Seals can be divided into official seals and private seals. Early seals are mainly official seals as symbols of rights, which ware widely used in edicts, instruments and so on. At that time, official seals were mainly made of copper-based materials and the production process was very complex. After Sui and Tang dynasties, there were all kinds of private seals that had different characteristics in form, style and artistic requirements. Since Tang and Song dynasties, fads of collecting and appreciating private seal emerged so that the seals did not only had utility value, but also became the object of appreciation, which aroused literators’ attentions and interests. As a result, seal carving art was born .
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