Among all kinds of brushes, the brush can be regarded as a unique category in China. Traditional brushes were not only essential for the ancients, but also have a distinctive power to express the special flavor of Chinese calligraphy and painting. Chinese calligraphy and painting are inseparable from the use of brushes.
The history of the brush as a writing tool is very long, as early as in the Neolithic era, there are traces of the brush depicted on the colored pottery. Although the Western Zhou has not yet seen the brush in kind, but from the prehistoric pottery pattern, the Shang dynasty oracle bone inscriptions can be found on some of the signs of the brush. East Zhou bamboo and wood slips, thick silk has been widely used on the brush to write. Thus, it can be seen that the brush started before the Yin and Shang dynasties. The earliest brush can be traced back to more than two thousand years ago. Suizhou City, Hubei Province, beat the drum Zenghouyi tomb found in the Spring and Autumn period of the brush, the pen is the earliest pen found, is the remains of the ancient times of rare and valuable information.
Spring and Autumn, the Warring States period on the pen called different places, there are "pen", "I", "whisk" and other names. Until the implementation of the Qin "book with the same text, car with the same track", the pen will be a variety of names uniformly called "pen". According to legend, the Qin general Mengtian used to make pens with sheep's hair in Shanlian Village, and was regarded as the ancestor of pens in the area. It is also said that Meng Ten's wife, Bu Xianglian, was also proficient in pen-making skills and was offered as the Pen Lady. To the Han Dynasty, the pen has been more sophisticated, the road goblet is the master of the pen at that time. In addition to rabbit hair, the raw materials of the Han Dynasty brush making, there are wool, deer hair, civet hair, wolf hair, etc., hard hair and soft hair. At the same time, the texture and decoration of the pen tube are also rich. According to the official history books, China's famous Xuan Pen was invented in the Han Dynasty.
The Xuan Pen period is an important period in the development of China's brushes. During the Jin Dynasty, the purple brush made of rabbit hair in Xuanzhou, Anhui Province, was famous for its sharpness and embrace. Xuanzhou Chen's pen was highly respected by Wang Xizhi and others. To the Tang Dynasty, Xuanzhou became the center of the national pen, Xuan pen reputation is growing, at this time the Xuan pen whether in the production techniques, the choice of materials, or in the art of engraving and cutting of the pen, have been perfected, Liu Gongquan, Ouyang Xiu, Mei Yaochen, Su Dongpo and others have had a very high evaluation of Xuan pen. Xuan Pen was honored as a tribute and imperial pen in Tang Dynasty, according to "Old Tang Book? Geography" records: Tang Tianbao two years, Tang Xuanzong climbed the stairs to see the new pool, dozens of counties in the south of the specialties, arranged in the downstairs, which has Xuancheng County pen. Chen's and Zhuge's pen across the Tang and Song dynasties, pen skills passed down from generation to generation, the creation of the heartless loose Zhuo pen has the performance of soft and moist, solid foundation, long time use does not disperse, writing smooth features, said "the first in the sea". Song Dynasty, in addition to the Xuanzhou Zhuge clan, Shexian Lv Daoren, Yixian Lv Danyuan, Xin'an Wang Boli, etc. are famous for a while.
After the Yuan Dynasty, the pen industry centered in Huzhou became increasingly prosperous. China's brushes entered the second important period of development - Lake Pen period. Especially the most famous sheep-hair pen, for the scholarly love, and the court appreciation, at this time the lake pen and Xuan Pen has enjoyed the same reputation, and even more than Xuan Pen, became the representative of the national brush, reputation at home and abroad. The lake brush, which is known as "the skill of Mao Ying is the best in the world", originated in Shanlian Town, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province. In ancient times, Shanlian was subordinate to the Huzhou Prefecture, so the brushes produced here were called lake brushes, and Shanlian was also known as the "Brush Capital". At that time, lake brushes, together with ink, ink slabs and Xuan paper, were known as the "Four Treasures of the Literary House", and famous brush makers such as Feng Yingke, Zhang Jinzhong, Wu Sheng, Yao Kai, Lu Zhen, Yang Ding, Shen Xiurong and Pan Yixin appeared in the town.
In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the Shanlian Lake Pen gradually spread out, and the people of Shanlian opened a number of famous pen stores all over the world, such as Gu Yuexuan and He Lianqing in Beijing, Zhou Huchen, Yang Zhenhua and Li Dinghe in Shanghai, and Bei Songquan and Lu Yitang in Suzhou. The Ming and Qing Dynasties was the heyday of China's pen industry, for the royal family of the imperial pen and the official pen, the production of exquisite and ornate not to mention, even the civil use of brushes, but also pays close attention to the decorative and aesthetically pleasing. At that time, the material used as a pen tube bamboo, jade, lacquer, ivory, porcelain, enamel, etc., in the decoration of the pen tube, but also to do all the finishing touches to achieve an unprecedented richness.
Because the brush is made of animal fibers, difficult to keep for a long time, so the complete ancient pen is rare, in addition to a few excavations, can see the Ming and Qing dynasty brushes, can be considered a rare treasure.
