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The Song Dynasty was the most glorious and prosperous era of Chinese classical culture, with a highly developed commodity economy, and Mr. Chen Yinke, a master of Chinese culture, once said that the culture of the Chinese nation has evolved over thousands of years and was created in the era of the Zhao and Song dynasties.
During the Song Dynasty, the development of traditional Chinese culture and aesthetics reached its peak, and the accommodation of art and life constituted the source of Song-style life aesthetics.
The Song people reached unprecedented heights in the pursuit of spiritual life and had a high enthusiasm for the present life.
For example, the Song people's "Four Elegances of Life" are also known as "Four Kinds of Idle Affairs" of burning incense, ordering tea, hanging paintings and flower arrangement.
They elevated everyday life to the realm of art, which is a very elegant art for us, but for the Song people, it is just the daily life of life.
From the perspective of the development of ancient life aesthetics in the mainland, the life aesthetics of the Song Dynasty is a model form of Chinese classical life aesthetics, which not only inherits the "internal turn" of Chinese classical aesthetics since the Middle and Tang Dynasties, but also indirectly opens up the extravagant style of life aesthetics since the end of the Ming Dynasty.
So, in the ancient and modern dynasties, why did the Song Dynasty attract the yearning of generations of people with its unique life aesthetics?
What kind of life do they admire, and are these aesthetics vassally elegant or beautiful?
1. Song Dynasty gold and silver earrings
As an important category of traditional Chinese jewelry, gold and silver earrings are a bright star in the long history and culture of the mainland.
The biggest feature of the Song Dynasty gold and silver earrings is that they are close to daily life, and combined with the folk beliefs of the people, they present a rich and colorful picture of life for the world.
We can always find their love and beauty for earrings in the poems of the Song people, such as Xue Shishi's "Ji Mengqu", there is "the eyebrows are lightly painted with spring, and the ears are dazzling and hanging beads".
Another example is Deng Su's "Huanxi Sha", there is a beautiful poem of "half-drunk leaning on people and falling hairpins, and the fragrance of heaven does not count Hainan Shen". Dazzling and hanging pearls".
The skills of traditional Chinese craftsmen are vividly displayed in the design of earrings, and they give the earrings with ingenuity and luxurious materials, intuitively showing the identity and taste of the wearer.
These decorations play the role of the finishing touch to the overall makeup of women, which has great artistic aesthetic value and can reflect the life aesthetics and aesthetic ideals of the Song people.
2. Advocating nature and writing about nature
Ancient Chinese thinkers believed that the natural world is a large life world, and all things in heaven and earth contain lively vitality and business, which are the most worthy of viewing.
In this kind of viewing, people experience the realm of the unity of man and all things, so as to get great spiritual pleasure.
Cheng Hao, a physicist in the Northern Song Dynasty, proposed "learning from things" and said: "The business of all things is the most impressive." "The Song people especially pursue to create an atmosphere of beauty in ordinary daily life, and are good at discovering and creating beauty from the small things of ordinary life.
Painting is also keen on the "small" interest, the Song people like to paint sketches, a flower, grass and insects can be into the painting, full of enthusiasm for the natural life of the detailed depiction, and "to write God", painting the love of life, longing and the heart of leisure and elegance.
The Song people were still elegant, and plain and natural were the highest state of artistic aesthetic pursuit in the Song Dynasty, and under the influence of this concept, they began to pay attention to the natural things around them.
Melons, fruits, flowers and trees have become the theme of the Song Dynasty earrings ornamentation, and its pattern design is full of the simplicity and truth of life, fresh and handsome, and the earrings of life can be thousands of miles between square inches.
The Song people's pursuit of "Gewu" is a spirit of Song painting, which is mainly manifested in meticulous observation and tireless pursuit of details and truthfulness.
Such a realistic attitude of "lattice objects" is also projected into the design of gold and silver earrings, so its decorative shape is also biased towards realism.
However, the Song people's spirit of Gewu was also influenced by the leisure style of the Song Dynasty, so they also attached great importance to the exploration and pursuit of spiritual meaning and romantic ideals.
The development of flower and bird painting in the Song Dynasty injected new energy and vitality into the design of decorative patterns, and had a profound impact on the design of gold and silver ear ornaments.
