Special report:
2008 Olympic
Games
BEIJING, July 7 -- One
year after Beijing won the rights to host the Games, organizers launched a
contest in a bid to find a special logo for China's largest public event.
Seasoned advertising man, Guo Chunning, beat 1,300
other professionals with his entry - a powerful seal, which drew from history
and reflected China's modern progress.
Seal
cutting is a time-honored art among the literati and dates back to the Spring
and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). The Chinese character for a seal is composed of
two words: zhua, which means hand, and jie, a tally issued by a ruler to
generals or envoys as credentials.
Originally, dukes and princes handed a tally to their
trustees to perform a difficult mission. The seal stood for conferment,
responsibility and obligation.
As a symbol for trust and promise, a seal paves the
way for clear communication and authenticity of the message.
Chinese believe winning the 2008 bid represented both
the trust of the Olympic family as well as a promise made on behalf of the 1.3
billion Chinese people.
On July 13, 2001, the Beijing delegation solemnly
proclaimed in Moscow that China would go all out to make the 2008 Olympic Games
a phenomenal success.
The unique seal serves as a testimony that "for the
world's good faith in us, we shall requite with success and honor".
A Chinese seal is always red, which also symbolizes
the burning Olympic flame.
For millenniums, red has been the color for supreme
happiness, widely used for grand or blissful occasions. This auspicious color
was chosen for the national flag when the People's Republic of China was
established in 1949.
A seal was also part of a Chinese scholar's standard
paraphernalia.
As an art form, seal cutting imposes exact demands
upon scholar-artists, in terms of calligraphy, layout and line.
One's work must be rich in flavor, grand and lofty in
taste, effortless in craftsmanship, and most important of all, the work should
in itself be rich with meaning.
The 2008 emblem is an amazing enigma for connoisseurs
and veterans.
For one thing, it looks like the Chinese character of
wen, short for wenhua, which means culture or civilization.
As one of the world's ancient civilizations, China
contributes a rich legacy of sports.
Qigong and martial arts are but two of the most
well-known varieties. Modern archery, shooting and skiing have evidently evolved
from ancient Chinese recreation and sports.
The Olympic seal also resembles the Chinese character
jing, which means Beijing, a city that has thousands of years of history.
From a different angle, one can also see a girl
dancing with a red silk ribbon. She is full of youthful vigor and feminine grace
and is welcoming guests and athletes from all over the world.
Another reading reveals a human figure sprinting to
the finish line. He is celebrating Olympic athleticism and is the flower of life
in full blossom. He is growing tall in the bright Olympic sun.
The designer finally chisels the English word
"Beijing", and the Arabic figures "2008" together in archaic calligraphy
styles.
(Source: China Daily)
