Of the four, perhaps the inkstick was considered the most precious. It's complex manufacturing process consisted of more than twenty steps; various proprietary techniques were, mostly, closely guarded family secrets, passed only from one generation to the next. Inksticks of outstanding quality, by a famous maker, were so highly prized that certain emperors gave them as rewards of merit to high officials. It is with no surprise, then, that we come on the old Chinese saying, "Gold can be obtained, but a fine inkstick is hard to come by."
Despite the premium placed on those of uncommon quality, inksticks themselves were by no means rare in China. Unlike the Europeans, who for centuries used liquid inks made from various plant dyes in combination with quill and later fountain pens, the Chinese, until recently, relied solely on inks made from the moistened grindings of an inkstick, into which was dipped a brush tipped with animal hair. Although, with the advent of the modern era, the ballpoint pen has generally supplanted the writing brush for mundane clerical and literary purposes, the writing brush and inkstick still find their uses, especially in the artistic medium of calligraphy. Even though the modern era has also brought with it pre-ground, liquefied calligraphic inks, these require the addition of certain chemicals to prevent spoiling, and the results obtained are considered inferior; discerning calligraphers, for reasons of both quality and principle, often prefer to grind their inks themselves.
The grinding of the inkstone is, in a very real way, a meditative and preparatory process for the writing to come. First, the calligrapher pours a bit of water into the small hollow in his inkstone and, sitting in an upright position, takes the inkstick in his right hand and begins to move it slowly and steadily in a circular motion across the inkstone. A good inkstick makes no noise as it moves across the inkstone, although the term "grinding ink" seems to imply otherwise. As the calligrapher concentrates his attention on the rhythmic, circular motion, the inkstick becomes an extension of his hand; his mind slowly focuses as mundane and distracting thoughts drift away. By the time the ink has reached the correct consistency (which varies time-wise depending on the amount of ink to be ground), the calligrapher has already settled down to the peaceful and undistracted mental state which allows him to turn his full attention to that poem or essay he intends to write. It is precisely such focused mental qualities which are thought to result in calligraphic works of high quality.
Officials and clerical workers of old China who were more concerned with time than turning out calligraphic works of artistic value, hired servant boys to grind the ink.
The Chinese character for inkstick, mo is a composite of the characters for black hei and soil tu. The principal ingredient in inksticks, soot collected from burning pine boughs, was held together with a resin, usually made from animal hides. The consistency of the collected soot was similar to fine soil, black in color—hence its composite character.
By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), inksticks were in widespread use in China. However, prior to the turn of this century, there was quite a bit of confusion as to the origins and earliest use of inksticks in China. Many early Chinese books attributed their invention, like so many other important contributions to Chinese culture, to the legendary Yellow Emperor (circa 28th Century B.C.). In the absence of any historical records from that period, such attributions must remain hypothetical.
Historical records of China's Chou Dynasty (circa 11th Century-256 B.C.) reveal that by the 10th Century B.C., one of China's five major punishments (also called mo) involved tattooing the faces of convicted criminals with indelible black ink. During the Han Dynasty, which was at its midpoint at the beginning of the first millennium A.D., inksticks would appear to have been in use, based on evidences from written records of the time. However, it wasn't until the beginning of widespread archaeological excavation and research in China around the turn of this century that more scientific and concrete evidences came to light regarding the origins of Chinese inks.
Perhaps one of China's greatest archaeological discoveries to date was of the site of the ancient capital of the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th Century B.C.), in Honan Province in 1899. Of the items excavated, among the most important were examples of the so-called "shell-bone script." These ancient writings were carved on the shells of tortoises or on oxen scapula for purposes of divination, or for record-keeping by the Shang royalty. They served not only to conclusively prove the existence of China's Shang Dynasty, which archaeologists had previously considered legendary, but to establish the date of China's earliest writing at the 14th Century B.C. When the shell-bones were excavated, after having been buried for more than 3,000 years, there were still traces of black and red coloring where the carved characters had been filled in.
