A quail and nine fallen leaves make up "live and work in peace" (quail living in fallen leaves); Fish homonym "fish", symphonic homonym "green", plum homonym "mei", magpie generation "sheng" and so on. In the above situation, auspicious patterns such as "more auspicious celebration", "beaming" and "early birth of your son" (jujube, peanut, laurel garden, lotus seed) can be formed respectively.
On the Traditional Auspicious Patterns in China
2007-12-19 23: 07: 05 This article has been published to the original classification of blog channel culture.
Traditional auspicious patterns in China
Ancient China is the birthplace of world civilization, and its long history and profound cultural precipitation are the great wealth left by our ancestors. China traditional auspicious patterns are the most beautiful and splendid part of this treasure. In the long years, our ancestors created many patterns that yearned for and pursued a better life and implied good luck. These patterns skillfully use figures, animals, flowers and birds, the sun, the moon and stars, wind, rain, thunder and lightning, figures and so on. Taking myths and legends and folk proverbs as the theme, using metaphor, analogy, pun, homophonic, symbol and other techniques, we create an artistic form that perfectly combines graphics and auspicious meanings. We call this kind of pattern with historical origin, folk characteristics and auspicious hope China traditional auspicious pattern. China's traditional auspicious patterns are an important part of China's traditional culture and a set of art forms to express national history. Through these intuitive and sensible perfect forms, the ancestors expressed their longing for a happy life and wealth.
A brief history of the development of traditional auspicious patterns in China.
With the progress of society and the development of human civilization, people's concept consciousness and aesthetic taste are constantly developing and changing, and the accompanying various art forms are also marked with distinct brand of the times. As a formal art, the traditional auspicious patterns in China are also the reflection of human thinking and ideology, and there must be a process of occurrence and development.
As early as the totem worship in ancient times, the ancestors were full of fantasies and speculations about the mysterious universe and the shapes and life characteristics of many animals and plants, such as birds and animals, flowers and birds, insects and fish, which gave birth to graphic symbols seeking happiness and security. During this period, the animal patterns and fish patterns on painted pottery techniques all had the meaning of respecting gods and worshipping chaos. Although this totem culture can't really be called decorative auspicious patterns created by people's subjective initiative, it objectively lays the foundation for the development of traditional auspicious patterns, and defines its source and address in the category of humanities and arts.
Various monsters, such as dragons, phoenixes, turtles and birds, appeared in painted pottery, stone carvings and jade carvings in the Neolithic Age. Moire, ripple and palindrome also appeared first. During the Shang Dynasty, the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, auspicious patterns in the true sense were produced in class society. Because in class society, people's ideology has undergone tremendous changes. With the rapid development of this technical level, rich ideological content can be expressed through objective forms. For example, various decorative patterns on bronzes and lacquerware, such as gluttonous patterns, dragon patterns, bird patterns and elephant patterns, make people feel not only the dignity and elegance of that particular era, but also the mysterious and ancient spiritual connotation of that particular era. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, Buddhism was introduced into China. Buddhism's karma, Taoism's immortality, Confucianism's yin and yang and five elements. Auspicious patterns, together with myths and legends, greatly enriched the theme and were widely used in architecture, sculpture and folk art, and rich auspicious languages began to appear. For example, there have been many auspicious patterns on the brocade of the Han Dynasty, such as the brocade of "all the best" and the brocade of "endless life". At this time, the traditional auspicious patterns such as happiness, luck, longevity and happiness have gradually begun to take shape. During the Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties, auspicious patterns were perfected and gradually popularized. Especially in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, auspicious patterns were widely used in architectural color paintings, ceramics, embroidery, fabrics and lacquerware. At this time, auspicious patterns entered a period of high popularity, even to the point where "pictures must be auspicious". During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, auspicious patterns began to mature. The forms of patterns are more colorful, and the auspicious patterns are more mature and perfect by using pattern techniques. The spread of auspicious pictures, auspicious customs and auspicious words is far-reaching, and its influence on social culture is gradually deepening.
Throughout the development history of traditional auspicious patterns in China, it originated from primitive culture, began in Shang and Zhou Dynasties, developed rapidly in Song and Yuan Dynasties, and reached its peak in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Auspicious patterns have their relative limitations in each period, but their development has never stopped. Until today, traditional auspicious patterns still have strong vitality.
Secondly, the development concept and spiritual characteristics of traditional auspicious patterns in China.
1, China's philosophy of traditional auspicious patterns.
