Zhang Jun 張鈞
Here’s an interesting seal by early Chinese artist Zhang Jun (張鈞), though I have no other information than his name. I like the design, even though no character touches any other or any edge—each floats independently in a blank space. It does have a nicely ancient quality to the carving technique, but what intrigues me are the dots at the lower right of several characters, which certainly add interest to the design. We often see two short parallel lines, like an “equals” sign below characters that indicate that the character above is understood to be repeated (but not to be confused with two longer lines that indicate the number “two” or may be part of another character). None of these possible interpretations is the reason for the dots in this carving, which remain a mystery to me for anything other than decorative purposes.
Here’s an example of two short lines in the lower right section of this seal that are used to indicate a duplication of the character above (binbin 彬彬 means “refined, gentle, and elegant”).
Here’s a seal carving that uses two parallel lines in the upper right corner, which is the character for the number “two.”
This seal has two full-width parallel lines in the bottom right corner that are meant to be read as connected to the lines and rectangles above as part of a whole character.
If not just for decoration, let me know if you can explain the reason these dots are here.