Ancient Chinese Mood Seal Collections

5/2005

It is an ancient Chinese art form to carve Chinese characters on various materials such as jade, ivory, and stone. This art form has a history dating back to 2700 years ago. Craftsmen carved these seals either in relief or intaglio, or sometimes in combinations.

At their inception, craftsmen mainly carved these Chinese character seals with an individual’s name and that individual would use it for personal authentications. As the years passed, it has become a popular art form among artists, calligraphers, and craftsmen. These artists not only carved their names on the seals, but they would also carve seals with poems to express their thoughts and feelings. The artists would then stamp these seals onto paintings and calligraphies as finishing touches. Some people call these particular seals “Mood Seals.

It requires great artistry and intense labors to make these mood seals. Often the artists chose the seals’ phrases or verses from famous ancient poems, but sometimes, these artists had the reputation as a great poet, as well, and so wrote their own accompanying poetry. After deciding on the accompanying poetry, the artist would then design the seals’ layout: character arrangement, calligraphic style, size of the seal, and shape of the seal. The seals were quite small, usually less than one square inch. Afterward the artists would write down their calligraphic phrases and marked their reversed versions on the stones. In the final step, the artists carved the stones. Since the areas in need of cutting were relatively small, the artists had to master carving techniques, and they eventually became skilled craftsperson themselves.

Today, Asia still widely uses character seals carved with personal names for government documents and banking purposes. Most are carved from cheaper materials, like soapstone. Modern artists still carve mood seals, but most of these seals lack the artistic quality of their ancestors’.

The collections Seesaw Graphics released came from famous ancient artists of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. These mood seals range from about 100 to 600 years of age. In order to retain their aged looks, we did as little touch-up as possible. Just as they functioned as complements to paintings and calligraphies in times past, they will serve as an excellent complement to your scrapbook pages and handmade cards as well.

We individually wrapped each mood seal stamp with a booklet, which includes a general brief history of Chinese seals, its translation and our suggestions of usage.

To browse through entire collections, please click here.      

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