At present, the earliest bronze container with characters is the bronze container of Erligang culture period in the middle of Shang Dynasty, which is now in the Chinese History Museum. Only the word "root" is engraved on it, which is the name of the owner or receiver of the ship. In the late Shang Dynasty, there were many inscriptions on bronzes unearthed from Yin Ruins, but they still belonged to clan marks or private names of manufacturers, such as the inscription "Fu Hao" on bronzes unearthed from Fu Hao's tomb in Yin Ruins. There are also ancestral temple names, such as father, father, son and mother. "Simuxin" and "Simuwe" all belong to this category. Later, there were words that juxtaposed the surname (or private name) with the temple number of the sacrificial object, indicating that a family (or someone) was a vessel for sacrificing an ancestor, such as "Shu Fu B" and "Wei Fu Ji". By the end of the Yin Ruins, the inscriptions on bronze inscriptions had a preliminary development, with more than a dozen words. Among them, the inscription of filial son lock with the largest number of words is * * * 47 words, which is used to describe the author's work after meritorious service and consolation to his mother.
The inscriptions on bronze in the Zhou Dynasty are a continuation of this kind of memorabilia. However, due to the main contents of this kind of inscriptions, such as recording achievements, the form of Zhang Dehe's preaching, and the policy of Zhou people worshiping the sun and rejuvenating the country through rites and music, bronze inscriptions gained unprecedented development in the Zhou Dynasty.
On the contrary, the decorative patterns of Zhou containers tend to be simple and elegant, aiming at decoration, but the inscriptions in Zhou containers show complexity and grandeur. Almost all bronzes, such as Five Sacrifices to Ding Wei, Historical Wall Plate, Ode to a Pot, Mujizi and Shi Gui's White Plate, are engraved with inscriptions, and the number of words has increased again and again. For example, at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, there were seventy-eight characters in Tianwu Gui, one hundred and eighty-seven words in Lingyi when he became a king, and two hundred and ninety-one words in Great Yu Ding when he was a king of Kang. Ding Xiaoyu's inscription has been eroded, and it is estimated that it has reached more than 390 words. It is a miracle that the "hū" tripod in the late Western Zhou Dynasty was carved with hundreds of long sections so attentively and widely in the Zhou Dynasty alone. Therefore, if we say the characteristics of Zhou utensils, the inscription is well deserved.
Of course, the increase in the number of words is the most obvious sign, while the complexity of words means the expansion of content. From the bronze inscriptions of the Zhou Dynasty to the change of the dynasty, the emperor's sacrifice, the historical achievements of the former king, the major wars of the current king and the books of the seal, to the rewards and lawsuits of the princes and nobles, the historical events involved and even the social life of the upper nobility have been quite extensive. Li Chan and Death of Heaven are the historical witnesses of the King of Wu's attack and the prohibition of Yin sacrifice.
There are some inscriptions in memory of princes and nobles after conferring titles, such as The Records of Hou Yi Ya in the early Western Zhou Dynasty and Hu Fu in the middle Western Zhou Dynasty. These inscriptions are undoubtedly the most vivid display of the system of enfeoffment and appointment of officials in the Zhou Dynasty.
While recording the process of canonization, the author sometimes solemnly records Wang's exhortations and instructions, such as He Zun and Da. "Cauldron Ding" was originally a heavy weapon to prove that Kang Wang continued to issue books on a large scale in the era. As mentioned in the inscription, in the 23rd year of Kang Wang, King Zhou conferred the title of Rong Bo, the son of Nan Gong, in Zhou Zong, ordered him to assist the royal family in charge of military affairs and expensive criminal cases, and gave him a lot of clothes, horses and chariots, land and officials. However, from the very beginning, the inscription described Kang Wang's earnest warning and instruction to the jar before giving the book, especially mentioning the frugality and etiquette of the late king and the drunken subjugation of the Shang Dynasty, which was simply another kind of "drinking".
A typical example is Mao's masterpiece Ding Gong. Although the Ding inscription refers to the orders and rewards given by the King of Zhou to ministers, it mainly describes a long warning from Zhou Xuanwang when Mao Gong accepted the orders. The main idea of the letter is that due to the destiny of the previous dynasty, the Zhou Dynasty was established, and the ministers of previous dynasties tried their best to govern the country, making the Zhou Dynasty continue to this day. Now, the world is unstable and the political situation is unstable.
