Recently, Meng Hui, a researcher of traditional Chinese material culture and the author of "Beauty Map", and Zhao Dongmei, professor of history at Peking University and author of "Fireworks in the World", visited the live broadcast room of CITIC Publishing Group to share topics such as the aesthetic interest embodied in the details of the daily life of ancient people under the theme of "The Beauty and Wisdom of Ancient Chinese Life".
"Beauty Map" is a collection of classical life aesthetic essays written by Meng Hui, which interprets the world of ancient Chinese women in seven parts: "Douyan", "Love", "Festival", "Red Makeup", "Costume", "Living" and "Elegant Fun"; in "Fireworks in the World - Daily Life and Life Buried in History", Zhao Dongmei interprets the daily life of ancient people from the microscopic perspective of ancient people's clothing, food, housing, walking, sitting and sleeping.
A History of Material Civilization: The "Big World" in Jasmine and Glassware
In the "small and big debate" about history, political history, military history, and intellectual history are often considered to be more important, but Meng Hui believes that in the small details of daily life in the category of ancient material culture research history, there are hidden levels of civilization history, and also reflect the level of productivity, science and technology, and the level of civilization exchanges.
Meng Hui used jasmine as an example: "We think today that jasmine is the standard of traditional Chinese life. However, Li Bai and Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty had never seen jasmine. Jasmine is not a native Chinese plant, it originates in Persia. Jasmine flowers were widely cultivated in Guangdong and Fujian provinces since the Song Dynasty because of the rise of the Maritime Silk Road. Therefore, the little jasmine flower reflects a history of overseas trade exchanges in ancient China. In addition to jasmine, gardenia, and daffodils of West Asia, they all crossed the ocean to China.
Zhao Dongmei, who wrote "Fireworks in the World", is more concerned about individuals, "We will think that our daily lives are important, pay attention to ancient individuals and their life value, and this point is common between ancient and modern times." ”
When we look at the still water flowing deep in daily life, we will see a more open, more inclusive, and inclusive Chinese civilization. "Even in those eras in Chinese history that were considered closed in political history, things from the outside continued to come in, and the material and spiritual cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries were never broken." Zhao Dongmei said.
When it comes to an elegant aesthetic life, the first thing that comes to mind may be the elegant Song Dynasty. The two authors also talk about the Song in their minds, "When it comes to life in any era, it must be distinguished in a specific context, such as the need to study whether this is the life of the poor or the rich." In fact, most of the time we talk about the elegant Song Dynasty, it is the Song of the scholar and the Song of the rich. On the basis of this distinction, we can also feel and re-evaluate our lives today, in fact, most of us are in a much better daily state of life than the general situation in ancient times. "Meng Hui believes that the most important point of the Song Dynasty is the emergence of the city well and the development of urban culture, which adds a new dimension of discussion to Chinese culture." A scholar once believed that Tang poetry is a kind of pastoral literature, and Song ci is a kind of urban literature. In the Song Dynasty, the life interests of citizens in urban life entered the aesthetic category. ”
Taking the import of incense as an example, "the level of craftsmanship in the Song Dynasty gradually became higher, the import and export industry was very strong, and the imported incense was very much, so the life of the Song Dynasty had one more aspect than we live now - the life of the Song Dynasty people was fragrant." There is also a point that we generally can't imagine, we are now paying more attention to Song porcelain, but in fact, glassware at that time was also very developed. There are local colored low-temperature glass, imported with large food glass, such as the Southern Song Dynasty peony flowers when there are a variety of vases, there is a kind of vase called big food glass bottle. What is even more interesting is that the restaurants of the Song Dynasty had food similar to our rice bowling today, which is the cheapest rice, but the plate used by the shop is a blue glass bowl, because the local low-temperature glassware is very cheap. Meng Hui introduced that these small details reflect the richness of the material life of the Song Dynasty, "The daily life of the Song Dynasty has indeed reached a new level in terms of material richness and refinement." ”
A blue glass container appearing in the Yuan Dynasty's "Water Moon Guanyin Diagram"
Infinitely close to an era
In the conversation, the two scholars said that understanding the details can sometimes change your impression of history as a whole.
