中国印章

　　印章就是图章。中国历代官、私所用的印章有印信、朱记、合同、符、契等等不同的称谓，而帝王所用的印章古时称玺、印、宝、章等。据史料记载，印章在战国时代已普遍使用。印章的制作是将篆隶等字体、图像用阴、阳的形式雕刻而成，形状以圆、方为主。印章用朱色钤盖，除日常应用外，又多用于书画题识，逐渐成为中国特有的艺术形式之一。

　　Chinese Seal

　　A seal can also be defined as a stamp. Boththe Chinese official and private seal of various dynasties have different titles,such as stamp, zhu note, contract, fu, lease and others. The seals used by theemperors of ancient China were called xi, yin, bao, etc. According to historicalrecords, seals were widely used during the Warring States Period(475BC-221BC).The making of a seal is to engrave fonts, such as seal characters and officialscript and so on; or images in the form of intaglio and embossment into theseal, basically shaped as round or square. Covered with a vermilion overlay, theChinese seal is not only used in daily life, but it is also used to representsignatures on paintings and calligraphies. It is gradually becoming one ofChina’s unique artworks.