Beyond the everyday image of name seals, aficionados are keeping the fine art of seal engraving alive.
For the great majority of Taiwanese, a small chop or seal engraved with their name is a necessary part of life. Chops are often used in the same way as a legal signature and so have a place on all the mundane paperwork of daily life: official receipts, registered mail, bank accounts and contracts large and small.
There is another side to seal making and collecting, though, found in the rarefied world of Chinese traditional arts. Here, Taiwan's painters, calligraphers and carvers continue to develop the art form and take the humble seal to heights of artistic and cultural expression.
Artists, in particular, often use personal seals to “sign” a finished work, which is not considered complete without the red stamps of the artist and his or her studio. Some people believe that just possessing an “auspicious seal” made according to specific rules will bring good fortune to the keeper. Some enjoy the pleasures of collecting seals and others enjoy seal engraving as a simple, but rewarding hobby.
Although handwritten signatures are gradually replacing the custom of using a chop for day-to-day transactions, seal engraving in its artistic form is very much alive. It remains an art form loved by many traditional artisans as well as collectors and art lovers across the island.
The origin of seal use remains something of a mystery. It is only known that seals were already widespread as early as China’s Warring States Period (476-221 B.C.) for business and trade and as symbols of power and social status. Seals of the period were usually engraved with the name of a person, government agency or organization. They were often worn on a belt and therefore had to be small and easily carried.
This private characteristic of seals appealed to the Chinese literati of the Song dynasty (A.D. 960-1279), and artists started to use seals on their artworks as proof of authenticity. From these early beginnings, seal engraving became an indispensable element of traditional Chinese art and, gradually, a cultivated art form in itself.
Local Roots
The art of seal engraving spread to Taiwan during the rules of Emperor Qianlong (1735-1795) and Emperor Jiaqing (1796-1820) during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) through visiting government officials and business people. When Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945, Japanese intellectuals became interested in seal art and many seal clubs were formed. Those clubs were disbanded after 1945, but the art form itself was not left behind. A few locals sustained interest in artistic seals and were soon joined by mainland Chinese seal engravers who settled in Taiwan with the relocation of the Kuomintang government in 1949.
At the time, local engraver Tai Shou-kan played a critical role in continuing the development of seal art in Taiwan. Having participated in the Japanese seal societies, Tai longed for the company of other engravers after those clubs broke up; so much so that he placed advertisements in local newspapers in November 1949 seeking fellow seal lovers. Nearly 100 people responded to the ads and the Taiwan Seal Association was formed in Taipei.
Tai’s residence soon became a regular gathering place for engravers to meet and exchange knowledge of their craft. The association came to an end by the mid-1950s when a job transfer took Tai away from Taipei, but by then seal artists were organizing new clubs, holding exhibitions and publishing magazines to promote the ancient art form.
Contemporary seal artist Chen Hung-mien, founder and secretary-general of one of the island’s most renowned seal clubs, Taiwan Seal Society, considers the creation of Tai Shou-kan’s seal association in 1949 a fortuitous event. After the Chinese Civil War, the establishment of the Taiwan Seal Association “made it possible for the skilled seal artists from all parts of China to get together and meet one another,” Chen says.
Chen explains that the group activities, initially headed by the Taiwan Seal Association, have been able to continue uninterrupted for the past six decades and this has meant that the art of seal engraving was able to take root in Taiwan. Chen compares this with seal engraving in mainland China. He says artists in Taiwan have enjoyed a liberal environment in which to develop the ancient craft as opposed to mainland China, which had its artistic traditions disrupted by the Cultural Revolution. He believes that Taiwan’s seal makers create works that are more sophisticated and better finished in contrast with engravings from mainland China, which sometimes lack the finer points of calligraphy and carving.
An Art in Itself
Artists and art collectors have long used seals as an important addition to finished works of calligraphy and painting. Yet, in addition to using such name seals as a tool to authenticate or enhance artworks, seal making itself is a diverse art form.
