Chapter 1,497 Stone carvings, wood carvings, gray paint, and mud wall carvings
Monuments, no matter what they are used for, have some practical purposes.
The earliest three kinds of tablets all have no text or pictures on them.
Tie originally refers to the original ink written on silk or paper.
Later, excellent ink writing could not be passed down, so they were carved on wood and stone.
It can be made many times, so these original ink works carved on wood and stone and their rubbings are collectively called Tie.
To summarize carefully, there are several differences between stele and post.
First of all, the purpose of making the stele was different. The original stele had no text. Later, in order to support the indomitable spirit and hope to immortalize it for future generations, text was added to the stele.
At this time, there was a change, and the handwriting changed from the initial random drawing to the solemn, strict and meticulous handwriting.
Its main purpose is to trace the lineage, narrate life, and praise virtues, rather than to promote calligraphy.
Therefore, the calligrapher may or may not be a famous person.
Most of the steles before the Tang Dynasty did not sign the name of the person who signed them. It can be seen that the content of the steles was emphasized rather than the writing.
The purpose of engraving calligraphy is to spread calligraphy and provide calligraphy students with copies of the calligraphy of famous masters of the past.
Therefore, the quality of calligraphy is its selection criterion.
As long as it is a masterpiece of a famous book, even a short note will still be included, with little regard for the content.
Secondly, the calligraphy styles are different. The stele has a long history. Before the Sui Dynasty, the calligraphy styles used were solemn seal script, official script and regular script.
It wasn't until Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty used his personal pen that running script began to be written on the monument.
There are very few steles engraved in cursive script except for the stele of the Prince who ascended to heaven.
The engraving of postscripts began in the Zhao and Song dynasties, and most of them were poems and essays, so they were mostly written in cursive, cursive, and regular script.
Then there are the differences in shape. Steles are stone carvings erected on the ground. Most are rectangular, but there are also domes and spires.
Although there are ones with inscriptions on one side, there are also ones with inscriptions on two or even four sides.
The huge monuments are often more than ten feet high, and they are magnificent.
Tie is mostly based on bamboo slips, letters, and hand scrolls.
Therefore, the height is generally about one foot, and the length is from one foot to three or four feet.
They are generally horizontal in shape, mostly in the shape of stone slabs, with characters only engraved on the front.
In addition, there are very few steles with wood carvings on them.
Finally, the production method is different. Before the Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties, the stele was usually made of calligraphy and inscriptions on stone.
That is, the writer uses a red pen to write the words directly on the polished stone tablet, and then engraves it.
Stele engravers can often make stylistic changes to the strokes of characters due to the convenience of the knife technique.
That is, there is a slight discrepancy with the wording of Dan in the original book.
Some inscriptions even show the sword directly without writing the inscription.
The calligraphy incorporates the artistic taste of engraving and has a strong flavor of gold and stone, which cannot be reflected by writing with a brush. In fact, it is the joint creation of the calligrapher and the engraver.
The engravings are all imitated on stone, that is, the words on the ink mark are first copied with ink on transparent paper, and then the words are outlined from the back with vermilion;
Then the stone is rubbed and finally carved, which is two more processes than the stele.
Although the process is complicated, the engraving requires being loyal to the original work and doing your best to complete it. Each step must not be mixed with your own ideas, so the high-quality calligraphy can reach the level of authenticity.
Only by understanding the difference between stele and rubbings can it be easier to identify stele inscriptions and rubbings.
For example, in front of his eyes, Chen Wenzhe could easily tell that those were fake engravings.
….
The main reason is that there are too many stone tablets here, and their quality varies greatly.
Of course, there may be some counterfeiters who have incomplete knowledge and therefore make some low-level mistakes.
In fact, in order to identify a stele inscription or inscription, you need to first determine whether it is a fake inscription.
False engraving is when the forger makes up a document based on the information in the book, and what is written and engraved is called a forgery.
Because fake engravings are baseless fabrications, they are worse than re-engravings and have no value at all.
In order to deceive people's trust, fake engravings often lie about being unearthed in a certain month and at a certain place.
Some use rubbings to deceive people, and some simply
The stone carvings are sold together.
For example, the Han Dynasty's "Ceremonial Stele at Yingling Tomb", "Zhang Fei's Inscription on Horses", "Tao Hongjing's Epitaph", etc. are this kind of fake engravings.
These Han steles are so famous that there must be many fake ones.
The three pieces in front of me are definitely not authentic, but I have to say that they have some artistic value.
If it is a fake engraving from ancient times, it must have collection value.
There have been many forgeries of Han steles since the Ming Dynasty, and the calligraphy faces are very similar. People without certain experience can easily believe the forgeries as the truth.
It's a pity that Chen Wenzhe can recognize that these are definitely not fake carvings from the Ming Dynasty.
I just don’t know if it is a fake engraving before the Ming Dynasty, or even during the Republic of China period!
There are so many famous monuments here, and they all seem to be of a certain standard.
Therefore, even if it is a fake carving from the Republic of China, he does not dislike it, as long as it is not a fake carving made by modern people.
To appraise the inscriptions, you must read more.
As mentioned before, textual criticism has been very popular since the middle of the Qing Dynasty.
Later, Dinghai Fangruo wrote a book called "Essays on School Steles", which was devoted to the era when famous steles, calligraphy and paintings were damaged.
If you have read this book, it will be easy to identify the Han Dynasty "Lujiang Prefect Heng Monument" in front of you.
Because the word "general" inside the stele is not damaged, even if this stele is authentic, it must have been carved in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
There is also the "Maming Temple Stele" from the Northern Wei Dynasty. The one that has not been broken is a rubbing made before Daoguang.
Those who forged it would follow the theory and embed wax on the original stele to fill in the damaged characters or fractures to make up for the old rubbings.
Therefore, if old rubbings are found in the textual research area and the writing seems weak and suspicious, or if the paper and ink are not dated enough, attention should be paid to them.
These are actually pretty good, and there are some fake engravings that are particularly easy to spot.
For example, there is a kind of stone tablet. Although it is still alive, it is inconvenient to push it due to the long distance, or the inscriptions are damaged due to the age. The tablet dealer still cuts it and re-engravs it to pass it off as the original stone, which is called a reprint version.
Most of the reprints were carved in a hurry, and most of the engravers were illiterate. There were many mistakes in calligraphy and painting, and the original tablets were still there, so they were of little value.
As mentioned before, there were many types of this type of engravings during the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns, including stone engravings, wood engravings, gray paint, mud wall engravings, etc.
Among them, the ones made from tile ash mixed with raw lacquer or clay are the most popular. Because they are light in cost and high in profit, they are easier to engrave. They are more inferior than those carved in wood and stone, and the most popular ones are on the market.
What Chen Wenzhe is afraid of is encountering this kind of ancient carvings, because even if they have a certain history, they have little value.
There are many ways to cheat, but there are also many ways to identify them.
For example, when it comes to wall clay copies, this method is to rub the original rubbings on the wall, then carve them out and then use rice paper to make rubbings.
The inscriptions produced in this way are not rubbed from the original stele, but from the wall.
After the rubbing is completed, the forger will make the paper old and sell it as the old rubbing.
The identification method is also very simple. Because of the age of the real old stele, it has been weathered and corroded after experiencing wind and rain, and peeling stone flowers will appear on the stele.
These stone flowers are uneven and their distribution is irregular.
After most of the wall plasters are completed, in order to create the uneven effect of weathered stone, lime is usually sprinkled on the wall to fake weathering spots.