Liu Lao came back to his senses and said with a smile: "I'm sorry, two little friends, this person is old, and he forgets his business when he sees good things." ”

Wu Chen seemed to have some answers in his heart, and he didn't dare to publicize it, so he only nodded modestly. Although Kong Si couldn't figure out the situation, he also knew that this old man was very big, and that Tie Brother just now was not ordinary, he knew Wu Chen's intentions, and said with a smile on his face: "That old man, in your opinion, is this 'Wenwen Mountain Seal' true?" ”

Liu Lao smiled and said narrowly: "There is no problem with the material of this seal, the bread pulp is not visible, it should have been hidden somewhere for many years." In terms of printing, from the engraving to the writing, it is still in line with the characteristics of the times at that time. Xiao Wu, how did you get this seal? ”

Wu Chen did not hide it, he said the process of buying the wood carving, only omitting the map, as for how to find the wood carving hidden in the seal stone, it has long been made up, the last time I said it once in Tian Lao, this time I also talked about the gourd, everyone is not suspicious, there are occasional things everywhere in this world, and it can always be attributed to luck.

"Hmm" Liu Lao didn't delve into it, nodded, pondered, and said, "This seal is relatively partial in the field of collection, and the material accounts for most of its value. Antiques pay attention to the orderly inheritance, in addition to some of the emperor's seals, generally can be well preserved private seals are very few, later generations imitate also, but the materials used are rarely medium to high, like this piece of the best Tian Huang Jelly, after the Qing Dynasty private collection will cause trouble. ”

In the Qing Dynasty, these things were controlled, especially after Qianlong, for Tian Huang and Hetian jade, must be handed over to the royal family, during the Qianlong period, there was a case of Hetian Governor Cai Guan's private collection of Hetian jade materials, was copied by the whole family. That's why Liu Lao said this.

"Yes, after hundreds of years of mining, not to mention now, even in the late Qing Dynasty, the raw materials have been exhausted, and now they are all dug to more than 20 meters underground. Not to mention such materials, even the ordinary materials that can be regarded as Tianhuang can be said to be no, if it is from the Ming and Qing dynasties, the possibility of being able to live among the people is very low. Tian Lao echoed and said, just now the two old men muttered and exchanged opinions, and they both favored that this piece was obtained before large-scale mining, but there was no evidence.

"Put the materials back aside, and talk about the craftsmanship of this seal. Brother Tian told you about the development history of this seal, so I won't say much. Most of the earliest seals we can see now are the ancient seals of the Warring States period, which is the general name for the pre-Qin seals. Many of the characters of these ancient seals are still unknown to us. Most of the ancient seals of Zhu Wen are equipped with wide sides. The strokes of the inscription are as thin as a hair, and they are all from casting. Most of the ancient seals in white text add a sidebar, or add a vertical grid in the middle, and the text is cast and chiseled. When it came to the Qin and Han dynasties, it was mainly based on the upright Miao seal, which also formed the so-called Qin and Han seal style, which had a great influence on later generations. ”

"Well, now some private chapters tend to pursue the ancient style of Han and India, which is decent and simple, and the style is unique." Tian Lao added that he was also a person who received a lot of private seals. Since the beginning of the Ming and Qing dynasties, there have been many imitations of Han seals, and in modern times, this style is more common.

"Hmm. With the change of the times, aesthetics are constantly evolving, but how to evolve, there are always some people who insist on the retro style, and sometimes it is a fashion. This world is just upside down, upside down. Liu Lao nodded and said.

This can be regarded as saying that Wu Chen has gone to his heart, he has witnessed the so-called advancing with the times and innovation countless times, but it is actually retro. For this reason, I joked with Xu Zhifei a lot, every time I need system innovation, I don't have to think so much, take out the system more than ten years ago or even decades ago, change it, as long as it is different from the current one, it is innovation!

Seeing that Wu Chen and Kong Si nodded again and again, their eyes were full of confusion, so he smiled and called his assistant to ask him to come over with some information.

The assistant's surname is Song, about thirty-four or five, with a square face, very majestic, said to be an assistant, but in fact he is a secretary to the old man, and he is handling most of the external affairs, and many local officials can't see the old man, and he also comes forward to socialize. For the future, he still has some pursuits in his heart, using the platform of the old man to have frequent contacts with local officials at all levels, and the old man also turns a blind eye to this, as long as it is not too out of line.

Secretary Song took a large stack of materials, mainly seal atlases, and there are also a few relatively old seals, Old Man Liu picked it, and showed them while explaining, there are real things to look at, Wu Chen and Kong Si know a lot in their hearts, and they are very grateful to the old man for taking such trouble to teach.

With the widespread use of paper, the size of the seal was also liberated, and the side length increased from one inch in the Qin and Han dynasties to two inches in the Sui and Tang dynasties. The official seal is no longer worn but becomes a box and placed in the government office.