Song Double Phoenix Pure Gold Earrings (1 pair)
The Song people like to use flowers as decorations, and flowers are the most common protagonists in gold and silver ear ornaments.
The Song people love flowers, love flower arrangement, and love flowers, and in the pattern design of gold and silver ear ornaments, there are naturally four seasonal flowers with sketch-style folded branch flowers, such as plum blossoms, chrysanthemums (see Figure 1), sunflowers, lotus flowers, etc.
The shapes are all vivid, but they are not exactly the same as the real flower prototypes. In the Song Dynasty, gold and silver earrings decorated with flowers were artistically processed by craftsmen on branches, leaves, flowers and other parts.
Drawing design inspiration from the natural world and people's lives, and boldly exerting artistic imagination to create realistic patterns that are both delicate and natural and have a unique charm, such as the "handful of lotus" pattern earrings unearthed from Changde Sanxiang Distillery (see Figure 2) is very special.
The ornament is a half-open lotus flower, a lotus pod and a bent lotus leaf, and the following is a total bundle of flower knots, and the overall shape of the earrings is like a round of crescent moon.
The shape of the lotus, lotus pod and lotus leaf is more realistic, but it is extremely smart, and it is a highly artistic ear ornament pattern.
Top Left: Gold Crystal Purple Eggplant Earrings Bottom Left: Golden Lotus Earrings Top Right: Golden Lychee Earrings Bottom Right: Golden Chrysanthemum Flower Earrings
Moreover, melon and fruit earrings are also common in the Song Dynasty earrings, and their prototypes are all from nature and the public's favorite melons and vegetables, such as melons, lychees, pomegranates, eggplants, etc., and most of the decorations are more realistic.
For example, the golden lychee earrings unearthed from the Song tomb in Sanyanggang Town, Taoyuan, Changde (see Figure 3).
The overall shape is exquisite: a bunch of golden lychees is wrapped in several drooping gold leaves, and the shape of the leaves and lychees is more realistic, but extremely smart, and the design concept is extremely ingenious, and its shape may be like the Song painting sketch "Bamboo Branches" (see Fig. 4).
As a powder or reference schema. In order to match the style of the earrings, many melon and fruit earrings in the Song Dynasty were designed by craftsmen to adopt the composition of the ornament according to the instrument, and the choice was appropriate, and the main and secondary and sparse arrangements were very artistic.
The decoration style is simple and elegant, delicate and exquisite, and full of life interest.
Golden wear jade cigu leaf earrings unearthed from the tomb of Yuan Huang in Yuanling, Hunan
2. Love life
The prosperous market life made the earrings full of different feelings of life, and the economy of the Song Dynasty continued to develop and the social and political environment was relatively stable.
The emphasis on culture and education and the improvement of cultural level have had a great impact on social customs and have formed their own characteristics of the times.
The Song Dynasty had a prosperous and developed economy and trade and a prosperous and lively urban life.
"When the moon is lit and the snow is blooming, the begging climbs the heights and teaches the pond to play in the garden. Raise your eyes to the green building painting pavilion, embroidered household bead curtain. The carved car is stationed in the heavenly street, the BMW is competing on the royal road, the gold is dazzling, Luo Qi is fragrant, the new voice is smiling in Liu Mo Huaqu, and the orchestra is tuned in the teahouse wine shop......"
It records the prosperity of the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty.
The development of commerce in the Song Dynasty greatly improved the material life of ordinary citizens, and also enriched the spiritual and cultural life of citizens. The most direct embodiment of citizen culture is social folk customs.
Folk customs are an important aesthetic field, which contains the picture of life and history, as well as the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of the common people.
The rapid development of the commodity economy and the further secularization of urban life in the Song Dynasty led to a slight decline in the influence of religion on social life, and religion became more secularized. The ranks of the market class and citizens rose and grew rapidly.
It promoted the prosperity of the folk culture and the prosperity of the market culture, and the Song people advocated the concept of ordinary heart and Buddhism in daily life.
Naturally, it will lead to the production of new decorative patterns full of market atmosphere, the popularization of elegant patterns and the folk customs of religious patterns, which also makes the ear ornament patterns tend to be popular, auspicious and full of life interest.
After the Song Dynasty, due to the popularity of earrings, there were many private workshops for gold and silverware, and the production of earrings was mostly made by folk craftsmen.
