Museum Exhibit Project

“Seal of the Emperor”

What is seal?

The chinese seal (印章 yìnzhāng) is a type of stamp that was traditionally used in the asian culture. The first ever seal that was created was in 221 BC.

Seal is a carving letter, patterns, milestones , drawing and more on human resources such as wood, stone, rubber, gold etc. This is usually used for government posts, organizations, books, as a proof and an identification of yourself. Typically used by red ink or cinnabar paste.

How is it carved?

Carving seals can follow a variety of calligraphy styles. Typical sculptures would include Chinese characters, landscapes, figures, birds, or flowers. There are two ways to carve a Chinese seal, one way is when printing it on paper, it leaves an outline of red ink, or leaves a white letter in the middle of the red background on the material.

Lots of Asians still use a personal named seal as their signature.

“Seal of the Emperor” – Korean Seal

The seal that is shown below is the first national seal that was created from Korea after more than thousands years of receiving seals from china. Most of the royal Korean seals are originally from China since they obtained their seals from Chinese emperors in the dynastic period. But after the Korean Empire was established in 1897, King Gojong abolished the Chinese Seal and created a new Seal with the inscription “Seal of the Emperor”.

For this museum exhibit project I have decided to research on Asian seal, especially on Korean seal because I have always been interested in printing and stamps. When I was starting the this assignment, I had a picture in my mind of how I wanted this project to look like in the end. But during the process, I faced a challenge of drawing the seal. Because it was my first attempt of museum exhibit layout, it did not look natural. So I changed my mind to putting the reference picture underneath the drawing which made it much more realistic. I think I have got an outcome that I was expecting in my head. One thing that could be fixed would be the sides, maybe make it less dark.

For this project I have used ClipStudio Paint as my material. I have spent about 2 to 3 hours for research, and 5 or more hours on creating layout and finishing the piece.

References