The discovery of the shell-bones attracted the attention of archaeological circles around the world, and serious research soon began. In 1937, an American archaeological team had a color micro-analysis done on shell-bones, with the resultant finding that the black and red found in the inscriptions were a simple carbon substance and cinnabar, respectively: exactly the same materials used till the present to make black and red writing ink in China. It can thus be safely concluded that the use of ink in China is as old as her earliest known writing—more than 3,000 years.
Due to their composition, of soluble natural materials, inksticks decompose rather easily once buried in the ground. Consequently, in archaeological excavations to date in China, there have been relatively few specimens uncovered—none at all from the Shang period.
From the next dynasty, the Chou, though there have also been no archaeological yields of actual specimens, numerous excavated bamboo slips—used for writing prior to the invention of paper (see FCR, January 1986)—show traces of ink where carved characters were filled in; in some instances the writing is directly on uncarved bamboo slips.
Of the few ancient inkstick specimens excavated to date, the earliest belong to the period of the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-24 A.D.). Several pieces of inkstick found in a Han tomb in Hupei Province can be accurately dated by means of bamboo slips, also found within, to the 13th year of the reign of Emperor Wen (167 B.C.)—two of the larger pieces were later fitted together to make a very complete specimen. Analysis showed the basic materials of manufacture to be consistent with, although simpler in content than inksticks manufactured during later dynasties.
The shell-bones and bamboo slips with traces of ink coloring, and the discovery of the two pieces of a complete inkstick from the Western Han period rather clearly establish the development of carbon-soot based ink in the centuries just prior to the Christian era. Paper's invention during the latter part of the Western Han Dynasty and its growing use in subsequent dynasties, and the gradual expansion of China's literati based society carried inkstick development along on the crest of the same wave.
As early as the Three Kingdoms period (220-280), written records dealt with inkstick manufacture; those extant show that to the basic pine soot and resin, other such things as herbs and fragrances were now being added. The most famous inkstick maker on record during the period was an official of the reign of Emperor Ming (of the Shu State, circa 227-239), Wei Tan, like many later inkstick makers, an accomplished calligrapher.
Reportedly, when the Ling Yuan Palace was completed, Emperor Ming requested Wei Tan to accomplish a calligraphic inscription on a wooden tablet to be placed at the very top of the palace. Through an error of oversight, however, one of the workmen fixed the tablet in place before Wei Tan had done his part, and the only alternative then was to guide Wei Tan up to the top via a scaffold. When the distinguished artist had completed the inscription and was brought down, his hair and beard had turned white from fright, and mumbling under his breath, he advised his sons to give up the study of calligraphy.
Of all the inkmakers recorded in Chinese history, none are equal in fame to Li Ting-kuei and his father, Li Chao, of the Southern Tang Dynasty (937-975).
Actually, their original surname was not Li, but rather Hsi. But Emperor Li Yu, last monarch of the Southern Tang and a patron of the arts recognized for his own literary talents, was so fond of the inksticks made by Hsi Ting-kuei that he conferred upon him the honor of changing his surname to that of the royal house of Tang, as well as designating him the official in charge of overseeing inkstick production for imperial use. Thereafter, to the present, he has been known as Li Ting-kuei and his father as Li Chao. From this can be judged the degree of importance attached to the humble inkstick in the China of over 1,000 years ago.
Although Li Chao's fame was not as great as that of his son, his inksticks were reputed by some to be of even higher quality. One story concerns Hsu Hsuan, who eventually became a high ranking official and scholar of no small repute during the Southern Tang Dynasty. He obtained one of Li Chao's inksticks when he was still a youth; shaped like a chopstick, it was no more than a foot in length, and he shared it with his younger brother. The two ground ink every day to practice writing characters, but it took ten years to use up the one inkstick.
When Emperor Li Yu and the Southern Tang Dynasty capitulated and were assimilated by the Sung Dynasty (960-1279), all of the remaining stock of Li Chao and Li Ting-kuei's inksticks were put into the imperial reserve.
Although most Sung scholars and officials were aware of the fame of the Li family inksticks, Li Ting-kuei remained the best known name and, in fact, old stories indicate that few knew that Li Chao was even his father.
