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The "Four Treasures of the Study" is one of the greatest inventions in Chinese history. It originated in the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589 AD) and is an important part of the development of traditional Chinese calligraphy.

 

The traditional ink is in the form of solid, which is made of soot and ashes after burning pine wood and glue. The intensity and saturation of the ink can be determined according to the amount of water added. At first, ink was not stored in the form of liquid or lumps as it is today, but in the form of earth and stone. When it was needed, grind the soil and stone into powder and then add water, then it became available to use. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, people tried to use soot and add some precious herbal materials to fuse the ink into the shape of bricks. The process of making ink was changed and improved.

 

The traditional brush can be traced back to the Neolithic Age and was improved by the Qing Dynasty general Meng Tian between 221-206 AD. The brush is composed of animal hair and bamboo sticks, which can absorb water and be used for a long duration. In addition, different animal hairs can produce different textures in writing and painting. The production of brushes has always been very delicate. From the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) to the Tang and Song Dynasties (960-1279 AD), the production of brushes and paper was mainly in Xuancheng, Anhui Province. The selection of materials was also very fastidious. The material needs to be selected from a wild rabbit that lives in the mountains and fields in autumn, and only a small amount of elastic arrow-shaped hair on rabbits’ back can be chosen for production, so that the produced brush can meet the requirements. Such high-quality rabbit fur was extremely hard to find at the time.

 

The inkstone, also called ink slab, was created to facilitate grinding traditional solid inks, so it evolved alongside the development of brush and ink. The inkstone's surface is smooth and has a well to store water. The different materials for the inkstone may change the quality of the ink. In addition to the most common inkstones that are carved from normal stones, there are also jade inkstones and pottery inkstones. In the past, two important ways to measure the quality of the inkstone were how quickly the ink sticks fuse with water when ground into the stone and the fineness of the fusion of carbon molecules and water molecules in the ink. The finely fused ink is dark as the shades of the night and smooth as oil. The best quality Chinese paintings have extremely high requirements for inkstones.

 

As one of the important tools for writing, the evolution of paper has gone through a very long period of time. From oracle bone to bamboo and wooden slips. The advent of paper has changed people's lives dramatically. It is usually formed by washing and drying straw, bamboo, or mulberry bark multiple times. The paper thus produced is extremely absorbent and can work perfectly with ink. As early as the Western Han Dynasty, China already had papermaking. But the significant event that people began to have a deep understanding of papermaking technology was in the first year of Yuanxing in the Eastern Han Dynasty (105 AD) - Cai Lun improved paper-making techniques. Cai Lun's paper-making method not only used more commonly produced raw materials, but also improved the quality of paper, and the price was also much cheaper. No wonder this type of paper became people’s favorite. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the demand for paper kept increasing, and the craft of making paper became more mature. During this period, many books record the process of papermaking, such as Su Yijian’s "Paper Score" in the Song Dynasty, Song Yingxing’s “Tiangong Kaiwu” in the Ming Dynasty, etc. Among them, "Tiangong Kaiwu" even has detailed operation diagrams of paper-making procedures. This is the most detailed record of paper-making technology in the world at that time.