This further promotes the change of the concept of earring production, and most of its pattern design themes contain festive and auspicious meanings and a strong market atmosphere, which is the artistic image that ordinary people like to see and live.
In addition to the traditional auspicious patterns, some Buddhist images also began to combine with folk auspicious meanings to form patterns.
Such as "boy holding lotus", "lotus birth" and "a lotus" pattern. Lotus has the meaning of happiness and auspiciousness, and is mostly used to bless love, marriage, and prosperity of children and grandchildren.
In traditional Chinese Confucianism, lotus is the embodiment of truth, goodness and beauty, and in Buddhism, it symbolizes spiritual sublimation and ideals. The lotus flower was perfectly combined with Chinese culture and was loved by all classes in the Song Dynasty.
The upper classes believed that the lotus was a symbol of noble character, and the common people liked auspicious wishes such as "Lian (lotus) gave birth to a noble son".
For example, a pair of gold earrings of metamorphosis unearthed from the gold and silver cellar of the Song Dynasty in Jinan (see Figure 5) are a rare artistic treasure.
The boy's face is plump, his demeanor is serene, he wears a flower crown on his head, and his feet are in full bloom lotus flowers, and the earrings are exquisitely crafted and meticulously carved, and the lifelike patterns contain people's good wishes for children and grandchildren.
Folk craftsmen come from ordinary people in the market, and the patterns they create mainly come from their daily lives.
The overall social atmosphere of the Song Dynasty was "emphasizing literature over martial arts".
Let people be willing to calm down, love life, enjoy life, and the happiness index is relatively high. It is out of love that they will have such leisure and leisure in daily life, and will have the mind and time to pay attention to and discover the beauty of ordinary things in life.
Therefore, many earrings of various flowers and fruits that are common in front of ordinary people's houses, behind the house, and in the fields appear, and people infiltrate the beautiful vision of good wishes and auspicious meanings of life into the design of earrings.
It embodies a strong secular belief and a rich and simple life atmosphere.
People use symbolism, metaphor, pun, homophony and other techniques to skillfully endow these "images" in life with auspicious and beautiful meanings in the earrings.
For example, most of the popular fruit patterns at that time meant that the descendants were extended, more children and more blessings, and good luck, and the theme of the pattern mostly contained festive and auspicious meanings, which was a very life-like image.
Another example is ripe pomegranate, sunflower, purple eggplant pattern, etc., "purple eggplant" has the meaning of "purple robe". Another example is the homonym between "lychee" and "Lizi", which has the meaning of seeking a child.
It is considered an auspicious and prolific fruit...... These fruit patterns convey the intimate interest of life, and also convey people's infinite yearning and longing for a better life.
The relaxed and stable social environment of the Song Dynasty made the life of the Song people very exquisite and leisurely, and the Song people loved life, loved to enjoy and would enjoy, even today we seem to be incomparable.
The prosperous market life makes the earrings full of different feelings of life, such as the gold earrings with lotus vase and mandarin duck pattern unearthed from the cellar of Luozhou City Ruins in Caohe Town, Qichun County, Hubei Province (see Figure 6).
It is a very vivid reflection of the Song Dynasty living room flower arrangement customs and leisure daily life, the creative concept of this pair of gold earrings are from the ordinary life of the bottle flowers, the craftsmen on this basis to extend and recreate.
It is a synthesis of beautiful auspicious patterns, expressing people's wishes for happiness: from top to bottom, the earrings are lotus leaves, lotus fruits, vases, flowers, mandarin ducks and knife-shaped charms.
The vase shape of the earrings is taken from the style of a treasure vase, with a silk knot neck and a long belt hanging, the bottle body is separated by four strings, and the upper part is decorated with three coiled branches and curly grass.
The lower part is made of a week of Yanglian, and the long belt that hangs down from the bottleneck is rolled outward on both sides of the Yanglian to make a ring, and there is a fish pendant in each ring.
There is a small ring hanging under the foot of the vase, a flower in the ring and a lotus, and a winged mandarin duck pendant is tied under the lotus, the tassel is decorated at the foot of the mandarin duck, and the stamens and branches are sparse in the vase, like a corner of the lotus pond in summer.
