Most noticeable is the dramatically flared tail of one dominant horizontal or downward-diagonal stroke, especially that to the lower right. Seal script tended towards uniformity of stroke width, but clerical script gave the brush freer rein, returning to the variations in width seen in early Zhōu brushwork. Compared with the preceding seal script, forms are strikingly rectilinear however, some curvature and some seal script influence often remains.
The clerical script (often simply termed lìshū and sometimes called "official", "draft", or "scribal" script) is popularly thought to have developed in the Hàn dynasty and to have come directly from seal script, but recent archaeological discoveries and scholarship indicate that it instead developed from a roughly executed and rectilinear popular or ‘vulgar’ variant of the seal script as well as from seal script itself, resulting first in a ‘proto-clerical’ version in the Warring States period to Qin dynasty, which then developed into clerical script in the early Western Hàn dynasty, and matured stylistically thereafter.Ĭlerical script characters are often "flat" in appearance, being wider than the preceding seal script and the modern standard script, both of which tend to be taller than they are wide some versions of clerical are square, and others are wider. However, because seals act like legal signatures in the cultures of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, and because vermillion seal impressions are a fundamental part of the presentation of works of art such as calligraphy and painting, seals and therefore seal script remain ubiquitous.
Most people today cannot read the seal script, so it is considered an ‘ancient’ script, generally not used outside the fields of calligraphy and carved seals. Although seals (name chops), which make a signature-like impression, are carved in wood, jade and other materials, the script itself was originally written with brush and ink on bamboo books and other media, just like all other ancient scripts.
Today, this style of Chinese writing is used predominantly in seals, hence the English name. Although some modern calligraphers practice the most ancient oracle bone script as well as various other scripts older than seal script found on Zhōu dynasty bronze inscriptions, seal script is the oldest style that continues to be widely practiced. The seal script (often called "small seal" script) is the formal script of the Qín system of writing, which evolved during the Eastern Zhōu dynasty in the state of Qín and was imposed as the standard in areas Qín gradually conquered.
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