13 Facts About Hu Zhengyan

Hu Zhengyan was a Chinese artist, printmaker and publisher.

Hu Zhengyan worked in calligraphy, traditional Chinese painting, and seal-carving, but was primarily a publisher, producing academic texts as well as records of his own work.

Hu Zhengyan did design the Hongguang Emperor's personal seal, and his loyalty to the dynasty was such that he largely retired from society after the emperor's capture and death in 1645.

Hu Zhengyan owned and operated an academic publishing house called the Ten Bamboo Studio, in which he practised various multi-colour printing and embossing techniques, and he employed several members of his family in this enterprise.

Hu Zhengyan's studio published seal catalogues, academic and medical texts, books on poetry, and decorative writing papers.

Hu Zhengyan died in poverty at the age of 90, sometime around late 1673 or early 1674.

Hu Zhengyan was a noted seal-carver, producing personal seals for numerous dignitaries.

Hu Zhengyan's style was rooted in the classical seal script of the Han dynasty, and he followed the Huizhou school of carving founded by his contemporary He Zhen.

Hu Zhengyan presented his creation with an essay, the Great Exhortation of the Seal, in which he bemoaned the loss of the Chongzhen Emperor's seal and begged Heaven's favour in restoring it.

Hu Zhengyan's publishing house, the Ten Bamboo Studio, produced reference works on calligraphy, poetry and art; medical textbooks; books on etymology and phonetics; and copies of, as well as commentaries on, the Confucian Classics.

At his studio, Hu Zhengyan experimented with various forms of woodblock printing, creating processes for producing multi-coloured prints and embossed printed designs.

Hu Zhengyan refined these block printing techniques by developing a process for wiping some of the ink off the blocks before printing; this enabled him to achieve gradation and modulation of shades which were not previously possible.

Hu Zhengyan used this to create white relief effects for clouds and for highlights on water or plants.