Stone inscription by Tsai Yong, C.E133-192
Li-Shu is said to be the invention of Ch'eng Miao of Qin Dynasty (246 - 207 B.C). Ch'eng Miao had the misfortune to offend the first Emperor of Qin and was thrown into the prison of Yun-Yang (云阳), where he lay for ten years, brooding over a new style of writing. Ultimately he produced about three thousand characters in the style we now call Li-Shu and, in consieration of this amazing achievement, was set free and promoted to a high position in the government. His style was adopted almost universally for official purposes, for which it was much more convenient than Seal writing, which the clerks found slow and laborious. Initially Li-Shu was regarded as a kind of shorthand, and was used only by clerks and officials. Indeed, Li in Chinese means 'Clerk', and the style is sometimes called Clerical Style. It is also called Tso-Shu (左书), 'Tso' meaning 'to help' - a help to quicker and easier writing. Later, the Emperor's orders, the government proclamations, and the inscriptions on ceremonial vessels used at public services all came to be written in Li-Shu.
No authentic record exists to prove whether the original examples of this style were beautiful in appearance or merely serviceable, but it is clear that laster developers of it have adopted beauty rather than convenience as their standard. By the Han period Li-Shu was established as one of the standard styles and used, probably, more extensively than any other. All kinds of stone monuments and public documents were written in it. Unfortunately most of the Han writings are unsigned, so we shall never know the names of the great Li-Shu stylists of those times. But this does not prvent us from appreciating the style itself - the firm, decorative characters, and the varied shapes of stroke which transformed the circular, curved and rounded lines of Small Seal into the square, the polyangular and the straight.
Strictly speaking, there are three forms of Li-Shu - the Li-Shu of Qin, the Li-Shu of Early Han and the Li-Shu of Later Han. The last is often termed Pa-Fen, and has somewhat the same relation to earlier forms of Li-Shu that Hsiao-Chuan has to Ta-Chuan. A vast amount of discussion has taken place as to the origin and significance of the name Pa-Fen. But the question is one for archaeologists, and we can content ourselves here with noting the change from rugged uneven strokes to smooth, even, decorative, and regularly incised ones.
The later Han period saw a sudden leap forward in the art of calligraphy, mainly due to te improvement of the writing instruments. It became possible for calligraphers to express their talents freely, shaping their strokes with varied thickness and rendering them steady or hasty, heavy or light, dry or wet, square or circular as taste demanded These facilities were denied to the earlier writers, who worked upon bronze and stone with knives that could not be turned with any ease. Henceforward the possibilities of calligraphy as an art were developed to an astounding degree. The designing of the characters had been regarded as a fine art event in the days when the symbols were almost wholly pictorial, but now the technique was developed till calligraphy could rank as a means of expression, as with any other of the fine arts. It is a tragedy that of the writings of Cai Yung (蔡邕), who was considered the finest calligrapher of Han times, and who specialized in Pa-Fen Style, no authentic examples remain. We have only records of the opinions of his contemporaries.
Reference
Works by Chiang Yee, Chinese Calligraphy, An Introduction to its Aesthetic and Technique
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