Seal artist Hsueh Ping-nan says seal making integrates many traditional Chinese art forms by drawing on skills involved in calligraphy, painting, literature and carving. In particular, Hsueh, who won the 1980 National Art Award for seal engraving and the 1995 National Culture and Art Foundation’s National Award for Arts for calligraphy, sees those two skills as intertwined. He explains that the artistic traditions complement each other both practically and aesthetically. Seal carvers are free to choose any style of script for their engravings, so calligraphy becomes an indispensable skill for them. “Seal engraving and calligraphy are just like two sides of the same coin. Calligraphers inevitably gain an interest in seal carving after they have practiced calligraphy for a while,” Hsueh says.
Calligraphers are especially attracted to creating seals often dubbed “leisure seals.” Leisure seals are not carved with an individual’s name, but use special phrases or even sentences that the engraver finds especially meaningful. They are sometimes added to works of calligraphy and painting or made especially for collectors.
Hsueh says that he reads ancient Chinese poetry and prose to find phrases or sentences that touch him or convey his frame of mind. Seal artist Chen Hung-mien, on the other hand, says he draws inspiration not only from ancient literature, but also modern-day novels, Taiwanese proverbs and even daily conversations. He says that seals are no longer just an accessory element to a work of calligraphy or painting, but can even become the focus of a piece of artwork itself. In fact, in a reversal of the traditional relationship between calligraphy and stamps, poems and essays can also be written alongside the seal imprint in order to enhance it and make it more meaningful, Chen says.
The Chinese character hao, or “good,” written in various styles. Seal engravers are free to choose from among dozens of script styles. (Courtesy of Chen Hung-mien)
All in the Details
While dedicated seal artists strive to achieve works of great detail that show elegance and individual style, artist Hsueh says seal engraving is something that many lovers of Chinese art often like to try out for themselves at some point. A simple chisel and a piece of stone is enough to get started in the craft, although a wide variety of materials can be used for seals, ranging from valuable gold, silver, jade, ivory, agate and amber to inexpensive wood and bamboo. In contemporary seal engraving, however, stones are predominantly used, especially those of pyrophyllite, also called soapstone. Chen says that the hardness of a stone is a key consideration, with any stone rated between two and three on the commonly used Mohs scale of hardness--somewhere between the hardness of a fingernail and a copper coin--suitable for engraving. The basic skills can be learned in a few months, which is no doubt part of the appeal for a beginner. According to Chen, however, it is likely to take 20 years or more to develop the refined aesthetic sense and ability to precisely translate the engraver’s feelings into written and graphical expression on a piece of stone.
Much more developed than the utilitarian name stamp, an art seal represents the ultimate attainment of Chinese scholarship and artistic skill, Chen says. For leisure seals in particular, engravers must come up with an elegant phrase, so they must have knowledge of literature. Then they must choose the most appropriate type of script and be able to write it, meaning they must have skill in calligraphy. They must also be able to arrange the characters on the limited space of the seal’s surface in order to achieve a harmonious design--although the script style is fixed, a master engraver can use subtle spacing to adjust the length, position and thickness of individual strokes to achieve a pleasing composition. An engraver must have superior skills as a carver, too, finding just the right angle and amount of force to produce a finished line that looks “fluid.”
A master seal engraver might charge in the range of NT$3,000 to $10,000 (US$100 to $330) per engraved character, meaning a name seal with three characters could cost more than US$300 for workmanship alone. Chen says these prices are reasonable, especially for Chinese painters and calligraphers who demand high-quality seal imprints to complement their artworks. At any rate, Chen says a seal is a good investment as a beautiful, yet practical, work of art that can be used and enjoyed repeatedly. These days, traditional Chinese artists and seal collectors make up the bulk of clients seeking such premium seals, he says.
Looking Forward
Yet, in spite of the skill and artistry involved in producing a top-quality seal, for the majority of the public seals remain functional objects rather than great works of art. Most people keep a cheap name seal of wood or even a rubber stamp for everyday use and these are more likely to have been machine-made by a roadside locksmith than handmade by a master craftsman. Still, Hsueh and Chen remain optimistic about the future development of the art.
