Cheng Miao (English spelling)

Japanese: 程邈 - ていばく（英語表記）Cheng Miao

A calligrapher from the Qin Dynasty, China. He was from Shaanxi Province. His pen name was Yuanchen. He served the Qin Dynasty as a prison guard in a county office, but committed a crime and was imprisoned in Yunyang. While in prison, he modified the strokes in seal script to devise a style of calligraphy that was easy to copy, and presented it to the authorities. He was pardoned and appointed as a censor. One theory is that the style was created to serve slaves, so it was called clerical script. He is said to be the founder of clerical script, but the style of clerical script naturally evolved from seal script, and it cannot be considered a personal creation.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia About Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Information

Japanese:

中国，秦の書家。下けい (陝西省) の人。字は元岑 (げんしん) 。秦に仕えて衙県 (がけん) の獄吏をしていたが，罪を犯して雲陽の獄につながれ，獄中にあって篆書の筆画を加減して，書写に便利な書体を考案して奏上し，その功により罪を許されて御史の官についた。一説に徒隷に施すために生れたので隷書と呼んだという。彼は隷書の創始者といわれるが，隷書の体は篆書から自然に発生したもので個人的な創始とは考えられない。

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