With the end of the mud sealing era, the Zhu era came, and the mud printing appeared; The seal text also changed from the Yin text of the Qin and Han dynasties to the Yang text, which was mainly divided into two kinds of casting and chiseling before, and the public seal of the Sui and Tang dynasties was bent into the seal with a thin copper sheet and then welded on the printing surface, so it was also called the Pan Tiao Seal. Its printed text is coiled, and most of them are round. In later generations, in order to fill the wide printing surface, the text strokes were arbitrarily overlapped and folded, which is the origin of the so-called 'Nine Stacks of Script'.

Then there is the habit of carving in this era, judging from the seals unearthed now, there have been at least three cases of engraved Sui seals, all of which are engraved with the casting time. "Although Liu Lao does not have these unearthed seals, there are still rubbings and photos, and I pointed them out one by one.

Wait for them to digest it for a while before moving on. Although the Sui and Tang dynasties are in the same lineage, they still have their own unique features in the Tang Dynasty, such as the appearance of some seals with their own names, such as "Bao Ji", "Zhu Ji" or something, accompanied by the appearance of seal category collection seals and Zhaiguan seals. As for the other changes in the comparison of the Indian New Zealand, the variety of engravings is also somewhat different. ”

Wu Chen and Kong Si couldn't remember so much for a while, so they could only swallow dates, but fortunately, there was an illustrated reference, which was more intuitive, and it was not difficult to understand. Although Wu Chen cared about that Fang Wenshanyin, when he saw that Liu Lao had gone around in a big circle, he listened quietly.

"Hey, when it comes to Song Yin, it can be said that there are a lot of wastes waiting to be revived!" Finally said that it was related to this seal, Liu Lao shook his head as he spoke, "Even the official seal is reversed, at first it was to use the old seal of the five generations, and later when the public seal was recast, the seal was embedded with the words "new" or "newly cast", in order to distinguish it from the public seal of the five dynasties, all of which were cast in copper.

The inscriptions of the Song Dynasty are no longer made by the Pan method like the Sui seals, but are directly cast, and the prints and strokes are no longer as sparse as the Sui and Tang seals. Many are engraved with the year, indicating the date and month of casting, and after the middle period, while carving the year, there is also the name of the institution that is in charge of issuing the casting.

After the Song Dynasty crossed to the south, the public seal was recast, and the word "line in" was added before the seal, or the year number was crowned to distinguish the old from the new.

During this period, the confrontation with the Han regime in the Central Plains was all ethnic minority regimes, with Liao in the north, Xia in the northwest, and Jin in the northeast. Later, Liao was destroyed by Jin, and the Mongols who came to the top unceremoniously cleaned up the Western Xia and Jin, and finally destroyed the Song Dynasty and established the Yuan Dynasty.

The regimes and dynasties established by these four ethnic minorities were all influenced by the Song Dynasty's public seal system to varying degrees in terms of the public seal system, but they also created some unique characteristics of their own, and interesting phenomena appeared in the printing language. The official seal of the Western Xia is in the Western Xia language, and the printing of the Liao and Yuan dukes is in Chinese; Some use Khitan or Baspa, while Jin Gongyin uses all Chinese. I won't go into detail about all of this.

The only thing to mention is that the Yuan Dynasty began to have a large number of private seals, thinking that most of the Mongols were not very well written, simply using private seals, once engraved, used for life, very respected among Mongolian aristocratic officials, played a great role in promoting the development of private seals, to the Ming and Qing dynasties of private seals prevailed, out of a lot of famous seals. ”

"Old man, according to what you say, it is unlikely that this seal belongs to the Duke of Wenshan? If it is an official seal, it is more likely? "Kong Si saw that Liu Lao said a lot, all about the official seal, and it didn't have much to do with the private seal.

"Hehe, I can't say that, this Wenshan seal, all aspects are more in line with the characteristics of the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty, although private seals are rare at that time, but there are also there, Wenwen Mountain Seal This paragraph has also been seen on a painting, since it has appeared on the rubbing, it proves that Wenshan Gong has this seal, at least used. As for this one, it is very likely that it was engraved later, either because of the good texture, or because of some other reason, it has never been used. Well, by the way, Xiao Wu, you said that you got this seal from the wood carving, this is a source, where is the wood carving now? Liu Lao smiled and said, Kong Si's eyes lit up when he asked this, why didn't he think of this? It seems that the ginger is still old and spicy.

Wu Chen also knew that the Tao asked on time, he could basically judge the era of wood carving, and he didn't bring it today, so he didn't want to trouble, so he had to pretend to be someone else's mouth and said: "The wood carving was discarded after being destroyed last time, but after buying it, it just so happened that I have a friend whose hometown is a generation of root carving, and asked the old man in his family to see it, from the process to the pulp should be the old camphor wood root carving of the Song Dynasty, at that time, the Chaozhou root carving has not yet become a scale, and the carving method is slightly different from now." ”

"Hmm" Tian Lao nodded, he was still relatively proficient in porcelain and miscellaneous, "Chaoshan root carving gradually formed a scale in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the combination of relief and openwork carving was also gradually formed during this period. ”