According to China's ancient cosmology, the universe consists of five basic elements or substances: gold, wood, water, fire and earth. Everything can be divided into two and transformed into a whole through opposition. The thing of yin and yang is the motive force of the movement of "gold, wood, water, fire and earth", which is the thought of "yin and yang and five elements". It forms the foundation of China's traditional philosophy, which not only provides the most general guidance for the birth and development of traditional auspicious patterns in China, but also sets a concrete model for the design of traditional auspicious patterns in China. In China's traditional auspicious patterns, the dialectics of sparse and dense, dynamic and static, virtual and real, hidden and exposed, black and white are the applications of Yin-Yang and five elements in composition. Red, yellow, blue, black and white, which originated from the theory of five elements, were regarded as "positive colors" by the ancients. It is the basic principle of color in China traditional art, and the comprehensive application of the five elements of color with profound historical and cultural connotations has become the highest standard of national aesthetics in China.
China culture has a prominent ideological feature, that is, it emphasizes the harmonious unity between man and nature, that is, the philosophical thought of "the unity of man and nature". From Confucius' thought of "the benevolent loves others" to Laozi and Zhuangzi's thought of "Taoism is natural", people are urged to return to nature in nature and do nothing calmly, which lays the foundation for the formation of the theory of "the unity of man and nature" The external phenomenon of natural things and the emotion of the subject penetrate and merge with each other, and the perfect unity of things, my subject and object is the highest realm of artistic design. In a word, the idea of "harmony between man and nature" has a wide influence on the design and application of traditional auspicious patterns in China.
2. Spiritual characteristics of traditional auspicious patterns in China.
Through the observation, experience and understanding of traditional auspicious patterns, through these colorful formal phenomena, we found the artistic aesthetic law of traditional auspicious patterns. Generally speaking, it can be summarized as the following spiritual characteristics: first, essence and rhyme: that is, the vivid, natural and smooth aesthetic feeling of essence, potential and spirit. The aesthetic concept that "likeness of spirit" is greater than "likeness" is its embodiment. 2. Ideal Romance: It greatly expands the free space of art, breaks through the bondage of nature, and integrates the beautiful things scattered everywhere. For example, unicorns are a combination of many animals. Ideal romance is the most common spiritual feature of traditional auspicious patterns in China. Nothingness and emptiness: Nothingness and emptiness are the most perfect embodiment of Taoist thought in the traditional auspicious patterns of China. The picture is subtle and natural, if there is something like nothing, if there is Xu Ruo, it leaves a broad imagination space. Euphemism and Implication: The beauty of traditional auspicious patterns in China is often self-evident, which fully embodies the habit that China people prefer to be subtle rather than explicit. In traditional auspicious patterns in China, homophony, symbol and metaphor are often used, such as mandarin duck symbolizing "loving couple".
Third, the classification of traditional auspicious patterns in China
In order to facilitate in-depth study of traditional auspicious patterns in China, people divide them into different categories according to different standards. Among them, the common classification standard is: according to the application carrier of auspicious patterns, they can be divided into architectural decorative patterns (such as stone carving, brick printing and color painting on wooden structures, etc.). ), furniture decoration, printing and dyeing embroidery patterns, porcelain patterns, lacquer patterns, painted pottery patterns, etc. According to the theme of auspicious patterns, they can be divided into figures, auspicious birds and beasts, plants, figures, geometric patterns, and combinations of utensils. Here, this paper attempts to divide auspicious patterns into the following categories according to their aesthetic characteristics.
1. The use of Chinese homophones
People in China prefer to get a "lottery ticket" when they are happy and auspicious. Among them, an important feature of Chinese is applied: many Chinese characters have the same pronunciation and different meanings. Using Chinese homophony can be used as an expression of some auspicious meaning, which is very common in auspicious patterns. For example, a quail and nine fallen leaves constitute "living and working in peace" (quail living in fallen leaves); Fish homonym "fish", symphonic homonym "green", plum homonym "mei", magpie generation "sheng" and so on. In the above situation, auspicious patterns such as "more auspicious celebration", "beaming" and "early birth of your son" (jujube, peanut, laurel garden, lotus seed) can be formed respectively.
2. With the help of the ecological attributes of animals
Various animals and plants in nature have formed various ecological attributes due to factors such as ecology, environment, conditions and heredity, so people use things as metaphors and attach symbols. For example, a dog who doesn't serve two masters means loyalty, a lamb who kneels and suckles means filial piety, a deer who doesn't eat meat and fish and is extremely docile means kindness, and a horse who obeys his master means justice. The abstract concepts such as loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness advocated by Confucianism all have specific symbols. Another example is that the male and female mandarin ducks are paired and inseparable, and the male and female mandarin ducks float side by side on the water, that is, "mandarin ducks play in the water", which symbolizes the love between husband and wife.
