Writer Meng Hui, born in 68 years, born in art history,
People often call her "female history",
This is an ancient title for a female official.
Without exaggeration,
At least half of Meng Hui's soul lived in ancient times.
Part I: (Biography) Tang Zhang Xuan Part of "Trick Painting"
Bottom left: Qing Phoenix Bird Parrot Cage Golden Hairpin
Bottom right: Tang Silver Phoenix Bird-shaped Hairpin
The titles of her books are seductive,
"Pan Jinlian's Hairstyle", "The Red Sweat of the Noble Concubine", "Flower Open Air Incense"...
Since the study of ancient material history in 2000,
She focuses on the study of the lives of middle-class and aristocratic women in ancient times.
All over incense, jewelry, handicrafts, cosmetics,
Food, lifestyles...
What is the Immortal Jade Female Powder used by Wu Zetian?
In the ancient famous paintings, the jade rings held by the women,
What is the moral?
In "The Book of Petite Red", the heroine uses "lamp embers" to draw her eyebrows, what is that?
What is the "cheek snow" in "Sideburns Desire to Be Fragrant Snow"?
The hairpins, step shakes, and crown flowers on the heads of ancient women,
What occasions to wear? What patterns are popular?
In April this year, Meng Hui's new work "Beauty Map" was published.
She spent 4 years from ancient history books, novels, and scripts.
A selection of objects that we often overlook when we read,
Compared with historical materials, excavated cultural relics, and handed down paintings,
The living life of ancient beauties is displayed before our eyes.
"Studying these details is not just about the wind and snow,
To miss these is to miss an entire era. ”
Written by Meng Hui, written by Ni Chujiao
Meng Hui was a little naughty in his bones.
Because it was difficult to explain why she was so interested in the details of ancient matter, she made up a past life for herself. "I was a sutra-reading cat in the sutra-turning dojo at Ci'en Temple, surrounded by books, but I didn't understand anything, so I made a wish that it would understand it in this lifetime."
After making up the story, he also "justified" a sentence: "I am a staunch materialist." ”
But in fact, Meng Hui has a bit of a family background, and her parents were the first literary and artistic youths after liberation. When she was a child, her parents gave her a gift of a black-and-white printed "Lady of the Hairpin Flower". They loved poetry and read Tolstoy and Balzac. At that time, a black dance dress by Anna Karenina influenced several generations of Chinese artists and artists, and also influenced Meng Hui.
Also because of naughtiness, the undergraduate degree of the Central Academy of Fine Arts could not stay until he finished studying, and Meng Huifei wanted to go abroad. In 1990, she went to the University of Paris in France.
A series of books published by Meng Hui
After returning from France, Meng Hui went to work at the Beijing Art Museum. After getting close to the cultural relics of the Ming, Qing, and dynasties, she "immediately felt different about that era." In 2000, at the age of 32, Meng Hui began to study famous objects.
How detailed is the study? Light cosmetics skin care products, she has written: jade powder, rose alkali, hu powder, powder shop, Ying powder, Tang Palace butterfly powder, lihan red powder, night cream, antler cream, jade hair powder, pearl powder, rose nitrate, Lanze ...
Every little detail must be in the "Qi Min Zhi Shu", "Tiangong Kaiwu", "Compendium of Materia Medica", "Hong's Xiang Spectrum"... In these tomes, or in archaeological excavations, find a practical basis, just like The Sherlock Holmes detective, Meng Hui is happy in it. "I'm just a nerd, and my daily life is to flip through the literature, figure out what it's talking about, and not go out for days."
Top: Anon. Part of "A Thousand Autumns of Brilliant Beauty"
Bottom left: Liao Eight-curved arc gold box
Bottom right: Gold-set jewel crown
In April 2021, Ms. Meng Hui wrote a new book "Beauty Map" for 4 years and published it, and yiyi took this opportunity to spend a whole day with her.
Although he lives a pedantic life, Mr. Meng Hui is really not dull at all. Often one second ago, I was still talking about what kind of hairpins women wore in ancient times, and the next second I began to sigh: "The pressure on women in ancient times is really great." She also likes to brush Weibo, a modern hot spot has not been missed, but also said solemnly: "I feel that Versailles literature is not right, it should be said that it is Daguanyuan literature, Jia Mu, Feng Jie, Xue Baochao They talk terrible." ”
Here's what she said:
From eyebrow pencils to jade serials,
The delicacy of the ancients you can't imagine
I think doing material history research is like Sherlock Holmes. The whole process is like this: see a detail in a certain document, do not know whether it is true or false, silently write it down in your heart, find evidence to support it in other books, in the physical objects excavated by archaeology, and in the paintings that have been handed down to the world, and study it further.