Taking clothing as an example, the clothing of women in the Song Dynasty was actually exposed neck and chest. "Continuing the tradition of the late Tang Dynasty, women's clothing will wear a dress similar to a bandeau exposing the neck and chest, we look at the tomb murals left over from the Song Dynasty and find that women's chests will expose a lot of skin, and then wear a cardigan outside, the discovery of this image subverts everyone's impression of the Song Dynasty." Zhao Dongmei said.
Regarding the dressing culture of the Song people, Meng Hui said: "The clothes of the Song people are very elegant, which means that it is not red with green like the Tang Dynasty, but the elegance of color. However, women's clothes are also gorgeous, a lot of gold thread, such as Li Qingzhao's words that say 'first try the jacket golden phoenix', indicating that its clothes are sewn with gold thread. The Tomb of Huang Sheng in Fujian also unearthed clothing decorated with gold powder, gold leaf and so on. During the Song Dynasty, the maritime Silk Road trade flourished, and a large number of pearls were used to decorate collars and clothes. ”
Ancient tombs unearthed purple-brown romboss gold painted lace single-garment detailing
Regarding the aesthetics of ancient men, Zhao Dongmei specifically mentioned Xu Ke's "Liang Zhu". In the movie, Zhu Yingtai did not want to get married, and the tears shed when he cried were all red, but he was about to get on the flower car, and the red tear marks could not be covered, and the angry and corrupt Zhu Dad said: "Use my powder", which shows that Liang Zhu's story occurred in the Jin Dynasty, and the powder applied by men is more advanced than that of women.
Stills from Xu Ke's "Liang Zhu"
"The aesthetics of men in the Song Dynasty were generally more normal, but there were certainly some contents that belonged to the traditional period and were different from those we have today." Today we feel that women's privileges, such as flower viewing and perfume, were also shared by men in the Song Dynasty. Men in the Song Dynasty also had flowers, of course, some people would also refuse, such as Sima Guang, who was more pursuing simplicity, and he was reluctant to give it a hairpin. Zhao Dongmei said.
Meng Hui also shared that song dynasty men's emphasis on beauty is in another dimension: "Song Dynasty men's clothes are not necessarily beautiful, but they will be very fragrant." In the Song Dynasty, the literati tasted incense like qinqi calligraphy and painting, it was his aesthetic cultivation, some people would make their own incense, when the literati gathered, someone would take out a pill incense, light it, and everyone appreciated it like a zen. Meng Hui said.
Song Dynasty Anon. "Tian Qi Drunken Return" in the hairpin flower man part
Zhao Dongmei sighed, "Go to see the ancient people, see his joys and sorrows, you will feel that you are not alone." Through the smoke and dust of such a distant history, you will see those living beings, which are the same as you and me in the reinforced concrete jungle today, they have lived, they have struggled, they have struggled, so we are not alone. Looking at the ancients, it was actually all about looking at ourselves. ”
In the topic of crossing back to ancient life, Meng Hui said: "It is good to write through the play, in fact, it is not necessary to cross back, when we understand an era, understand that in the history of the development of Chinese civilization, there was once such a relatively free and prosperous era, there was a group of relatively perfect and beautiful groups in personality, the way they handled problems, their attitude towards life, these things if we understand, will greatly enrich our lives, and even these are part of us. From history to today. ”
"Now there are two extreme imaginations of ancient Chinese life: one is that the ancient is beautiful, and the other is that the ancient represents backwardness. In ancient times, not everything was beautiful, and there were many ugly things in the Song Dynasty. But not only the Song Dynasty, but also every dynasty had something very beautiful, and everything was constantly evolving. Meng Hui said.