3. Represents the meaning of things
Symbolizing auspicious celebrations with representative things is the direct application of auspicious patterns to materials, which can give people the most intuitive blessing impression. Such as money, jade, ingots, etc. They are all symbols of property, which are directly applied to handicrafts to express the pursuit of wealth; Lantern is a traditional holiday product. Painting a grain lantern means that the grain is abundant and well-fed. Use pen, ink, paper, ink, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting to symbolize the scholarly accord and literati; Auspicious patterns with religious origins are typical examples of using various representative objects to symbolize auspiciousness. More common are the Eight Immortals of Light and Dark in Taoism and the Eight Treasures and Eight Auspiciouss in Buddhism.
4. Direct application of auspicious words
The writing itself is very decorative, and its various variants or calligraphy forms have strong expressive tension, so it is a good means to decorate auspicious words directly on objects. Commonly used auspicious words are "Fu", "Lu", "Shou" and "Xi". Their auspicious patterns are an important branch of traditional auspicious patterns in China. Pictures such as "Baifu", "Bailu", "Bai Shou" and "Baixi" can be composed of various calligraphy or variant forms, which are often combined with indoor artworks or screen carvings, reflecting the corresponding coexistence of calligraphy art, national art and traditional culture, which is quite meaningful.
5. The application of ancient poetry.
In ancient times, the poetry of trying words has a long history and profound precipitation. They often express their feelings through things by means of comparison, and have a broad mind like a wild crane. These characteristics are skillfully borrowed by auspicious patterns, which can create a strong cultural atmosphere. For example, some people in the ancients said, "Being kind to others is like entering Lan Zhi's room, but it smells good after a long time.". In auspicious paintings, people are used to using Lan Zhi together as a metaphor for a friendship between gentlemen. Chrysanthemums bloom in autumn, and first frost is hardy, which is sung by literati. People love its exquisite charm and endow it with noble and strong sentiment. Chrysanthemum in auspicious patterns is endowed with the meaning of good luck and longevity, while other patterns, such as "out of the water", are similar to the artistic conception of Tang poetry and Song poetry.
6. Comprehensive application of various symbolic techniques
There are many auspicious patterns that are the artistic achievements of comprehensive use of the above symbolic techniques. The biggest feature of comprehensive techniques is that they can give patterns richer meanings. Let the work become mature and full. For example, Sanduo Map is composed of pomegranate, peach and bergamot, which means that there are many blessings (Buddha) and many men (pomegranate and pomegranate). When they are combined, they become a symbol of happiness and beauty in life.
Fourthly, the modeling features of traditional auspicious patterns in China.
Under the premise of following the general principle of change and unity, China traditional auspicious patterns have the following outstanding modeling characteristics:
1. Specific topics and abstract applications
The main themes in auspicious patterns are directly or indirectly taken from animals and plants, utensils and appliances that are common in nature and civilian life. These figurative things and auspicious patterns are not limited to specific images in modeling, but often subject to visual pleasure, and break through the ordinary cage, reflecting the artistic beauty of abstract forms.
2. Symmetry and balance are common composition methods.
Auspicious patterns often have a center line (or center point), and patterns with the same shape, the same color, the same number or different shapes (colors) but the same or similar number are arranged around it (three sides, four sides and many sides). This form of composition is called symmetrical balanced composition. Among them, symmetry and asymmetry explain the layout of auspicious pattern organizational units based on the spatial position of patterns; Balance and imbalance refer to the distribution of power in each part of the pattern, which determines the balanced aesthetic feeling of auspicious patterns. Auspicious patterns show different visual effects and are more organized through symmetrical and balanced composition techniques, which is an important prerequisite for auspicious patterns to be decorative.
3. Change in complexity and order in chaos.
The complexity of traditional patterns is different from that of modern art, but the complexity of traditional auspicious patterns is different from that of modern applied art. However, the complexity of traditional auspicious patterns is by no means a simple listing, but a simple repetition. It pays more attention to embodying rhythm and rhythm in complexity, comparing and harmonizing, coordinating the organization of density, size, primary and secondary, virtual and real, dynamic and static, gathering and dispersing, so as to achieve overall unity, local changes, and local changes obey the whole. This increases the level and connotation of auspicious patterns, but from the perspective of decorative application, its requirements for processing technology are obviously harsh.
