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I noticed that in various works of Japanese art, the artists sign their work
with a seal whose contents range from fairly regular kanji to very abstract
variations of kanji. I have also seen it used in calligraphy, as shown in the
example below.

I heard that this is called "seal script", but no one has been able to point
me to any more information on it beyond Wikipedia. Is there a name for this
form of writing and better resources for learning about it?

![Photograph of a piece of Japanese artwork with calligraphy in an unknown
script.](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9qb29.png)
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kanji orthography archaic-language calligraphy
What is the proper term for the use of archaic kanji?
The kanji script that you see in the first (rightmost) line of your picture,
as well as in the seal at the bottom left is called 篆書体【てんしょたい】.
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It is 篆書 ( _Mandarin_ //tʂʷan ʂu//), and more precisely it is 小篆 ( _Mandarin_
//ɕʲɑu tʂʷan//).

  * 篆 means write, seal
  * 書 means write/writing, books etc.
  * 小 means tiny, small.

There exists another kind of 篆書 is called 大篆 (大 "big, huge"). The Chinese
written in the top-right corner are 枝頭覓春.

  * 枝 branch, twig
  * 頭 head, top
  * 覓 find, search, seek, get
  * 春 spring (the season)

Today 篆書 is no longer used in daily hand writing but in artworks only, for
example calligraphy pieces or paintings. But about two thousands years ago, it
was used in formal writing and government documents but not just artworks. (It
was formalized by the first great empire of China.)

(Ha, I am a native Chinese speaker and I don't know much about Japanese
language. I hope my answer can help you. Just tell me if I can bring you more
infos.)
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