October 1-11, 2008 by appointment only
The Chinese seal has been an important component of Chinese traditional heritage and culture. It has a high academic and aesthetic value. The exact date for the inception of seals in China still requires further study although some ancient books have traced the emergence of seals too as early as the time of the legendary emperors time. Japanese BUNJIN (an elite scholar who enjoyed Sencha society in the 19th century) started to admire to collect scholar’s items as their status symbol.
Please come to see this interesting exhibition; Seals and seal-engraving have occupied an honored place in the Chinese literary and artistic tradition for over one thousand years.
“As an ancient art, the seal originates from the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. It is the precursor to the inscriptions on ancient bronzes and stone tablets which dates back to 1400 B.C. and was developed prior to the art of calligraphy.
The seal has been, from ancient times, an art integrating characters, patterns, and decorations. It is an art of focused research on the law of the unity of opposites, and is thus also referred to as “the ancestor of graphic compositions”
Prof. Zhao Ruichun, Guangzhou Painting Institute, in an introduction to Jun Pei Cui’s “The Art Of Seal”