Editing Calligraphy (section)

===History===
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In [[ancient China]], the oldest known Chinese characters are [[oracle bone script]] ({{lang|zh|甲骨文}}), carved on ox [[scapula]]e and tortoise [[plastrons]], as the rulers in the [[Shang dynasty]] carved pits on such animals' bones and then baked them to gain auspice of military affairs, agricultural harvest, or even procreation and weather. During the [[divination]] ceremony, after the cracks were made{{Explain|reason=The mention of cracks is placed suddenly, and while the cracks may likely be caused by the heat of the fire, it has not been verified.|date=October 2024}}, the characters were written with a brush on the shell or bone to be later carved.<ref>Keightley, 1978.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=August 2022}} With the development of the [[bronzeware script]] ({{transliteration|zh|jīn wén}}) and [[large seal script]] ({{transliteration|zh|dà zhuàn}})<ref>{{Cite web |title=Categories of Calligraphy – Seal Script |url=http://www.cityu.edu.hk/lib/about/event/ch_calligraphy/seal_eng.htm |access-date=30 May 2018}}</ref> "cursive" signs continued{{Further explanation needed|reason=Cursive is not mentioned anywhere before this|date=October 2024}}. [[Mao Gong ding]] is one of the most famous examples of bronzeware script in Chinese calligraphic history. It contains 500 inscribed characters, the largest number of bronze inscriptions discovered to date.{{Clarify|reason=Awkward sentence|date=August 2021}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Bell and Cauldron Inscriptions-A Feast of Chinese Characters: The Origin and Development_Mao Gong Ding |url=https://www.npm.gov.tw/exh99/bell/3_en.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191018143625/https://www.npm.gov.tw/exh99/bell/3_en.htm |archive-date=18 October 2019 |access-date=30 May 2018}}</ref> Moreover, each archaic kingdom of current China had its own set of characters.

In [[Imperial era of Chinese history|Imperial China]], the graphs on old [[stele]]s{{snd}} some dating from 200 BCE, and in the [[small seal script]] ({{lang|zh|小篆}} {{transliteration|zh|xiǎo zhuàn}}) style{{snd}} have been preserved and can be viewed in museums even today.

About 220 BCE, the emperor [[Qin Shi Huang]], the first to conquer the entire Chinese basin, imposed several reforms, among them [[Li Si]]'s character unification, which created a set of 3300 standardized small seal characters.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fazzioli |first=Edoardo |title=Chinese Calligraphy: From Pictograph to Ideogram: The History Of 214 Essential Chinese/Japanese Characters |publisher=[[Abbeville Publishing Group (Abbeville Press, Inc.)|Abbeville Press]] |others=Calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-89659-774-7 |location=New York |page=13 |quote=And so the first Chinese dictionary was born, the ''Sān Chāng'', containing {{formatnum:3300}} characters}}</ref> Despite the fact that the main writing implement of the time was already the brush, few papers survive from this period, and the main examples of this style are on steles.

The [[clerical script]] ({{lang|zh-TW|隸書}}/{{lang|zh|隸书}}) ({{transliteration|zh|lì shū}}) which was more regularized, and in some ways similar to modern text, was also authorised under Qin Shi Huang.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Xigui|first=Qiu|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/470162569|title=Chinese writing.|date=2000|publisher=Society for the study of Early China|isbn=1-55729-071-7|pages=103|oclc=470162569}}</ref>

Between clerical script and traditional regular script, there is another transitional type of calligraphic work called [[Wei Bei]]. It started during the [[North and South dynasties]] (420 to 589 CE) and ended before the [[Tang dynasty]] (618–907).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Z. |title=Chinese Calligraphy |url=http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/Culture/Culture_Recommendation/t1068241_2.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727065633/http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/Culture/Culture_Recommendation/t1068241_2.htm |archive-date=27 July 2020 |access-date=30 May 2018}}</ref>

The traditional [[regular script]] ({{transliteration|zh|kǎi shū}}), still in use today, and largely finalized by [[Zhong You]] ({{lang|zh|鐘繇}}, 151–230) and his followers, is even more regularized. Its spread was encouraged by [[Li Siyuan|Emperor Mingzong of Later Tang]] (926–933), who ordered the [[Woodblock printing|printing]] of the classics using new wooden blocks in kaishu{{Explain|reason=A further explanation of what Kaishu is would help with general understanding|date=October 2024}}. Printing technologies here allowed a shape stabilization. The kaishu shape of characters 1000 years ago was mostly similar to that at the end of Imperial China;{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} However, small changes to the characters have been made. For example the shape of <big>{{lang|zh|广}}</big> has changed from the version in the ''[[Kangxi Dictionary]]'' of 1716 to the version found in modern books. The ''Kangxi'' and current shapes have tiny differences, while stroke order remains the same, according to the old style.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&res=77358 |year=1716 |page=41 |language=zh |script-title=zh:康熙字典 |trans-title=Kangxi Zidian}}. See, for example, the radicals <big>{{lang|zh|卩}}</big>, <big>{{lang|zh|厂}}</big>, or <big>{{lang|zh|广}}</big>. The 2007 common shape for those characters does not clearly show the stroke order, but old versions, visible on p. 41, clearly allow the stroke order to be determined.</ref>

Styles which did not survive include {{transliteration|zh|bāfēnshū}}, a mix of 80% small seal script and 20% clerical script{{Clarify|reason=This sentence makes it confusing to note whether bafenshu is a style that's a mix of 80% small seal script and 20% clerical sript or if the styles not surviving were bafenshu, 80% of small seal script, and 20% of clerical scripts|date=October 2024}}. Some [[variant Chinese characters]] were unorthodox or locally used for centuries. They were generally understood but always rejected in official texts. Some of these unorthodox variants, in addition to some newly created characters, compose the [[simplified Chinese characters|simplified Chinese]] character set.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}