Tell me about China's brushes.

Brush is a traditional writing tool which originated in China. It is listed as one of Four Treasures of the Study in China. The picture shows several different brushes in the stationery store.

Brush originated around 1600- 1066 BC. There are different opinions about the origin of writing brush in history. The story of writing brush made by Montaigne is the most recorded in history, but modern scholars believe that writing brush existed before Montaigne.

The original brush was used to describe Oracle Bone Inscriptions's strokes, but the real brush writing may begin with the words on bamboo slips and tapestries.

Types of writing brushes

The classification of brushes mainly depends on the size, as well as the type, source and shape of bristles.

* According to the size, brushes can be simply divided into: lower case, middle case and upper case.

* classified by bristles

Class O: soft brush, hard brush, double brush and so on.

O source: tire brush, wolf brush, rabbit shoulder brush, deer brush, chicken brush, duck brush, wool brush, pig brush, mouse brush, tiger brush, ox ear brush, etc.

(1) Ranunculus. This pen is made of goat hair. Wool pen is soft in texture and absorbs a large amount of ink, which is suitable for writing with round and solid stippling. More durable than a wolf's brush. Most of these pens are lake pens, which are relatively cheap. Generally, there are big pens, Jingti (or pen lifting), Lianfeng, Feng Ping, Ding Feng, Gaifeng, flagpole, Jade Bamboo Shoots, Yulanrui and Jingzha.

(2) Wolf brush. This pen is made of the hair on the tail of a weasel. The rat tail produced in Northeast China is the most common, and it is called "North Langhao" and "Guandong Liao Wei". Wolf hair is stronger than wool pen and suitable for writing and drawing, but it is not as durable as wool pen and more expensive. Common varieties are Zhu Lan, freehand brushwork, landscape, flowers, Ye Jin, costume patterns, red beans, small seiko, deer and wolf hair calligraphy and painting (made of wolf hair and deer hair), leopard and wolf hair (made of wolf hair and leopard hair), special long-peak wolf hair, super long-peak wolf hair and so on.

(3) font size. The writing pen is made of rabbit hair, so it is named for its purple, black and bright colors. This pen is tall and straight, sharp and sharp, and it is more elastic than a wolf's hair. Anwei's rabbit hair is the best.

(4) Double-sided brush. This pen is made of two kinds of animal hair with different hardness and softness. Common varieties are double-stranded brush, wolf sheep, double-stranded brush and purple sheep, such as five-purple five-sheep and seven-purple three-sheep. This pen has the advantages of both sheep and wolves, moderate rigidity and moderate price, and is commonly used by painters and painters. There are two types: harmonic type and quilt type.

O-shape: round, pointed, etc.

* Pen tube

O gold, silver, ivory, glass, red sandalwood, spotted bamboo

At present, the most famous origin of brush is the lake pen in Shanlian Town, Xing Wu County, Zhejiang Province, which is called the lake pen.

history

1954, a well-preserved writing brush was unearthed from the Chu tomb at Zuogongshan 15 in Changsha. Using wood as a pole and putting wool on it with a bamboo tube is the original writing brush. Legend has it that Meng Tian, a general in the Qin Dynasty, invented the brush calligraphy, which first trapped wool in the pen tip and stuffed it into the hole of the pen holder. The improvement of Meng Tian's brush is of great significance to the formation of Xiao Zhuan. Unlike the big seal, the small seal has twists and turns, which are beyond the reach of hard objects. It should be written with a brush. Meng Tian was the ancestor of the pen-making industry in later generations. In the pre-Qin period, the brush had many names, such as "Yu", "Irregular" and "Fu", which were later collectively referred to as "Pen".

It is recorded in Miscellanies of Xijing that the brush used by Emperor Gaozu was inlaid with precious stones, which were made of autumn rabbit hair.

The painter's pen theory

Wen Zhenheng: Sharp, neat, round and healthy are the four virtues of writing.

* Zhang Daqian. Zhang Daqian said that a watercolor pen made in England is very valuable. It is made of fine hair from the ears of cattle in a certain place in England. Only 2500 cows can produce a catty of yellow cattle ears. The brush made of cow hair has strong water absorption and elasticity.

* Pan Tianshou: wool is round and delicate, with strong water content, and the pen tip is slow to write. It uses dry ink and wet ink, each with its own advantages.

pen

The development of pens

Pen is a widely used writing tool, which was invented in the early19th century. 1809, Britain issued the first batch of patent certificates about water storage pens, which marked the official birth of pens.

In the early water storage pens, ink could not flow freely. When the writer presses the piston, the ink begins to flow. After writing for a while, he has to press it again, otherwise the ink will not flow out. Of course it's inconvenient to write like this.

By 1884, wortmann, an employee of an American insurance company, invented a capillary ink supply method, which solved the above problems well. The end of this pen can be disassembled and ink can be injected with a small dropper.

The earliest pen that can absorb ink by itself appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, using a piston to absorb ink. When using a bladder in a pen, insert an iron sheet into the gap to squeeze the bladder to absorb ink. At 1952, there appeared a snooker pen with a tube inserted in the ink to absorb water. The commonly used capillary pen was not invented until 1956.

Type of pen

There are many kinds and models of pens. According to the composition of the nib, it can be divided into gold pen and iridium pen.

⑴ Golden pen: The nib has high gold content, is soft and less elastic, and is smooth and comfortable when writing. However, the gold pen is expensive, the nib is soft and difficult to master, so it is not suitable for beginners.

⑵ Iridium pen: The pen tip has less gold content, is hard, has good elasticity, is durable and cheap, and is a suitable tool for beginners to write.

Pen purchase

When choosing a pen, it depends on whether the pen tip is smooth or not. You can check it by testing the pen, that is, dip the new pen in ink and write some strokes and Arabic numerals on the paper. If the pen tip does not pull the paper and the water comes out evenly, the pen tip is smooth and meets the use requirements. The nib is thick and thin, so you should use a pen with a slightly thick nib to practice writing. If you need to write with a pen with a smaller font, you can choose a pen with the word "extra fine" on the pen holder to write.

Maintenance of pen

Pay attention to the maintenance of pens. When writing, pad some manuscript paper under the paper to enhance the elasticity of the pen tip and reduce friction. Don't write on hard objects such as metal to avoid damaging the nib. The pen should be cleaned once a month or so to keep the ink flowing. Pens should be cleaned and preserved if they are not used for a long time.

What needs to be mentioned here is that the elbow pen with the words "hard pen calligraphy" on the pen holder has the characteristics of great change in the thickness of writing strokes. When in use, the pen holder is pressed downwards, and the strokes are thick, so that slightly larger characters can be written; When the pen is vertical, the strokes will be fine, and you can write smaller words. This kind of pen is more expressive than ordinary pen, and is often used to write envelopes and other large fonts. But it is very difficult to write with this pen. Beginners should not practice writing with it.