From April 21 to 25, we organized a team meeting in Brussels at the Lithic archive, to reconsider some of our research questions with a practical approach to epigraphy, like we did in spring last year, but this time with a brush and chisel in hand. This was also the first meeting of the GRUTTO Seal Society founded in October 2025 at the occasion of our exhibition and conference at Inalco.

Collective Grutto seal

In this first GRUTTO experiment, the members collaborated in the realization of a signature seal reuniting the members of the society. To each one of us, it was distributed a similar seal made of …. stone of red colour in which we proceeded to engrave a 回 print, the signature of Grutto seal society. The particularity of the project was that two or more seals of members had to be used in order to have a 回 print making it the result of a communal action. The six participants had to choose one among 68 permutations that had to be then engraved on the seals. During this process, each one of the participants had to take notice of the other members’ work so that the strokes could result in a harmonical pattern. In order to produce a cohesive iconography, the realization of each of the six permutations had to follow a strict motif allowing the perfect entanglement of the strokes. Trying to merge from this predefine structure, the members found different expedient to individualized the six seals so that some peculiarities might have been apparent in the seal itself but not in its print.

The 68 permutations

Personalization of the seal by Lia Wei

 

Six-faces variant seal for Pierre…

Another project that the members of the Grutto Seal Society tackled was the realization of a six-face seal for Pierre Magistry and his ANR project. Each member chose a (calli)graphic variant of the yi 异character used in Chinese to signify the variation. Starting from a shared standard character form, it was possible to modify its appearance following the aesthetic inclinations of each member of the society. Some opted for a more linear, squared structure; others employed arabesque lines inspired by …. style. Certain designs leaned toward abstraction, while others embraced a more figurative or symbolic approach. This diverse exploration reflected the richness of interpretation inherent in the character’s meaning. The conceptual preparation of this project was carried out in a single roll of paper –  from the search for the perfect graphic variant to its adaptation into the square form of the seal – documenting every step of the creative process.

 

Print of the six fases of the seal.

Scroll documenting the creative process.

 

 

The chess game

Lastly, we invested in an old stone chess set that became a tool for our engravings, and thus for stories of writings and civilizations. The form of the back of the board reminded us of territories and after each of us selected our pieces, knight, bishop, beheaded queen, pawn, etc., the stories of these reformed peoples practically told themselves. Four major phases emerged with their share of alliances, conquests and events. We engraved traces of their stories on the very hard stones that limited us to simple motifs linked to the statuses and functions of each figure. A game of chess among warring kingdoms and the history of writing. The result of the prints on xuan paper reveals an original work, where the seals are no longer superscriptions but principal elements, between text and image.

 

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