If a detail appears only once, it is mostly the writer's brain, and if it appears five or six times, it may be a reflection of a custom. Slowly gather information to see if it becomes a phenomenon.
For example, there is a plot in "Jiaohong", the male protagonist comes to Jiaohong's boudoir and bumps into her thrush, the specific way is to "paint the lamp embers on the eyebrows". He asked, "Dare to ask if this is a lamp coal, or a candle flower?" Jiaohong replied, "The lamp is flowering." Concubines are meant to accumulate, and the nearest party gets them. ”
When I first read it, it was a bit inexplicable, what does drawing eyebrows have to do with lights? Later, the answer was found in the book "Shi Lin Guangji", which was a "practical book of life knowledge" compiled by Chen Yuanliang of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Qing Yu Zhiding "Idle Knocking Chess Piece Diagram"
The more I studied, the more amazing it became, in fact, since the Tang Dynasty, the composition of mei dai and ink is the same, and probably only Chinese can think of collecting the smoke from the firewood fire and making ink. The eyebrows are more delicate, the ashes of the wick of the point are collected, and after enough is made, they are ground into fine ash, and then used sesame oil to make thrush ink.
In this "Idle Knocking Chess Pieces" of the Qing Dynasty, you can find out how they collected the embers, and the embers would fall on the lamp plate below little by little, and they could be carefully swept into the small container at any time.
Left: Part of Qing Fei Danxu's "Bracelet Diagram"
Right: QingQianlong kaihe jade chain
Chinese's delicacy and patience are in this detail. In addition, if you look carefully at the ancient beauty portraits, you will see many women holding jade rings, which is a very strange handicraft - two jade rings connected together.
Only Chinese have this ability, and they have this ability from the Shang Dynasty. There is a kind of "carving" technique in the traditional jade treatment craft, which can make a pair or more living rings on a piece of whole material, and these rings are strung together with each other, which is used to express "love never ends", so it has become a symbol of affection and love.
Top: Qing Canaan incense inlaid gold long circle shou character pattern eighteen zi bracelet
Bottom left: Qing red satin floor gold embroidered dough shou pattern purse
Bottom right: Liaoning embroidered purse
From spring in the sleeve to twilight makeup,
Are traditional women reserved?
We think that Chinese women are hiding in the deep boudoir, lacking interest in life, and dare not fight for their own interests. This is not the case as presented in the literature. Either in order to fight for living space, or out of interest, some brave people have shown extraordinary ability. Ancient writers, on the other hand, appreciated this and made up many stories.
For example, there is a story that when Tang Xuanzong was a prince, he was very fond of a beautiful person named Luan'er. Ancient women would swim in the spring, before a certain spring tour, the luan with the beards, with white cloth, made a fake white pear blossom, and gave it incense, hidden in the sleeve. During the spring tour, she sprinkles flower petals as she walks. Everyone didn't know who she was, so they thought it was amazing, as if a pear tree had become a sperm and a fairy had passed through the spring.
This story may have been made up, but it was related to the scenes and customs of life at that time. At that time, women's faces were also appliquéd, and their sideburns were also appliquéd, gold leaf, and colored silk, which would fall when they danced. Therefore, when the women of the Tang and Song Dynasties traveled in the spring, they were really like a flower branch, which became the inspiration of the literary artists, and made up a story to put on the celebrity.
We often say that "women are pleasing to themselves", but "beauty for themselves" is also a tradition of Chinese women. You see those girls in the Grand View Garden, only Jia Baoyu is a man, everyone must also be beautiful and bright, it is related to your self-requirements.
For example, like Sister Feng, she once quarreled with Jia Lian, and in order to show that she was very aggrieved, she did not wear makeup that day. This inverse shows that she usually has to wear makeup. As a housekeeper grandmother, as a daughter-in-law, so tired, in this case she must have to wear makeup every day, if she does not turn like a bodhisattva, she can not stop the people below.
Top: Tang Qingyu lipid box
Bottom left: Southern Song Dynasty Rhombus-shaped silver rouge dish
Bottom right: Southern Song Dynasty Ruyi pattern silver powder box
Noble women, she put on makeup at least twice a day, get up in the morning to make up, and put on evening makeup at night, makeup can not be mutilated. This makeup in the evening is very special, it is added with good spices and Chinese herbal fat powder, rubbed on the face, the body is the most able to nourish the skin.
