The chop is apart of the daily life of the Chinese people since the chop was often used, as a seal the characters that usually appear on a chop are known as seal type characters. 

Chops have also existed in the western world for sometime but they have been mainly used for pictures gradually developing into the arts of woodcuts and relief painting. 

The Chinese art of chop carving can be traced to the period of pottery civilization about four thousand years ago. This is a piece of carved pottery from that period. 

With the gradually development of the art of calligraphy the art of chop carving has become a unique Chinese art. The seal type characters are a square end shape and quite flexible in there composition. They are easy displayed on the small area of a chop such a style is seldom used in writing today but has been retained in the art of chop writing. 

The early evidence today of chops (chop) are the chops (chop) used during the song dynasty 1800-1400 BC those are very rarely found today. They were only and frequently used to establish ones identity. 

The official and private chop, (chop) which was used to show identity, was developed during the Chow dynasty. They had different shapes like triangles, squares, rounds, bells and rectangles. 

There were also chops of graphics, lucky words, and abrogation. 

We can see that chops served in the practical but also esthetic and spiritual purposes as well. 

Qin Shi-huang the tyrant of the Qin dynasty started to use jade as his grand chop, the common people used chops used of less valuable materials. 

The small seal type characters were adopted as the official script. 

The sizes and shapes of chops were also unified under Qin Shi-huang rule. 

The style of chops in the Han dynasty were heavy and steady it is the best style to start with when learning the art of chop carving. 

The Antilles is quite interesting on this seal. 

Cursive style bird and fish style and the intense style were the common types of chops in the Han dynasty.  

NEXT