Book seal, also known as book seal, is a seal used by book collectors to show book ownership and express personal hobbies. In order to identify the ownership of books, ancient bibliophiles often put seals on books. The seal is generally engraved with name, person, serial number, hometown, ancestral home, library, official position, logo, giving and receiving, warning, notes, statement, etc.

Book stamps are mostly square and rectangular in shape, and there are other irregular shapes. The stamps collected in modern libraries have various shapes, including rectangles and squares, circles, triangles, prisms and ellipses. There are many kinds of materials for book stamps, such as wood, stone, metal, animal bones, ivory, plastic, plexiglass and so on.

Seal cutting is the art of carving seal characters on metal, ivory, rhinoceros horn, jade, stone and other materials. Because it mainly makes seals, it is also called seal cutting. Book seals belong to seal cutting. As a seal, bibliophiles often leave words other than the seal name on the book cover to reflect the character and temperament of bibliophiles.

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Historical origin of seal cutting

Seal cutting has a history of 500 years since Ming and Qing Dynasties, which developed from ancient seals. Ancient seals laid a solid foundation for seal cutting with their unique style and practical artistic expression. Therefore, the history of seal cutting can be traced back to the "Zhou Xi" era, which was dominated by bronzes more than 3,700 years ago. During the Yin and Shang Dynasties, lettering became popular.

In the Qin dynasty, the emperor's seal was called seal, and the common people's seal was called seal. Qin seal script is a copy of seal script, which is one of the eight major seal scripts. Similar to Qin seal script, seal script is solemn and beautiful. Square official seal with the words "mouth" and "field" and rectangular seal with the word "day" are the remarkable characteristics of Qin seal. In addition to official seal and private seal, Qin seal also has official seal, which is the predecessor of the later seal.

The Han Dynasty was an unprecedented glorious period for the development of seals, and it was more clearly agreed that all seals were called seals except the jade seal. Some are called seals or seals in official seals, while others are called seals or seals in private seals. China seal is richer in content and form than before, and it is printed with Miao seal, which is related to the rise of official script in Han Dynasty, with simplified structure and straight strokes. There is also a bird book printed in Chinese, which is very decorative and an ancient artistic font.

The seals of the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties basically followed the shape of Han and India. Paper was widely used, cinnabar was used to make inkpad, and the method of sealing mud was abolished. So the seal is stamped with new inkpad, which is the so-called "Zhu Zhu system".

From Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties to Song and Yuan Dynasties, official seals increased. Brothers and countries also follow the official seal of China's calligraphy, and the seal Wen Qu bends back and forth to fill the blank on the surface of the seal. But in the Song Dynasty, it developed into a ten-fold seal script, but it lost the graceful and restrained laws of the traditional seal script.

In Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties, calligraphy and painting have made great progress. For the purpose of collecting calligraphy and painting, and for artists to print their own works, collection printing, library printing and leisure printing are popular, which is an important link in the development of practical printing to seal cutting. With the organic integration of seal and calligraphy and painting, seal has become an appreciation art with literary significance, which complements poetry, literature, books and paintings, and is called epigraphy and calligraphy.

The school of seal cutting was formed in the middle of Ming Dynasty. At this time, the seal developed from a practical product and an accessory of calligraphy and painting to a unique seal cutting. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many schools and factions appeared in seal cutting. The genre of seal cutting is generally named after the signer's native place, surname, mentoring relationship and activity area. During the nearly 500 years from the middle of Ming Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty, seal cutting appeared a prosperous period.

With the prevalence of epigraphy in Qing Dynasty and a large number of epigraphy cultural relics unearthed in past dynasties, many scholars devoted themselves to the collection, research, writing and dissemination of these cultural relics and ancient characters, thus expanding the vision of seal engravers.

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