths and merged them into his own art skills.Zhao's side carving combined skills called straight carve and double carve,making the figures and poems seem more harmonic.Zhao utilized the Yang character(explained as the convex text on a surface)on Weibei-a kind of engraving in Wei dynasty as his majority,which he referred figures and imagesto his carving as well.These versatile elements and multi-dimensional depictions not only creates a mentallynice combination of words and paintings,but also physically harmonic and balanced layout of texts and images.His creativity and innovation had influencednew aesthetics on carving.The innovation of art depends not onlytalentand wisdom,but also opportunities.A new art form isnormally related to its historical background,politics,economy,culture,and ideological products.The innovation of Zhao's side carving is a product by his own talent and efforts,and meanwhilehas a close relationship with the development of the whole seal cutting field and the aesthetic appreciation of seal cutting art.This paper takes the side carving of Zhao as the research object,aiming to study the reasonings and influence of Zhao's side carving innovation.This will provide a clear and thorough history of seal side carving from the analysis of Zhao 's doings.Based on theknowledge of Zhao zhiqian's side carving,it is possible to determine the catalyst of his innovation since “why” matters more than “what”.Thisalsopersonally relates to myself as traditional sealing has been a big part of me,thus providing a reference for summarization to myself.