There are also some inscriptions in bronze inscriptions indicating that the producers directly participated in this battle. For example, Shi Gui, written in the era, and Duo You Ding, written in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, directly reflected the historical facts of Zhou people's resistance to attack. After the war, Duoyou offered his head, prisoners, trophies and so on. It was given to the Duke of Zhou, and the revolution of the State of Wu was given to the King of Zhou, who gave him a dirt field, and the Duke of Zhou gave many things such as ritual vessels and musical instruments. In addition, Wei Heng, Wu Ji, Jiu Nian and Meng Ding are similar to legal documents and contracts, involving land transactions, economic compensation, hostage redemption and even criminal cases.
It can be seen that most of these bronzes with inscriptions are souvenirs of some special events, and the contents described in the inscriptions are of unusual significance to the producers. Take part in major activities, be rewarded by books, and follow instructions. Going to the battlefield and killing the enemy are all the same; The same is true of increasing land and territory and winning the lawsuit. They are not only the carriers of the parties' glory and self-affirmation, but also have eternal value. Therefore, as an aesthetic object, the content contained in these words engraved on the object itself has a heavy weight. In other words, compared with the religious significance of the gluttonous image in Shang Dynasty, the aesthetic value and significance of the bronze wares in Zhou Dynasty are more concentrated on these inscriptions. It is precisely because of these words, rather than decorative patterns, that they became the "ministers of history" engraved on bronzes.
Bronze inscriptions are the "big dictionary" of characters and calligraphy in the Zhou Dynasty, especially in the Western Zhou Dynasty. For people, these words and calligraphy are mainly practical, far from aesthetic, which is no different from Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Shang Dynasty, and its tendency is even more biased towards content. Nevertheless, as people's own writing, bronze inscriptions reflect the development and changes of word formation and glyph structure in the Zhou Dynasty, and reflect the uniqueness of the Zhou Dynasty.
Compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions, inscriptions on bronze inscriptions have begun to focus on standardization, mostly omitting the original image elements of some words that still exist in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and some pictographic characters have evolved from images describing things themselves to "characters" that are far from the original shape of things. For example, in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, most of the characters representing animals, such as "dog", "jackal", "rabbit", "tiger" and "elephant", are still painted with tails and stomachs, but in inscriptions on bronze, the belly part is omitted, and the performance of head and tail is not obvious. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's character "shou" was painted on the animal's head, but the character "shou" in the late Western Zhou Dynasty was quite close to the later seal script. In addition, compared with Oracle Bone Inscriptions's multiform, inscriptions on inscriptions on bronze inscriptions are more unified. For example, Oracle Bone Inscriptions painted a wheel, two wheels, or a carriage, or an axle scale, or both, with more than a dozen shapes, while the inscription on the bronze inscription was basically fixed as two wheels with an axle scale, and then evolved into the same car shape as Biography. Another example is the word "Tian" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The number of strokes crisscrossed in the box is different, and some squares will be added outside the box, and the word "Tian" in the bronze inscription will all be the same as today's "Tian". What's more noteworthy is that the proportion of pictophonetic characters in inscriptions on bronze has increased rapidly, and it obviously occupies a dominant position in the whole word-making system, far from the situation that pictophonetic characters in Oracle Bone Inscriptions (statistics come from Guo Baojun's Bronze Age of China) and Sanlian Bookstore Press (1963) only account for 18%. The significance of pictophonetic characters lies in that the characters are more free from the shackles of "painting" and closer to pure linear art, thus, people really see the two-week style of calligraphy reflected by lines, blocks and even widths themselves in inscriptions on bronze.
