T'ien-lan-tung is a type of stalactite stone found on Mt. Shan. Though its various hues--blue, pale purple, grayish red, light brown, and gray--are all lovely, its beautiful blues are the stone's best-known representatives. T'ien-lan-tung is semi-translucent and possesses an elegant and subtle beauty. Although lacking the pure beauty of t'ien-huang stone and the elegance of pai-fu-jung stone, t'ien-lan-tung nonetheless has a warmth and purity all its own. Because it is relatively soft, t'ien-lan-tung is not easy to carve; most engravers recommend that the amount of carving applied to it be limited so that the stone's natural color can be fully appreciated.
In the last two issues of Sinorama, readers were introduced to various types of seal script; in this issue, we will examine how the seals are used. There have been three main categories of seals: imperial, official, and personal. Seals within the "personal" category are by far the most varied and creative in terms of design, materials, script style, and size. The remainder of our discussion will focus on several types of personal seals: name seals, birthplace and family background seals, and "studio" seals.
Name seals, already in use during the Ch'in and Han dynasties, are the earliest type of personal seal. Up until the T'ang and Sung, most name seals used the person's given name only. It was only after this period that seals engraved with courtesy names--such as Su Shih's "Tung-po Chu-jen" and Huang T'ing-chien's "Shan-yu Tao-jen" --began to appear.
Seals engraved with the name of a person's home town began to appear during the Sung; their imprints appear primarily on books and paintings. Seals which refer to a person's family background were made by those who wished to display the high positions of their forebears.
Seals carved with the names "studios" (chai) gained currency during the T'ang. Men of letters frequently affixed a stamp of the names of their studios to their literary and artistic creations.
(B.J. Congelosi)
