The "Yanghu School" Is Used To See The Change Of The Concept Of Seal Calligraphy In The Mid-Qing Dynasty

In the middle of the Qing Dynasty,inheriting the traditions of the early Qing Dynasty,the academic community paid increasing attention to ancient-style prose and Confucian classics,which produced an important impetus to the development of calligraphy art.Epigraphy and philology scholars Hong Liangji and Sun Xingyan extensively contacted such literature materials related to seal character as stone tablets,rubbing,and Shuo Wen Jie Zi,more frequently wrote seal characters,and gradually turned seal character writing their interest in the spare time of scholarly research,thereby forming the seal character art concept under the influence of academic activities: stress the correctness of diction and write seal characters in accordance with the six categories of Chinese characters;inherit Wang Shu's practice of learning from �Li Si and Li Yangbing�;give equal attention to the writing of seal characters on clocks and ritual objects.At that moment,the concept of writing seal characters placed more emphasis on �cultivation�.Different from other scholars who practiced seal character writing owing to studying classics,and enhanced the academic quality of seal characters with academic activities,Deng Shiru practiced seal character writing by stressing the intuitive feelings of stone tablets and created seal characters aside from the style of �Li Si and Li Yangbing�.At that moment,when he was admired by literary scholars in areas near Changzhou such as Zhang Huiyan and Li Zhaoluo,this indicated that the artistic concept on seal art at that time had been transformed: from the flaunting of famous scholars of �Li Si and Li Yangbing� to following the examples of those who were not so famous;the selection of writing tools displayed a shifting trend;the focus of attention of seal character writing also shifted from the standardization of�seal character writing methods� to equally considering the innovation in �writing technique�.This transformation was an important phenomenon for the revival of seal character.The thesis cites the example of the literary school �Yanghu School� to discuss the development of calligraphy in the middle of Qing Dynasty and its uniqueness lies in the fact that literary figures of this school such as Hong Liangji,Sun Xingyan,and Zhang Huiyan are all representative seal character practitioners of this school and national Confucianism scholars.Meanwhile,Sun Xingyan and Hong Liangji represented the epigraphy and philology group in the middle of Qing Dynasty.Main members of Yanghu School including Zhang Huiyan and Li Zhaoluo also represented the major group accepting and advocating Deng Shiru under the background of New Text Confucianism in Zhaoxing.The seal character concept displayed by this group represented by them reflected successive transformation and connected together the history for the development of seal art concept in the middle of Qing Dynasty.Such transformation is inherently and closely linked to the co-existence of ancient and modern Confucian classics,seal character practitioners' cognition of �ancient techniques� of writing seal characters,and the inevitable development of derivation from the academic field to calligraphy art in the middle of Qing Dynasty.