May the Five Blessings arrive at your door - 五福临门

 

作品解释

门：甲骨文
福：五个不同字体的福：甲骨文，金文，大篆，小篆，隶书。

甲骨文的福（最上面的），大家没有见过，需要解释一下：左边是一个桌子，祭祀用的。右边是一个架子上的酒坛，从酒坛撒酒到祭祀的桌子上（可以看见三滴酒在空中），用来祭祖，祭神，祭天。为什么用酒？因为古代的人吃不饱，所以用粮食酿的酒是非常珍贵的，是人们最好的东西。另外，酒有挥发性，可以通达上天，可以与神，天，祖先沟通，传达人们的愿望。
金文，大篆福字都是左边是“示”（一个桌子上放东西），一个酒坛。
小篆，隶书把右边的酒坛分开了，失去了象形。但仍然表示的是酒坛。

Work Explanation
Men (门 - Door): Rendered in Shell Bone Script.
Fu (福 - Blessing/Good Fortune): Five versions in different calligraphic styles: Shell Bone Script, Bronze Inscriptions, Big Seal Script, Small Seal Script, and Clerical Script.
The Shell Bone version of "Fu" (at the very top) is likely unfamiliar to most, so it requires some explanation:
The Left Side: Represents a table or altar used for sacrificial rituals.
The Right Side: Depicts a wine jar on a rack. You can see wine being poured from the jar onto the ritual table (three drops of wine are visible in the air).
This imagery represents a ritual to worship ancestors, gods, and the Heavens.
Why was wine used? In ancient times, food was scarce. Therefore, wine brewed from precious grain was considered an extremely valuable possession—the very best thing people had to offer. Furthermore, because alcohol is volatile, its vapor was believed to rise and reach the Heavens, serving as a medium to communicate with gods and ancestors to convey the people's wishes.

Evolution of the Character:
Bronze Inscriptions & Big Seal Script: The left side evolved into the radical “示” (shì), which depicts an altar table with offerings, while the right side remained a wine jar.
Small Seal & Clerical Script: The right side (the wine jar) became fragmented in form, losing its original pictograph appearance. However, it still symbolically represents the wine jar.

Blessing - 福, one of the most popular characters in Chinese daily life

 Character Blessing - 福 is one of the most popular characters in Chinese daily life, even people who didn't have any education know the character.

You can find the character on red paper on doors, windows, inside of the room, and more. It is people's wish, hope, and prespective.

The following are character 福 in different script.

1, shell bone script 

The left is a table, the right is a liquor jar, spray the wine on the table for sacrifice ceremony for peace and blessing life. 

2, bronze script

The left is a table, the right is liquor jar.

3, Small seal script

The left is a table, the right is the jar.

4, Clerical script

The left is a table, the right is a liquor jar, not like the real objects any more because the lines changed from curve to straight.

5, Standard script

Lines even more straight, easier to write but the pictography is lost.

6, Running script

The lines are more flexible to allow the writer could write quicker, and smoother. People like the style. Running script is not unified, different people may write a little bit differently.

7, Cursive script

Even more flexible, the character changed a lot to let writer could write it with more continuously, all lines are connected visually or really. Cursive script has law to define how to write each character, even though people may write a little bit differently. 

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (80) Thinking Elephant - 想象

There were elephants living in Yellow River region about millions years ago. The weather changed, the forest disappeared, and elephants vanished at unknown time. However, ancient Chinese caught the elephant image in the oldest shell bone script (see the image below). 

The young generation didn't see the elephants, they could only hear what they looked like from the description of old people who saw the elephants. The young had to put all information they heard, form an image of the elephant in their brain. People called the process as "Thinking Elephant", which means "Imagination". But almost no any Chinese knows why "Thinking Elephant" is Imagination.

Ancient Chinese could see pig, dog, ox, horse, rooster, rabbit, and any animal, you don't need to get their images by imagination. But they had to get the image of elephant by imagination because the elephant disappeared in China, they couldn't see elephant.

The artwork is not pure Chinese calligraphy work, but a combination of drawing and pictography of Chinese character, a unique art no one has never tried before.

 

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (79) Freedom is no Free

 

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy Announcement: the URLs will change

In Jan 10, 2024, the URLs for Amazing Chinese Characters and Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy will not work any more. 

The URL for Amazing Chinese Characters will become

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The URL for Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy will become

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Please bookmark the above two URLs.

The two URLs are working right now, they are permanent URLs. You may change the bookmarks right now. 

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Preface

The Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy is an art of pictography of Chinese characters by emphasizing the pictography of characters to form a drawing alike calligraphy. Chinese always say that Chinese is half drawing and half language, which means that the characters are drawings and also language units, a unique art or language in the world. However, no one has ever tried to show this characteristics in the real artworks. 

Let me give a few examples.

The shell bone script of character Water is

The middle is river, the four dots are water drops. Ancient Chinese got. water from river, they drew a river with water drops to present Water. The character is very pictographic, the simplest drawing in the world. Chinese describes the unique characteristics of Chinese characters as "Half language and half art" (亦字亦画）.

Because the evolution of Chinese characters caused the loss of the pictography of the old characters, for example, the character Water becomes 

Almost no one couldn't tell which stroke represents which if he/she doesn't know the old scripts. Unfortunately, no text book, no teacher, no school are teaching students the old scripts in China, and overseas. People have no idea what the pictography of Chinese characters, even never heard of, the great characteristics has been ignored for at least two thousand of years. 

Let me show you how easy we can make a unique "half language and half art" Chinese pictographic calligraphy. I used the shell bone script of character Water as the only unit, created the following artwork:

Does it look like a river flowing from far?

Have you ever seen any drawing like this? No, you haven't.

I have tried to create drawing alike Chinese calligraphy since 2013, this blog is showing part of the artworks I have created in the last almost 10 years.

Because they are drawings, everyone can appreciate the artworks even not knowing any Chinese. 

The first 43 artworks have been published in the book "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" on Amazon. If you are interested in those artworks, you can read them for free if you are kindle unlimited member, or you can buy the book, there are eBook, paperback, or hardcover.

 

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (78) You Rabbit, Me Rabbit - You 兔，Me 兔

2023 is Year of Rabbit.

The Chinese characters in the artwork above:

1, Shell bone script of Rabbit

2, Big seal script of Rabbit

Changed a lot. The top is head, the middle is body, two legs, and one short tail. 

Both lines in the artwork mean the same but in different scripts:

Rabbit, Rabbit Rabbit, You Rabbit, Me Rabbit.

The pronunciation of character Rabbit is Tu4, exactly same as Two or Too. It is the only one by my knowledge of Chinese character pronounced exactly same as some English words. So we can pronounce the sentence as 

Tu, TuTu, You Tu, Me Tu, here Tu is Rabbit. 

The inspiration of this sentence is from when I watched my wife holding our son in 1999, a year of rabbit. My wife was born in year of rabbit, she and my son are both belong to Rabbit. therefore, I wrote

Rabbit, Rabbit Rabbit, You Rabbit, Me Rabbit. 

Sounds like they are talking each other. 

The sentence could be read like the following too

Tu, TuTu, You too, Me too.

or

Tu, Two Tu, You Tu, Me Tu (Rabbit, Two Rabbit, You Rabbit, Me Rabbit)

Anyway, in this sentence, we have 5 words pronounced Tu4 = Two, or Too. It is very meaningful and unique. 

The sentence could be consider as a half of Chinese couplet, we could find an another half to match. So far, not very good match yet. The closest is the following:

Dog, Dog Dog, Big Dog, Small Dog.

You may try to get better one.