V. Different Styles
The
below-depicted styles were three of the most popular styles before the modern
times. The first
example (on the left) is from Wang Xizhi's book "Caojueshu", which
was one of the two best examples of the cursive style of that time. The middle
example (Zhuan style) is slightly older. Not surprisingly, we can therefore
readily discern elements of shape that reflect the original object of the
character. This style is still used widely for stamps and seals. The Li style
(shown below on the right) was also a popular style in the pre-modern times,
and remains so now with art workers.
|
(A) Cao/Cursive style |
(B) Zhuan style |
(C) Li style |
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|
|
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The
following style -- the traditional style -- was used by all Chinese. After
the cultural revolution in China, however, this style was widely changed into
the simplified style. Nowadays, the traditional style is still maintained
by the people of Taiwan, the people of Hong Kong (although this may not be
the case after 1997), some of the Chinese people of Singapore, and a large
number of Chinese outside the Mainland. The most special characteristic of
the traditional style is that it is generally written from left to right and
top to bottom. The following examples best explain it.
|
(1)book |
(2)newspaper |
|
|
|
The
simplified style is basically used by the people in PRC (Mainland China).
The most obvious difference is that simplified characters are formed from
subcomponents that are artificially assigned to represent the sounds used
in the speaking of the word or words represented by the character (traditional
Chinese characters are not phonetic). The simplified style is also written
the way English is written (i.e. left to right, and top to bottom).
|
(1)book |
|
|
(2)newspaper |
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