Bronze-script lexicon — 420 phrases in gold on black

Bronze-Script Lexicon — 420 Phrases

The whole Classic re-written in bronze script — the atelier's own alphabet for seals, symbols and private marks.

Year
2016 – ongoing
Status
Ongoing
Form
Seal & personal symbol
Materials
Designed characters; realised in cast bronze, carved stone, engraved metal, gold leaf on wall
Dimensions
420 phrases · applied at any scale

The work

Bronze script — the writing cast into ritual vessels three thousand years ago — was the first Chinese script to be designed rather than scratched. The atelier has re-drawn 420 phrases from the Classic in this script, each one researched from oracle-bone and bronze sources and then re-designed as a single, living form.

From this lexicon come the atelier's most personal commissions: a family name cast in bronze, a founding date carved into a seal, a wall of gold characters written for one building.

Bronze-script disc — study
Lu Renjie painting bronze-script figures in gold on a raw concrete wall
Signet ring engraved with bronze-script — on white

Cultural source

Oracle-bone script, Zhou bronze inscriptions, Zhou-dynasty large seal script; the vocabulary of the Shanhai Jing.

The artist's transformation

Scholarly accuracy first, then authorship: every character can be traced to its source and is nonetheless unmistakably the atelier's hand.

Making

Research → drawing → vector master → cast, carved, engraved or painted by hand at the commissioned scale.

Scale & variation

A signet ring; a seal set; a bronze plaque; a mural; a façade.

Placement

Personal symbols, corporate marks, thresholds, feature walls.

Certificate & provenance

Every completed commission is delivered with a certificate of authenticity, a unique work ID, a cultural source note and a making record, and is entered into the atelier's private provenance archive.

Commission

Commission a work in this direction

Made to order, price on request; installations are project-based.

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