Steel pen
Since the 1880s in the feather pen based on the invention of the fountain pen, the fountain pen quickly replaced the traditional feather pen and became the main writing tool in the 20th century.
Entering the mid to late 1990s, computers, printers and the rapid spread of the Internet, to a large extent, replacing the pen's writing function, and better performance of the ballpoint pen is widely used, but also crowded out the fountain pen's market share. 21st Century, today, fountain pens still have irreplaceable characteristics, it is the first choice of many people's writing tools, and to some extent, become a symbol of the holder's value. Holder of a symbol of value. The production process is more and more sophisticated brand-name fountain pen, has become a high-grade expensive gifts, become a pursuit of the upper class, the price is not expensive.
Fountain pen because of its unique charm attracted many collectors, so how to choose a good pen, has become a discipline.
Many people like to collect fountain pens. Because fountain pens not only have enough old and new brands and styles for collectors to find a choice, and the price is right, the world has a huge market, easy to collect, and extremely convenient to transfer. Even for the collection of rare brands, there are few fake counterfeits, there are not a lot of people specializing in speculation, so it makes connoisseurs and investors to buy more assured.
Pencil
In 1564, a catastrophic hurricane hit the island of England, and many large trees were uprooted in the hard-hit Quinbran area. After the storm, a black mineral was found under the roots of the trees. As long as gently scratched on the object, you can leave a black mark, it is "graphite". Local shepherds often used it to draw marks on their sheep for easy identification. Later, it was made into a stick, sold to merchants for marking on the packaging. 1781, the German chemist Faber after many experiments, graphite powder mixed with sulfur, antimony, rosin, made into a paste and then extruded into a bar, which is the prototype of the pencil. This pencil has a certain degree of hardness, writing up more than graphite sticks. Inspired by this, people also cut graphite blocks into small strips for writing and drawing. This was the first pencil. Soon, King George II simply Barrowdale graphite mine for the royal family, it is designated as a royal specialty. But writing with a strip of graphite was both easier on the hands and easier to break.
The task of putting the pencil in a wooden rod jacket was accomplished by the American craftsman Monroe. He first built a machine that could cut out strips of wood, then carved thin grooves into the top of the strips, put the pencil lead into the grooves, and then paired and glued the two strips together, with the lead nestled snugly in the center, which developed into the pencils we use today.
New Members
With the development of the times, the progress of science and technology, the manufacture of pencils has also been injected with a lot of scientific and technological content. There are core-guarded retractable pencils, core-less pencils, paper pencils and so on.
The biggest feature of the core protection retractable activity pencil is that its lead core tube can be retracted under certain pressure. This pen uses a metal collet, equipped with a protective spring to prevent heavy pressure, press the core can be semi-automatic core, not only core accurate, but also to avoid puncturing the pocket, the protection of the lead core; no residual core activity pencil and the general lead core can only be used up to 12.4 millimeters so far as the activity of the pencil is different, no residual core activity pencil, even if the core is used to the last 1 millimeter can still be used. This is the activity of the pencil more than a hundred years of major innovations. It is mainly the pen changed to a double clevis structure, the front of the clevis to hold the front of the lead core, the back of the clevis is responsible for holding and advancing the lead core; paper pencil, also known as the environmental protection pencils. It mainly utilizes waste paper as raw material (instead of wood in the production of traditional pencils), and after simple cutting, it is made by fine processing. Compared with the traditional wooden pencil, paper pencil to paper instead of wood, the quality is more excellent, the product color, and easy to roll cutting, good performance, and absolutely avoided the wooden pencil commonly found in the pole broken core, cutting core, partial core and other difficult to overcome the shortcomings.
Symbols
Today we see pencils labeled H, B, HB is on behalf of the pencil's degree of softness and hardness, which also has a history.
Until the end of the 18th century, there were only two countries in the world that supplied pencils, Britain and Germany, after Napoleon launched a war against the neighboring countries, Britain and Germany cut off the supply of pencils to France, so Napoleon ordered the French chemist, Condé, to find graphite mines in his own country and then make pencils. However, the graphite ore in France was of poor quality and the reserves were small, so Condé mixed clay into the graphite, put it into the kiln and grilled it, and made a good and durable pencil lead in the world at that time. In the graphite mixed with different proportions of clay, the production of pencil lead hardness is also different, the color shades are also different. The letter "H" is the first letter of the English word "Hard", which stands for clay, and is used to indicate the hardness of a pencil lead. The larger the number in front of "H" (e.g., 6H), the harder the pencil core, that is, the larger the proportion of clay mixed with graphite in the core, the less obvious the word written, often used to rewrite. "B" is the beginning of the English "Black" (black) letter, representing graphite, used to indicate the softness of the pencil core and the degree of visibility of the writing. To "6B" for the softest, blackest handwriting, often used for drawing. Ordinary pencils are generally labeled as "HB", and the pencils used to apply the answer card during the exam are generally labeled as "2B".
Special function
Many people may not know, the pencil can also identify the authenticity of diamonds. After the diamond is moistened with water and a pencil is etched on it, the surface of a real diamond will not leave traces of a pencil scratch. Fake diamonds made from crystals, glass, tourmaline, etc. will leave marks