Therefore, the husbands of the ancient high-gate households may rarely see the true appearance of their wives.
The famous sentence "The hills overlap the golden ming extinction, and the sideburns want to be fragrant and snowy" is written about this. One night when I woke up, my eyebrows were spent, and my sideburns were glued with snow-white fat powder, a particularly lazy and sexy female figure. But these fat powder sticks to the pillow, making the pillow fragrant, which is a kind of stimulation for ancient men, in fact, full of boudoir fun.
Qing Chen Mei "Moon Man Qing Tour Map" The second
From the scarf belt to the four-hour crown flower,
Who says ancient women's lives were boring?
We have the impression that the life of the ancients seems to be barren and desolate. But in fact, the ancient life is very rich.
For example, women in the Song Dynasty liked to seek poetry from the literati, taking down their draperies, neck scarves and even nepotism on the spot, and asking the literati present to inscribe poems for her. Of course, it was most popular mainly among geisha, but it developed into an important item in the art collection.
There will even be such an anecdotes. One mid-autumn night, the famous minister Wang Jue was working the night shift in the forbidden city, and Song Shenzong wanted to find someone to drink a small wine with, so he called Wang Jue over. When we were happy, the emperor told his concubines and palace ladies that a talented man had come today, and you were not in a hurry to ask him to write poems for you. The palace concubines were also particularly happy, some with handkerchiefs, some with fans, and one by one they invited him to write poems, which were particularly well written, and they were all happy and their faces lit up.
Left: Clear lamp-shaped gold earrings
Right: Bright gold lantern earrings
The Divine Sect said, "If you can work hard for the Bachelor in vain, you all have to pay for the pen." These deeply favored women immediately took off their own beaded flowers, planted them with Wang Jue's crown, and tucked them into his sleeves.
If this is still the case in the palace, the folk atmosphere is even more lively and lively. According to records, Su Shi, who was twenty-one years old, once had a "spring dream" on the way out of the river to take the exam: he dreamed that Tang Xuanzong ordered him to write an inscription for Yang Guifei's nepotism! What kind of customs, what kind of imagination will arise. Su Shi's spring dream must be placed in this very special style and elegance to be easy to understand.
In addition, we always complain that traditional festivals have no taste, and everything seems to be reduced to eating and eating: eating Lantern Festival, Eating Rice Dumplings at the Dragon Boat Festival, it is too boring. In fact, traditional festivals have many interesting customs.
Every festival has a pattern, and your clothes and jewelry must be changed constantly with the festival. Ancient women's jewelry had to have many sets, unlike us who can wear a necklace for a year, they are very stressed. Therefore, in ancient times, parents did dowry is a big thing, can not let the married daughter be laughed at, must be matched for her, the Song Dynasty called "four times crown flower".
Ming gold jade gourd-shaped earrings
For example, in ancient China, October, to issue a new year's calendar, the almanac is not good, everyone uses lychee to harmonize. Jewelry to wear a lychee, very auspicious.
At the beginning of the Waxing Moon, such as the Ming Dynasty, it was necessary to wear small gourds, because it was very auspicious. Specially cultivated pocket gourds, very expensive. If not, you can wear jade and gemstones.
Left: Ming Butterfly-shaped gold ornaments
Right: Qing gold inlaid jade hairpin
You can't wear it until the Lantern Festival, you have to wear a lamp ball. The Lantern Festival, also known as the Shangyuan Festival, is the carnival night of the Chinese. At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, women wore a lot of jewelry, and they had to wear a head. Because there are lights, there will be moths that flutter the lights, so that night they have to wear a noisy woman, even men.
Li Chun should wear a spring flag, because when the spring wind comes, the sail will move with the spring wind. The ancients were very poetic, and always used a symbolic thing to express his sustenance for life.
The Dragon Boat Festival, to prepare the spices for summer summer escape, the Dragon Boat Festival, on this day, you must wear a charm, everyone puts this small charm in a small bag, hanging on the head.
The seasons are always changing.
Western Han Dynasty Gilded gold and silver bamboo knot smoker
The study of material history is not a snowy moon
Details influence the grand view of history
I think that the study of material history is by no means a storm, and it seems that the details of daily life will affect your big view of history.
Our original evaluation of the Song was very low, thinking that it was a dynasty with weak national strength and constantly invaded by foreign tribes. But with the discovery of shipwrecks in the Song Dynasty, for example, we find that it is a very advanced civilization, with production capacity and scientific and technological capabilities that are world-leading.