3. "Meaning in Things"
The Song Dynasty was an era of emphasizing literature over martial arts, and the ruling class highly respected culture and education, attached great importance to the imperial examination, and regardless of their background, they promoted the practice of "entering the poor family" to recruit talents.
So that talented ordinary people can change their fate through reading, "the court is Tian Shelang, and the evening is the Tianzi Hall" became the goal pursued by the literati, so that the literati class in the Song Dynasty rose rapidly, and became the backbone of society together with the citizen class.
From the central to the local level, great importance was attached to the development of culture, and there were many literati in various places, and in this development background, the aesthetics of the Song Dynasty were influenced by the feelings of the literati. For the literati of the Song Dynasty, art was a way to cultivate their own character.
They pursued inner spiritual pleasure and tranquility in the noisy social environment, and the literati of the Song Dynasty loved to enjoy flowers and plants, express their emotions through flowers and plants, and use things to express their aspirations and use things to metaphor their hearts.
Plum blossoms, bamboos, chrysanthemums and lotus flowers have become symbols of the literati's character because of their natural attributes.
The pursuit of the "image outside the form" of supporting the words and aspirations and borrowing the lyricism of things. They like to use plum blossoms, bamboos, chrysanthemums and lotus flowers and other daily life objects as carriers to express their own tastes and feelings, and express their spiritual character.
The aesthetic characteristics and aesthetic methods of the literati doctors of the Song Dynasty influenced the upper class and the common people at that time, and the literati's interests penetrated from the spiritual realm to the material life.
For example, the various like-like shapes and the concept of borrowing objects and metaphors reflected in the gold and silver jewelry of the Song Dynasty were influenced by the interests of the literati. In the Song Dynasty, when the style of culture prevailed, craftsmen would give metaphorical feelings and aspirations to the design of shapes and patterns:
They love to reproduce their artistic conception in the form of natural objects, and they also love to use the artistic conception of patterns to synaesthete the artistic conception of poetry and painting.
At the same time, this idea will also affect the inner charm and development of the design of gold and silver jewelry patterns, so the "four gentlemen" of plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum, which are used to compare the spiritual character of the literati, have become popular themes for decorative patterns at that time.
Plum blossoms, bamboo sluggers, chrysanthemums and lotus flowers were also common patterns in Song Dynasty gold and silver ear ornaments, and even women's jewelry needed to express cultural connotations and ideological aspirations, such as plum blossoms blooming alone in the snow.
It has a proud iron bone ice heart, which is often used to symbolize people's noble and refined temperament. Plum blossom-shaped gold earrings from the Southern Song Dynasty in the Huzhou Museum in Zhejiang Province (see Fig. 7).
The main body is shaped by two double-petaled plum blossoms connected by one large and one small, the heart of the two plum blossoms coincides, the petals of the two plum blossoms are staggered, and the petals of the small plum blossom are between the two petals of the large plum blossom.
The plum blossom stamen is welded by very fine gold beads, the plum blossom shape is more realistic, the workmanship is extremely exquisite, and the overall design is full of elegant and agile atmosphere.
Song Dynasty women's jewelry often appears in the pattern of bamboo, reflecting the Song people's preference for bamboo, which is evergreen and undefeated, symbolizing vitality and longevity. The bamboo is hollow, a symbol of modesty.
Bamboo bends but does not break, folds and continues, symbolizes softness and rigidity, bamboo can well express the artistic conception of the literati, Song Wang Anshi said in "Yongzhu": people are born thin, since Xu Gaocai is older and more rigid. It once rained and dew with artemisia terrestris, and finally followed the pines and cypresses to the frost.
Bamboo-related ornamentation was very common in Song Dynasty earrings, and gold earrings in the shape of bamboo leaves are now in the Changzhou Museum in Jiangsu Province (see Fig. 8).
The use of hammering, engraving technology in the bamboo leaf shape to decorate six plum blossoms, engraved plum blossoms have the effect of high relief, rich and elegant. A pair of bamboo-shaped gold earrings excavated in the Southern Song Dynasty and now in a private collection (see Fig. 9).
The main body of the ring body is bamboo-shaped, and the bamboo is bent into a crescent shape, and the overall shape is relatively simple, but full of fun. The chrysanthemum, known as the "gentleman in the flower", blooms in late autumn, stands tall and tall, does not wither in the cold, and has a noble and elegant temperament.
