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The Artist’s Seal
By Ellen Johnston Laing, former Maude I. Kerns Distinguished professor of Oriental Art at the university of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon and presently a Research Associate at the Center for Chinese studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The red and white, square, rectangular, or oval marks which appear on Chinese painting and calligraphies are seals, impresses by the artist or admirers or owners. Artist began to place seals after their signatures on paintings in the eleventh century. Such seals served to validate their signatures. By the fifteenth century the practice was widespread and today old and new paintings carry seal marks. Artists usually affix two separate seal impressions after their signature; one seal gives their full formal name and one their pseudonym or the name of their studio or similar informal name. An artist might also place a small in the lower right or left corner of a scroll.
In China it is common for someone who admired a picture to add his thoughts or even a poetic response to the imagery be writing directly on the blank spaces of the surface of the painting. The writer might impress a small, often oval, seal at the beginning, the top right of the inscription to balance the two seals following his signature at the lower left of the writing. Legends carved on these initial seals are mottoes or even literary phrases, but do not include the owner’s personal names or other designations which might be easily associated with him.
Collectors usually affixed their seals bearing their name or pseudonym or other phrase associated with them as marks of ownership on the paintings and calligraphies in their possession. These seals could be placed anywhere on the scroll; most collectors selected places which would not interfere visually with the artwork, but some did not. Emperors, for example, who were entitled to larger seals than their subjects, often violated the pictorial space and affixed their seals in ostentatious locations on the picture writing.
Jadeite, soapstone, wood, ivory, and buffalo horn are among the materials used for seals. A seal has a flat bottom and sometimes an ornamental knob. The characters of a legend are carved on the prepared flat surface and when completed, this is carefully pressed against the paper or silk of the painting or calligraphy. The text of a seal impression will appear as red characters if the stone of other material surrounding the characters has been removed or white if the characters themselves were carved out.
Seal engraving is appreciated as an art in itself, and some artists pride themselves on their seal carving abilities. Books reproducing exceptional seals impressions enable connoisseurs to share their treasures with others. |
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