Once when the Sung Emperor Jen-tzung (1023-1063) called an audience of his high officials, he distributed inksticks from the imperial reserve to reward them. Tsai Hsiang, a ranking official at the time, later recognized as one of the four Sung masters of calligraphy, received one of Li Ting-kuei's inksticks. Another official was given one of Li Chao's. Seeing a look of disappointment come over the other official's face at not having received a Li Ting-kuei inkstick, Tsai Hsiang walked over and whispered in his ear, suggesting a trade. The official was all too happy to comply, and quickly did so, fearing a change of heart. Afterwards, riding out of the palace grounds, a smile of satisfaction on his face, Tsai Hsiang turned to the official and inquired if he was aware that Li Chao was none other than Li Ting-kuei's father. The official was not...and ruefully realized his mistake.
Although not equal in fame to the two Southern Tang master craftsmen, Pan Ku of the Sung Dynasty was the outstanding inkstick maker of his own time. Not only were his sticks of very high quality, he was reputedly able to differentiate the inksticks of a famous maker from high-quality reproductions.
Even in Li Ting-kuei's time, certain unscrupulous persons took advantage of the fact that few individuals had ever seen one of Li Ting-kuei's inksticks firsthand, to pass off well-done copies at exorbitant prices. By the Sung Dynasty, Li Ting-kuei's inksticks were even rarer, and well-executed copies were—by external appearances—very difficult to differentiate. Many scholars, hoping to obtain a real Li Ting-kuei inkstick, were cheated in this manner.
The master calligrapher of the Sung Dynasty, Huang Ting-chien, deciding to put Pan Ku to the test, put several copies of Li Ting-kuei inksticks into a felt bag with one genuine specimen and passed the bag to Pan Ku. Reaching into the bag and choosing by touch, without looking, Pan Ku unhesitatingly pulled out the real Li Ting-kuei creation.
Emperor Huitzung (1101-1125), the last emperor of the Northern Sung Dynasty, was so fond of painting and calligraphy that he spent more time at his painting table than in meetings with his cabinet...and lost his dynasty as a result. Inventor of the "slender gold" style of calligraphy, Huitzung was also a great connoisseur of inksticks. By his reign, the imperial reserve of Li Ting-kuei inksticks had been depleted and, consequently, the Emperor had the imperial inkstick craftsmen make him special inksticks to order. Huitzung spared no expense. Using the most expensive and rare herbs and such additives as the powder of ground pearls and gold leaf, he succeeded in producing inksticks of exceptional quality.
The contemporary leader of the Jurchen Empire in north China, also very fond of painting and calligraphy, and who admired and copied the calligraphic style invented by Emperor Huitzung, was especially anxious to obtain one of the special sticks and offered to pay one catty of gold for it, to no avail. Unable to purchase one, he ordered his own craftsmen to duplicate the special inksticks. But that also proved unsuccessful. In a fit of anger, he then cursed Huitzung's "demon inksticks," implying that there must be something supernatural about inksticks that could evade the potentate of north China's powerful empire: a case of "Gold can be obtained, but a fine inkstick is hard to come by."
If the method of duplicating Emperor Huitzung's special inksticks evaded the Jurchen monarch, the basic technique of inkstick manufacture was by no means unknown. As early as the Three Kingdom period, there were written records explaining inkstick production, and from the Sung through the Ching Dynasties (1644-1911) numerous reference works were published on the subject. One such standard reference, by Li Hsiao-mei of the Sung Dynasty, was later annotated and republished during the Ming Dynasty, and then once again, in the 19th year of the Republic of China (1930), by the library of the National Palace Museum. The latter publication included not only inkstick production, but a discussion of the merits of certain inksticks and methods of differentiation.
The first step in the production of inksticks is the collecting of soot from the combustion of organic materials. Early on, the most suitable material found for this was the wood of the pine tree. Not that other materials could not be used: what many reference works on inksticks rather mysteriously refer to as the "Yennan stone liquid" (reportedly used as a form of ink) was, in fact, nothing more than soot from burned petroleum collected and used to make inksticks. Shen She of the Sung Dynasty experimented with this rather successfully and claimed that the inkstick produced was quite good.
Nonetheless, pinewood often was the material of choice, with the pine from Hsi County in Anhuei Province considered the best. Many famous inkstick makers, including Li Ting-kuei, made their inks in that area.