Therefore, chrysanthemums have become an important theme for the Song people to "feel the origin of things" and "borrow things to metaphor". Zhu Shuzhen of the Song Dynasty praised chrysanthemums with great enthusiasm and wrote about the noble character of chrysanthemums, she wrote in "Chrysanthemums":
"The soil flowers can be white and red, and they can still love this work in the evening. I'd rather hold the incense branches and be old than dance with the yellow leaves in the autumn breeze. "The poems and lyrics used for words, Mingdao, and Bide were borrowed by market artists in the Song Dynasty, and they created ornaments that were more interesting to the literati.
In order to pay tribute to the noble character of the literati, they "mean things", so that when people wear jewelry, they can also understand the desirable noble beauty and leisurely feelings of forgetting the world. Silver-gilt chrysanthemum earrings in the Lin'an Museum (see Fig. 10).
The upper part of the earrings is engraved with a chrysanthemum, and the lower part is carved with two layers of auspicious clouds, and the edges of the chrysanthemum petals and auspicious clouds are engraved with beads, and the overall shape is very agile and full of vitality, giving people an infinite meaning.
The lotus flower is one of the popular decorative patterns in the Song Dynasty, and it is a plant loved by the literati of the Song Dynasty. The lotus flower is not stained by the mud, which is not only a symbol of noble character, but also a symbol of beautiful love, and the meaning of the lotus pattern is very rich.
Song Yang Wanli wrote in "Autumn Cool Evening Steps": "Autumn is sad and unavoidable, and the light cold is a lovely day."
The green pond is full of red flowers, and the lotus leaves are still the smallest money. The poet uses the vitality of the lotus flower and the emotion of giving birth to hope to express his optimistic and open-minded attitude towards life. The golden silk bottle lotus earrings unearthed in the kiln of Luozhou in Qichun (see Fig. 11).
It is made by the welding process, the pure gold is sawn into a thin and narrow strip, and then a four-sided vase is welded, and the four sides of the bottle are decorated with three rolls of ruyi heads.
A pair of double ringed ears are decorated on both sides of the vase, and the bottom of the vase is made of plain gold sheets. In the vase is a bunch of two peach blossoms and lotus flowers welded with gold wire.
The borders that make up the vase and the flowers are covered with beads like millet grains, and the earrings are beautifully composed and delicate. The Song Dynasty was a desirable and charming era, and was known as a dynasty that was very suitable for life and happiness.
Her charm lies not only in her elegant lifestyle, but also in the ideals and aesthetic attitudes she carries behind it. The simple and elegant Song-style aesthetics once led the world for a thousand years.
epilogue
The Song people pursued beauty, integrated beauty into daily life, and were good at discovering the poetry in life.
The Song Dynasty was one of the most prosperous eras in Chinese history in terms of economy, culture and education, and economic development also promoted the development of civic culture, and the brilliant material and spiritual civilization was reflected in the lives of ordinary people:
They pick up the scent of birds and flowers in nature and hang them on their chests or decorate them in their ears.
The life of the Song people is emotional, the soul is poetic, even the people at the bottom of the society can be particularly sensitive to beauty. They can live an ordinary life very elegantly without relying too much on material things.
They love flowers and flower arrangement, and they can't afford to buy vases, so they use small altars to arrange flowers to appreciate, and they really live a life of survival.
The Song Dynasty gold and silver ear ornament pattern is close to daily life, and the ornamental design is natural and harmonious, fresh and elegant.
Its patterns and meanings fit well, combined with the daily life of the people and folk beliefs, presenting a rich and colorful picture of Song-style life for the world, and also reflecting the life aesthetics of the Song people from one side.
Whether in terms of modeling or decorative arts, the Song Dynasty earrings vividly reflect the Chinese culture, and show the world the Song people's plain and leisurely, exquisite and elegant life aesthetics from another angle.
Inject the unique artistic soul and cultural temperament of the Song style into the traditional Chinese earrings.
The meaning of Song Dynasty earrings is no longer a simple decoration, it is the embodiment of the cultural characteristics and living Xi of the Song Dynasty, and it is also the display of the aesthetic taste, aesthetic ideals and aesthetic fashion of the Song people.