Earthly Beggar

TAIWAN

The “earthly beggars,” as described in Extraordinary Stories from Sutras and Vinayas, refer to five Indian monks who lived on a mountain. Each day, they would leave the mountain early in the morning to beg for food all day, and upon their return the sun would have set. The story illustrates the strict and disciplined manner in which monks were traditionally required to beg for food.
It was loosely based on this concept that Chang Dai-Chien requested Zeng Shaojie to carve this particular piece; the seal was intended as a form of self-ridicule for putting on an art exhibition in order to sell paintings, an attempt akin to begging in Chang’s eyes.
Stylistically, the seal adopts the calligraphic form of ancient stone and vessel inscriptions. The piece is carved with great precision and lines that appear thin, smooth, and round. Sparse on the top half, while somewhat compacted on the bottom, the overall layout is both clever and vivid.
Zeng was an artist from Henan who began practicing seal engraving at age 14. Influenced by the various styles of Huang Shiling, in his later years, he learned from studying ancient imperial seals. Over the course of 30 years, Zeng collected copies of famous works created in seal script, and after carefully studying and selecting valuable elements from each, he eventually created his own seal script style.