The burning of the pinewood, like virtually every other step in the complicated inkstick making process, required a skilled hand and careful attention—eventually, the difference between a mediocre and fine quality inkstick. The wood needed to be fed on the fire slowly, and more wood added at just the right time. If the fire became too large and the amount of smoke too great, the soot would not be of the fineness required. So the burning was much more time and labor consuming than just building a large fire, and obviously had to be accounted for in the cost of the final product. The soot was collected on screens placed above the fire, with that portion deposited further away from the fire on the screens being finer and usable for better quality inksticks.
After the soot was collected, the next major step was the addition of resins and other materials, such as herbs and fragrances. This step was probably one of the most important in the whole process, and the techniques were kept secret. The resin was added to hold the inkstick materials together, while still allowing the inkstick to be ground smoothly and effortlessly against the inkstone. Once the ink was dry upon the paper, the resin used had to maintain its resiliency without becoming brittle or, in time, the ink would sift from the paper.
The skins of animals, such as deer or oxen, were sources of such resin. The skins had to be boiled in clear well water over a very slow fire; processes even specified which months of the year were most suitable for making such resin.
Other materials—pearl powder, powdered rhinoceros horn, eggwhites, various herbs, etc.—could be boiled together and added to the soot with the resin to increase the shininess of the ink, keep the color from fading, increase the fragrance, and maintain the resiliency of the resin, among others. It is conceivable that an inkstick of excellent quality could be decided in large measure in this step.
When the resin and herb mixture was stirred into the soot to the proper consistency, the then sticky mixture was rolled into small, ball-shaped pieces and wrapped inside a burlap cloth to prevent drying. These were then taken from the cloth and put into an earthenware vessel to be steamed over high heat. The amount of steaming time for these ink balls had to be carefully controlled.
After steaming, the ink balls, still somewhat large in size, were divided into smaller pieces and those, grasped in metal tongs, were hammered on a flat stone anvil. Each small piece had to be hammered two to three hundred times to insure the soot and resin mixed evenly. Technique here was also important: a swift hand was necessary to achieve the desired result.
The shaping of the inksticks in molds came next, while the material was still pliable. There was really no limitation on the sizes and shapes finished inksticks could take. Small and thin ones the size of a finger, and round, square, and rectangular shapes like ancient Chinese coins were just some of the possibilities. In this step, the inkstick maker could exercise a degree of externally visible artistic expression not necessarily linked to the actual quality of the inkstick. In fact, some inksticks of lower quality might be made very attractive in shape and decor and be marketed more for collection purposes than actual use. Of course, most desirable was an inkstick which in addition to being visually attractive was of high quality, for fine practical use.
Shaped inksticks were stored in beds of very fine ricestraw ash for several days to harden, then removed from the ash and hung in a cool dark place for the final curing. When hardened thoroughly inside and out, the sticks were brush-shined with a small amount of beeswax.
This somewhat simplified description of the complex inkstick making process clearly indicates the great outlay of time, labor, and expensive materials to produce an inkstick of exceptional quality. Since such sticks could only be produced in limited amounts, potential demand greatly exceeded supply; consequently, the prices which fine quality inksticks fetched were quite impressive. This not only was one of the reasons for the start of a booming business in forgeries, but also gave rise to "corporate spying" and aggressive attempts to steal trade secrets. In some instances, workers who had learned all the tricks of the trade, including the all important step of making the resin and how to add the other ingredients, would spin off on their own, eventually becoming stiff competition for former employers. The most well known example of this venerable phenomenon took place long ago.
Cheng Chun-fang, one of the best known inkstick makers of the Ming Dynasty, in order to serve the growing demand for good quality inksticks, opened a small-scale inkstick producing factory. A rather intelligent youth by the name of Fang Yu-lu, after working for Cheng Chun-fang for a period of time, learned most of his secrets for making good quality ink. Eventually, after some breach of discipline, Fang Yu-lu was fired, and decided to open his own inkstick factory to compete with Cheng Chun-fang. Adding to his own efforts what he had learned at Cheng's factory, Fang Yu-lu turned out good quality inksticks, in no way inferior to those of his former employer.