The number of seal engravers active in organized activities held by the island’s various seal clubs has increased from some 100 in the 1950s to about 300 today. The craft is also gaining a following among students around the island.
Chen says that some colleges make seal engraving courses available to students majoring in Chinese literature. Hsueh says that the establishment of a calligraphy department at National Taiwan University of Arts (NTUA) in 2002, as well as the incorporation of calligraphy classes into NTUA’s Graduate School of Design, have also helped to kindle an interest in seal engraving in younger artists. To capitalize on this interest, the Taiwan Seal Society began holding annual seal engraving competitions for college students in 2005 with nearly 100 students having taken part each year since then.
The coordinator of last year’s competition and a college senior in National Taiwan Normal University’s Department of Fine Arts, Chang Pin-tsu says she was attracted to the practical aspect of seal engraving. She became interested in carving name seals for herself nearly four years ago and began to create special seals to mark the books she collected. Gradually she became more ambitious and tried carving different sentences. “Seals are fun and easy to carry, store and handle. Any mistakes can easily be changed just by polishing and grinding the stone,” Chang says.
Along with the enthusiasm of students such as Chang, Taiwan Seal Society’s Chen is also heartened by other signs of public interest in seal art. He is encouraged by an increasing number of instruction books being published on engraving, more stones being imported from Korea and Thailand for seal making and the establishment of independent categories for seal engraving in several of the nation’s major art awards. When all is said and done, though, Chen believes it is the inherent artistry of seal engraving that will continue to lure people to take up the practice and keep the craft from dying out.
“In a seal, you see so many things encapsulated into such a small object,” Chen says. “The phrase or sentence engraved has to be concise enough to fit on the surface, but still meaningful enough to reflect the engraver’s taste and personal philosophy.” Combining literature, calligraphy, design and carving, the elements of a Chinese seal represents infinite combinations and, like all art forms, infinite possibilities for expression.
Seal of Approval
Seal engraver Hsueh Ping-nan says calligraphers and painters apply name seals on their completed works to show that the piece is authentic, meets the artist’s own standards and to “put the soul” into their artwork by this final touch. These name seals usually come in pairs: one carries the name of the artist and the other the name of their studio. The artist’s name seal is usually a yin engraving, meaning the characters are carved out of the surface, resulting in white characters on a red background in the final imprint. The studio’s name seal is usually a yang engraving in which the background is carved out, resulting in red characters on a white background.
The vermilion ink paste is made from cinnabar and is considered an essential element of seal art. For black and white works of painting and calligraphy, the red seals add interesting highlights to the work and help it from appearing too gray or dull.
Hsueh explains that the position of the seals also adds to the artistic effect. For example, calligraphy is traditionally presented in a vertical layout and written from right to left. The name seals are often stamped at the end of the text on the bottom left. An additional stamp called yinshou (drawing the lead) is often added to the upper right and another called yajiao (pressing the corner) added to the bottom right. Together, the three positions make up a kind of “triangle” that gives the overall image “more balance,” Hsueh explains.
Collectors sometimes even add their own seal to a work to show that they once owned it. The addition of a seal from an important or well-known art collector is seen to increase the value of a work.
--Audrey Wang
Same words, different styles. A seal engraved by Chen Hung-mien shows the characters for siaoyao, or “free and unconstrained,” in jhuanshu style (left), with the same characters shown in the standard kaishu style (right). (Courtesy of Chen Hung-mien)
Element of Design
Script styles used on seals range from the ancient jiaguwun (oracle bone script), jinwun (bronzeware script), dajhuan from the Zhou dynasty (1122-256 B.C.) and siaojhuan from the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.) through to the styles of lishu (clerical), kaishu (standard), singshu (semi-cursive) and caoshu (cursive or “grass script”).
Among these styles, dajhuan and siaojhuan are collectively known as jhuanshu, literally meaning “seal script,” which is the most common script in seal engraving. The word strokes in jhuanshu are modified from angular to rounded lines. The result is a smooth, flowing script that has an abstract appearance, sometimes chosen deliberately to obscure the owner’s name.
--Audrey Wang
Write to Audrey Wang at awang@mail.gio.gov.tw