Moreover, the import trade was very strong at that time, and a large number of spices were imported, so the Song people used incense to be particularly luxurious, and the whole shaped a certain characteristic of the Song people's life, including the Song ci.
Li Qingzhao's "incense cold golden fox, turned red waves", which means that the incense in the incense burner is cold in the morning, which actually shows that she is in a bad mood. We don't have incense in our lives for a long time, so today it feels like it's a very high realm, but it's actually a daily routine for them.
This is something that makes me particularly touched, such a big country, such an ancient civilization, because of external blows, how quickly its civilizational traditions can disappear, and even our evaluation of certain dynasties in the past is unfair.
Han's clothes covered with gold leaf
Many of us today still believe in the Westerners' claim that the Ming and Qing dynasties were in decline and poverty, and I cannot accept this statement.
After the discovery of American silver in 1492 (The Ming Dynasty of China), Europeans with silver were finally able to participate in the trade in the Indian Ocean, and China's exports were more motivated, so the Ming Dynasty was very rich.
How rich is it? In the Tang Dynasty and song dynasty, rich and noble families made clothes by weaving the bottom with silk thread and weaving gold patterns with gold thread. In the Ming Dynasty, it was woven with gold thread and silk thread. How exaggerated is it in "The Words of the Plum in the Golden Bottle"? Wives and concubines all wear long coats of gold all over the land, and the bridesmaids wear gold armor all over the land.
We see the story of Feng Menglong in the Ming Dynasty telling the story of the White Lady, after she married Xu Xian, she participated in social networking and put on a green shirt with gold weaving, like a noble lady in the world.
Stills from "Dream of the Red Chamber"
We always say that it seems that the Qing people are very vulgar, but in fact, the Qing Dynasty people have converged a little, "Dream of the Red Chamber" is not full of gold, using finches and gold fur, which is the most advanced fabric in China, not only has gold thread, but also the thread made of peacock feathers. This was not made up by Cao Xueqin herself, because it had already been unearthed in dingling.
Qing rosewood side seat white sandalwood heart glass oil painting screen
In addition, I have always been interested in ancient glass, because from it we can see the development of foreign trade in ancient China.
According to the story, during the Three Kingdoms period, The Wu lord Sun Liang ordered someone to make a green glass screen, which was often set under the moon when the night was clear, surrounded on all sides, so that his four favorite pets sat in the screen. Others can clearly see the shape of the four beauties, but they can't smell their fragrance, which best interprets the meaning of the word "unattainable".
Glass is glass. Chinese have been making glass for a long time, but because they like jade, they prefer opaque stained glass. Since Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty opened up the two Silk Roads, to the Eastern Han Dynasty, Chinese began to feel that the foreign transparent glass was particularly advanced, and Sun Liang's story appeared at this time.
In "Dream of the Red Chamber", how to show that Sister Feng has money? When Grandma Liu first entered the Grand View Garden, Jia Ronglai borrowed one thing from Sister Feng, which was the glass screen she was married to. This glass screen is a flat glass imported from the West. It is not easy to get to China, it is very expensive.
There are many things in the grass gray snake line in "Dream of the Red Chamber", once you combine it with the history of civilization exchange and the history of technological production, you can read what stories the ancients want to tell, and the beauty will come out.
Bottom left: Qing Leng Ming "Spring Girl Tired Reading Picture"
Bottom right: Qing MangHuli "Lady Holding a Fan seat"
People need pure aesthetic moments
I don't like to watch costume TV series. When I watched a costume film with a few colleagues, everyone was amused. Everyone will see a bug (flaw), such as a pre-Qin film, some people see a white porcelain bowl, someone sees garlic, someone sees a horse pedal. Everyone was happy to lean forward and backward, and there was no way. Therefore, at that time, I was very afraid of watching this kind of film, and I felt that such nonsense was deeply responsible for the ancients. But obviously, there has been a lot of progress over the years.
It is also thanks to archaeologists and scholars for doing a lot of research work, and after more research, the ancient times will be vivid, and everyone will love Chinese civilization. "Beauty Map" is to show everyone the richness of ancient Chinese life. Not only is the material rich, but the content enjoyed in the way of life is also rich, and the ancients are also very lively, very colorful, and very creative.
I don't think the book has any utilitarian purpose, like visiting the Louvre, you don't get any practical benefits when you go in for a lap, but you get aesthetic cultivation. We people live to have pure aesthetic moments.
Some photos provided: Arterial shadow
This article is original to "one article", and it shall not be deleted or appropriated to any platform without permission, otherwise legal responsibility will be pursued.