At the beginning of the week, there was still the wind of Wen Jia, and Gu Zhuo was strong. The beginning and end of a stroke should have a wave-like front, which is called "wave body". The bronze inscriptions in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty were magnificent, bold and unrestrained, and plain. The style of writing is only about vertical, and there is no sense of horizontal arrangement. This is the case of Li Chan, the first calligraphy work of the Zhou Dynasty. Its strokes are sharp and slender, which is the continuation of Oracle characters. However, the increase of gentle curves during this period is different from Oracle Bone Inscriptions's seal cutting calligraphy style, which is dominated by horizontal lines and straight lines, indicating the beginning of a new era of lettering. Zhou Kangwang Ding was a large bronze ware in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The shape is dignified and steady, vigorous and majestic, elegant and magnificent, and it is a treasure in the world. Although it is still an early work, many characters are pointed at both ends, wide in the middle and willow-shaped, which seems to be an extension of the early "tadpole brushwork". However, there are many strokes and large inscriptions, and Fiona Fang's strokes are rich in thickness, and the sharp circle varies according to the situation. Or, with a pen, with a Si pen, there is a feeling of square characters, or a round pen and a semicircle pen. The lines of the big pot are thick and changeable, which is caused by half casting and half peeling (lè). Rough paintings and thick dots interspersed with time form a special sense of rhythm. Later, the bronze inscriptions in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty disappeared, and the font was dignified and Zhuo Wei, magnificent and extraordinary, with a dignified and vigorous style, showing the simple style in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. Dading has the roundness, fullness, simplicity and vigor pursued by China's calligraphy, making it the best bronze calligraphy in Cheng Kang. Therefore, in the bronze inscriptions in the Cheng and Kang Dynasties, Da Yuding ranked first in terms of calligraphy achievements, which is a model of bronze inscriptions in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The discrete disk, also known as Sagittarius disk, is the chronograph of West Zhou Liwang (857-842 BC). Inscription, brushwork, writing, composition, arbitrary, interesting. Most characters are horizontal, which is different from most inscriptions that are vertical. The center of gravity of the word protrudes from left to right, giving people a sense of jumping. Therefore, its composition has also appeared a variety of phenomena, giving people a sense of freedom and elegance.
The formation of Zhou people's calligraphy style was almost synchronous with the changes of bronze decorative patterns, and it gradually became clear after the middle of Western Zhou Dynasty. After the mid-Western Zhou Dynasty, the font obviously got rid of Gu Zhuo's vigorous style, and the strokes were round, soft and neat, which made it look more appropriate. Calligraphers called it "Jade Writing". Mao Dinggong is his masterpiece. Mao Dinggong was the golden Wen Ding in the Western Zhou Xuanwang period (827-782 BC). The inscription is rigorous in brushwork, rigid and thin in structure, vertical in posture, smooth and magnificent in movement and free in composition, which is really a treasure in bronze inscriptions. Because of the huge space and numerous words, the holistic view of Ding Inscriptions does have a magnificent feeling, which makes people feel amazed by "I am depressed, I am from Zhou" (Confucius); On the other hand, it can be seen that Zhou people advance and retreat in a restrained way, "they must make their tools"; In particular, a careful examination of its font shows that it rotates freely, is smooth and smooth, slightly slender and flat, natural and graceful, with strict rules, gentle complexion, steady brushwork and elegance everywhere.
When it comes to writing in ranks, it highlights the unique style of aesthetic culture in Zhou Dynasty and pursues neatness and standardization. Speaking of it, it is different from Oracle Bone Inscriptions's "attack" format, and the bronze inscriptions have all turned down and left (except a few intentional new ones), forming a vertical trend, thus laying the foundation for the whole ancient calligraphy layout model, and its vertical trend is natural. However, the pursuit of hurdles should be an "intentional" hobby.
Among them, Pan Shiqiang, a treasure of literature and history, can be described as extremely neat, giving people an aesthetic meaning visually. The inscription was originally a four-word (284-word) long eulogy, which listed the merits and demerits of Wen, Wu, Cheng, Kang, Zhao, Mu and (* * * Wang) in turn, described his family development and praised his grandfather's examination. Correspondingly, the writing of the inscription is also quite neat and beautiful, with the same size, especially its arrangement and layout. Because of the large number of words, it is divided into two halves, nine columns each, and the top, bottom, left and right are very flush, forming two symmetrical rectangular blocks. But also meticulous in the vertical and horizontal rows. The inscription on the "historical wallboard" fully shows the decorative beauty and classical beauty of the inscription. Among them, Ode to the Pot, which records the whole process of the owner's ordering, is as orderly as the ceremony. A square was drawn before writing this inscription, and its vertical and horizontal emphasis was more obvious. These fonts and formats are further square, which is called seal script or seal script. According to legend, it was written by Zhou Xuanwang Taishi. Judging from these developments after the mid-Western Zhou Dynasty, it should not be groundless.
In this way, the bronze decorative patterns and inscriptions of the Zhou Dynasty were combined to form a unique "gentle" art world.