...... "Auspicious" means a sign of good luck and auspiciousness. Language "Zhuangzi on Earth": "Empty room makes white, good luck stops." A book: "Lucky people are good things; Auspicious, auspicious. " In ancient times, things of blessing and celebration all relied on perceptual expressions, that is, paintings, commonly known as "auspicious pictures" or "auspicious pictures", as early as jade carvings and bronzes in the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, which is the origin of "auspicious patterns" or "implied patterns". For example, Shang bronzes unearthed in Pinggu, Beijing, Zhengzhou, Henan and other places are often decorated with fish patterns end to end, which reflects that people at that time endowed fish with the meaning or symbol of auspiciousness, and expressed people's good wishes and dreams of praying for more children and more happiness by relying on the reality of the biological form of "fish belly with many children". This image with "auspiciousness" in the later generations, as implied by "auspiciousness", is expected: "the melon seeds are full of flowers", and it is still continuing. For example, bronze mirrors in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, tiles and portrait stones in the Qin and Han Dynasties, cave paintings in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, inscriptions and stone carvings in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and ceramics and tapestries in the Song Dynasty all have rich and wonderful "auspicious" images or "auspicious" patterns. What really has the aesthetic cultural connotation and formal beauty of "auspicious" patterns is the Wurui map drawn by Emperor Liu Hongjianning in the fourth year (A.D. 17 1), with Huanglong on the left, white deer on the right, two trees and four branches on the lower left, a golden harvest in the middle and nine stems in the river. There is a tree on the right. Under the tree, there is a man holding a dish of "dew", which is the earliest auspicious pattern in China. In addition, during the Three Kingdoms period, Sun Liang, the Lord of Wu, made colored glass screens and carved "Ruiying Pictures" on them, with as many as 120 kinds, which can be described as a combination of auspicious and auspicious patterns. ① After the Yuan Dynasty, auspicious patterns were widely popular among the people, and became popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, becoming a popular folk phenomenon. As the saying goes, "the picture must be intentional, and the meaning must be auspicious." At this time, auspicious patterns are still used in buildings, cars and daily utensils, and the center of application has moved to the aesthetic and cultural phenomena of fabrics, hats, shoes and other clothing. We have a general understanding of auspicious patterns, so that we can make a descriptive provision on auspicious patterns.
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Traditional Auspicious Patterns in China (Continued)
Auspicious patterns, that is, the use of homophonic, embedded characters, symbols, symbols or "morality-like", metaphor or "morality-like", and the use of traditional composition styles such as painting ② or color, ball diameter, chain, arch wall, hanwa, eight rhymes and four-way symmetrical continuity (that is, "four-way continuity"), are used for the aesthetic and cultural phenomena of jadeite.
Below, we divide the traditional auspicious patterns into several categories to discuss and explore different types of themes, such as blessing and kindness, symbols of Jiaqing and so on.
About "auspiciousness" and "peace, auspiciousness and celebration", it is the theme with the ontological meaning of "auspiciousness" and the theme of "auspicious patterns". ...
(1) In Good Luck, a boy rides on the back of an elephant with a wishful thinking in his hand; Or play on the elephant's back; Or carry a treasure bottle on the elephant's back, and insert "Ji" and "Ruyi" in the bottle to make the sounds of "Ji" and "Xiang" harmonious, meaning "auspicious"; Others use the Chinese characters "auspicious" and ruyi to form patterns.
2 "peace and auspiciousness". The design is three halberds in a vase, and A Qing (an ancient musical instrument) is hung on the halberds. Bottle is homophonic with Ping, Ji, Ji and Qing. The "halberd" and "green" placed in the bottle mean "peace and good luck".
(3) The "eight treasures" include snails, eight treasures, lotus flowers (also known as auspicious flowers), sky covers (also known as white covers), goldfish, Aquarius (also known as treasure pots and relic pots) and treasure umbrellas. It means good luck, wealth and longevity. Literature records: "The offerings are divided into lids, fish, pots, flowers, wheels, snails, umbrellas, and intestines, which are called' eight treasures auspicious'. (4) In addition, "(embroidered robe) patterns are various, with two flowers as the statue, two dragons with light, arched and eight auspicious. " ⑤
(4) "All the best" usually consists of the words "evergreen", "persimmon" and "ruyi". Change "ten thousand" to "ten thousand", and change "persimmon" to "thing". Some people don't use persimmons, but only use the word "ten thousand" as the background to draw wishful patterns.
(5) "Year after year", the pattern consists of two catfish and Ruyi. Because "Catfish" and "Nian" are homophonic, in addition, this pattern transforms "Ruyi" into "water pattern" and "spray" in terms of the object of expression, which is quite innovative. The pattern composed of lotus and carp is called "there are more fish every year".