Cathay Ink › Guides › The five Chinese calligraphy scripts, explained with one name
The five Chinese calligraphy scripts, explained with one name
Seal, clerical, regular, running and cursive script: when each arose, how it looks, how legible it is, and which to choose for a name, a seal or a tattoo, shown with the same name written in each.
Chinese calligraphy has five scripts, and they are a history as much as a set of styles: seal script (篆书) from the bronze age, clerical (隶书) from the Han, regular (楷书) from the end of the Han, and the two faster hands, running (行书) and cursive (草书), that grew out of writing quickly. A calligrapher learns them in roughly that order, and a name looks different in each. The examples on this page are the same three characters, 诸葛亮 (Zhūgě Liàng, the strategist of the Three Kingdoms), written in four of the five.
| Script | Chinese | Period | Look | Legibility | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seal | 篆书 zhuànshū | before 200 BC, standardised under Qin | even, rounded lines, symmetrical, tall | low; many forms differ from modern characters | seals, formal titles, tattoos meant to look ancient |
| Clerical | 隶书 lìshū | Han dynasty, 200 BC to 200 AD | wide and flat, "silkworm head and swallow tail" strokes | high | plaques, posters, names that should look stately |
| Regular | 楷书 kǎishū | from about 200 AD; the standard since the Tang | upright, every stroke separate, the printed form | highest | learning, documents, anything that must be read |
| Running | 行书 xíngshū | from the 3rd century; the everyday elegant hand | strokes linked, fluent, still readable | high | letters, signatures, most framed names |
| Cursive | 草书 cǎoshū | from the Han, matured in the Tang | strokes merged, characters abbreviated, written in one rush | low | art pieces, expressive work for those who can read it |
Seal script, 篆书
The oldest script still written. Small seal script (小篆) is the form Qin Shi Huang's minister Li Si standardised around 220 BC, and it is the script carved into name seals to this day, which is where the English name comes from. Lines are even in thickness, curves are round, and the characters are tall and symmetrical; the brush moves slowly and never shows its tip. Many seal-script forms predate the modern character and look like pictures of what they mean, which is part of the charm and the reason it is hard to read without training. For a seal it is the correct script; for a tattoo it is the one most likely to be taken for decoration by a Chinese reader, which may or may not be what you want.
Clerical script, 隶书
The script of the Han dynasty, developed by clerks who needed to write faster than seal script allowed. Characters are wider than they are tall, and the signature stroke is the horizontal that begins with a thick "silkworm head" and ends in a flared "swallow tail". It is formal without being stiff, easy to read, and it photographs well at any size, which makes it a good choice for a framed name or a plaque. The famous Han stele inscriptions, such as the Cao Quan Stele (曹全碑), are the models calligraphers copy.
Regular script, 楷书
The standard script: every stroke written separately, in a fixed order, with the proportions printed books still follow. It emerged at the end of the Han and was perfected by the Tang masters Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan, whose styles are still the three a student chooses between. Regular script is what children learn first and what a name looks like on an official document. As art it is the most demanding precisely because nothing is hidden: a weak stroke has nowhere to go. We do not offer it as a collection, because for a name on paper the running hand says the same thing with more life.
Running script, 行书
The everyday hand of every educated writer for seventeen centuries, and the script of the most famous piece of calligraphy in existence, Wang Xizhi's Preface to the Orchid Pavilion (兰亭序, 353 AD). Strokes within a character link up, some are simplified, and the brush rarely leaves the paper between them, but the character shapes stay recognisable. It is fluent, personal and readable at the same time, which is why it is the script we write first for a name and the one we recommend for a tattoo that has to be read.
Cursive script, 草书
The fastest script and the most abstract. Whole characters are reduced to a few linked movements, several characters can be written in one stroke, and the conventions of abbreviation are a study in themselves; the Tang masters Zhang Xu and Huai Su wrote cursive that contemporaries compared to drunken dancing. Chinese readers without training cannot reliably read it, so it is a script for art rather than information. In a collection it is the piece that looks most like painting.
Which to choose
For a seal, seal script, without exception. For a framed name or a poster, running script if you want it to read as handwriting, clerical if you want it to read as an inscription. For a tattoo, running or clerical, because both stay legible at two centimetres and neither will be mistaken for decoration. Cursive is the one to choose when you already have the others and want the wild one.
Our Calligraphy collection writes a name in running, cursive, clerical and seal script, so you see all four before choosing which to put on a wall. The Seal collection sets the name in a genuine seal-script typeface, because on a seal correctness of form matters more than the brush.
Questions
Is regular script the same as printed Chinese?
Printed Chinese (宋体, the Song typeface) descends from regular script but is a woodblock-cutter's style, with thin horizontals and thick verticals. Handwritten regular script is rounder and more varied. The character shapes are the same.
Can one name be written in all five scripts?
Yes; any modern character has a form in each, though the seal-script form may look quite different. Some rare modern characters have no attested seal form and calligraphers reconstruct one from the components.
Which script is most traditional for a name?
On a seal, seal script. On paper, running script has been the normal script for names and signatures since the Jin dynasty.
Which script is easiest to learn?
Regular, then clerical. Running script is learned after regular; seal and cursive are specialist studies.
Names and characters in this guide follow the rules we use when proposing names: common simplified characters, a surname from the Hundred Family Surnames, no awkward homophones. Where a guide says a native speaker reviewed it, the review date is above.