The more now that Cheng Chun-fang thought about all the effort he had put into training Fang Yu-lu, who had quickly become his number one competitor, the angrier he became. Eventually he wrote a reference work on inksticks, whose last chapter included a story, complete with illustrations, entitled The Wolf of Central Mountain, originally written by Hsieh Liang of the Sung Dynasty.
The story is of a wolf being pursued by a hunter, who would surely have taken the wolfs life had not another person come along and interceded on behalf of the wolf. But following the hunter's departure, the wolf decides to make a meal of the one who had just saved his life. The story was obviously presented to underline the ungratefulness of Fang Yu-lu.
In any case, Cheng Chun-fang and Fang Yu-lu went down in history as the two most famous inkstick makers of the Ming Dynasty. Quite a few examples of their inksticks have survived to the present day.
The Ching Dynasty brought no major innovations in the manufacture of inksticks. Famous craftsmen such as Tsao Su-kung and Hu Kai-wen continued to make high quality inksticks according to traditional methods. Excellent examples of good inksticks of that period have been passed down to the present, including a five-color, ten-inkstick set ordered by Emperor Chienlung (1736-1795), with ten of his own poems, written in imperial calligraphy, stamped upon them.
Throughout China's long and glorious artistic and literary history, its scholars have always considered a good inkstick a joy to behold and use. Easy to grind to the right consistency, it produces a good, rich black ink. As good inksticks lasted for a long time, they were something their owners grew more attached to as time went on. Just as any artisan treasures his tools, such as a sculptor his chisel, so the scholar valued his inkstick. In fact, knowing that he had the inkstick of a famous maker on his writing table, if he were so fortunate, might help inspire a calligrapher to produce greater works. The inkstick became an object of affection for the Chinese scholar, in a way which superseded its mere practical use.
Su Tung-po, an official of the Sung Dynasty and perhaps China's greatest scholar ever, and also a recognized connoisseur of the tea arts, was once teased for his love of both good inksticks and tea by the famous Sung Dynasty politician and writer Ssuma Kuang, who declared: "Tea and inksticks are exact opposites. Good tea should be white in color (the rarest tea in Sung times was white) and heavy in proportion to its volume...and the fresher the better. An inkstick, on the other hand, should be as black as possible, light relative to its size, and preferably not too newly made. How could you, good sir, profess a liking for two things so very different?"
The quick witted Su shot back, unhesitatingly: "Wonderful tea and exceptional inksticks are both most fragrant, don't you agree?" Ssuma could but shake his head in agreement.
If the scholars of the past seem to us now to have gone to rather extreme lengths to obtain inksticks of high quality, it may not be entirely fair to assume that they did so purely as a matter of personal satisfaction. True, a good inkstick was an object of scholarly delight, but there may lurk rather more important reasons behind all that.
One reference work on the four treasures of the scholar's study notes: "When the ancient scholars used inksticks, they chose nothing but the finest. And most likely, not just because of the beauty they would yield in any one day, but rather, into the future. Calligraphies of the Chin (1115-1234) and Tang Dynasties and inscribed paintings of the Sung and Yuan Dynasties, after having been passed down through the centuries, have maintained their magnificence, since their ink is still black as ever. If inferior inks were used, after not many years they would have degenerated. For this reason, one should not use inks ticks of unknown quality, but only the finest."
While some treasured calligraphic works, not even a hundred years old in some instances, are almost illegible today as a result of the use of poor quality inksticks, many even older inscribed masterpieces of Chinese painting and ancient calligraphic works, some from more than a thousand years ago, appear to us today as clear as if they had been recently accomplished. Had Tsai Hsiang, for instance, been less discerning about inksticks, perhaps this Sung Dynasty master of calligraphy would now be known in name only. Whatever the special personal satisfaction Tsai Hsiang might have gained from using an inkstick made by Li Chao, the real benefit has accrued to those later generations which have been able to appreciate Tsai's works for the past almost one thousand years (and given modern techniques for preserving such antiquities, perhaps even for another millennium).
The craftsmen of inksticks have thus played a most noble role in the preservation of important sections of China's literary and artistic tradition. And China's debt of gratitude is indeed consciously great, not only to Li Ting-kuei, but to all, named and un-named, who played roles in the development of the inkstick in China in the more than 3,000 years since carbon-based ink first came into use.