The screen is a very special artifact in Chinese history. It was conceived in the soil of Chinese civilization, although it accompanied people's lives, but always appeared in the form of supporting roles, and the definition of identity function was not clear: it was said to be a piece of furniture, and the practicality was not obvious. Song Renyun: "Screen, so obstacle wind, so the shaper also." "However, the airtight doors and walls are clearly better shielded from the wind. It seems far-fetched to think of a screen as a work of art – no matter how beautifully decorated and shaped, it is essentially a piece of furniture. Historically, screens have indeed been one of the original furniture that Chinese used for a long time. The Ming Dynasty's "Changwuzhi Ji Tata" Yun: "The system of screens is the oldest." "Three generations have the legend of Xia Yu as a screen, or it can prove the long-standing relationship between the screen and the ancient Chinese civilization."
[01] High and Low: As a symbol of power
Records of screens can be traced back to the Western Zhou Dynasty. Originally, it was not furniture, but a ceremonial tool for the Son of Heaven, called "di", "扆 (通依)", "黼扆" or "axe yi", and there was no word for "screen". In the Zhou Li Chun Guan Si Ji Feast, it is said that "the throne is set up with a yi", the "Li Ji Ming Tang Position" Yun "The Son of Heaven bears the axe and stands in Nanxiang", and "Axe Yi" appears in various major ceremonial activities, set in the Zongmiao Temple or after the Ming Dynasty throne, it is a ceremonial symbol closely related to the royal power, highlighting the noble status and supreme power of the Son of Heaven.
Regarding the origin of the name "黼扆", Zheng Xuan's annotation to the Zhou Li Yun: "According to it, its system is like a screen. "黼" refers to the axe-shaped ornamentation painted on the screen to represent the authority of the king, and "yi" refers to the screen itself. Why is it called "Yi"? Some people think that it is the meaning of "dependence". The "Interpretation of the Name" cloud "扆, lean on also, and rely on the back also". This explanation is quite chiseled, and the Son of Heaven's "negative hand" is not a physical dependence. It is generally believed that "yi" refers to the location of the screen. The Book of Rites says that "the Son of Heaven set up an axe between the households", and the Erya Shigong says that "there is a whip between the households", according to which the screen is set between the doors and windows of the Ming Hall to enter the inner chamber - this place is called "扆", located in the middle of the north wall of the Ming Hall.
The screen occupies an important position in the pre-Qin ceremony, giving it an abstract meaning of power. In the context of Chinese history, the "bits" in the power structure and the "bits" in the practice space are often common, and the screen is one of the cultural symbols that connect them. Screens transform abstract spaces into concrete "bits", which can therefore be defined, controlled, and acquired as a political concept. In the course of historical changes, the screen has gradually moved from the royal family to the homes of ordinary people, evolving from a symbol of royal power to a furniture in life; a certain characteristic of distributing power by defining and dividing space has been retained, and there are rich and profound metaphors behind the everydayness.
[02] Inside and Outside: As a reflection of the inner world
The screen is different from other furniture because it not only has a certain practical value, but also is an ideal painting medium. In the Han Dynasty, there were screen paintings, most of which were owned by royal aristocratic families, and often used historical figures such as ancient sages, celebrities, and female ladies as depictions, and undertook the function of indoctrination and ordination. Such earlier screen paintings expounded socially recognized Confucian ethics and morality, and the appreciator needed to actively explore its educational significance, measuring and reflecting on their own behavior in terms of the characters painted by the screen. With the development of scholar culture and the expansion of painting themes, the functional nature of the screen gradually changed: for the literati who regarded themselves as sages, they preferred to see images that expressed their personal inner pursuits and spiritual realms, instead of the moral paintings of historical figures, and to show a certain noble character of themselves. Under this demand, the subject matter of screen painting gradually transitions from characters to landscapes, reflecting the hidden inner world of scholars beyond the world.
After the Han Dynasty, there were landscape screens, and by the Tang Dynasty, screens painted with landscape trees and stones had become very common, and a large number of them had entered official institutions and noble homes, and were placed in a prominent position in the official residence for people to admire. Li Bai has a poem "Guanyuan Danqiu Sits on the Screen of Wushan Mountain": "In the past, when you traveled to Wuxia to see Wushan, you saw that the painting of Wushan was similar. Suspected to be the twelve peaks of the sky, it flew into the Junjia color screen. "The natural landscapes displayed on the screen are vivid and realistic, and the viewer often has a sense of immersion, triggering a strong inner touch. Zhang Jiuling, the prime minister of the Kaiyuan Period, had a poem "Inscription painting landscape obstacles" cloud: "Placed on chen beitang, imitating the front of Nanshan." Quiet no household court out, the line has been deviated. The poet borrows Tao Yuanming's "distant self-deviation" to express his yearning for a reclusive life living above the temple.
It can be seen that during the Tang Dynasty, scholars and doctors have begun to use the landscape screen as a medium for spiritual sustenance. They long to live freely in the mountains and forests, but they cannot really get rid of the worldly shackles, and the landscape screen in the living room can provide an outlet for this contradictory mentality. As a piece of furniture and a kind of painting medium, the screen introduces natural landscapes into daily living rooms for people to watch day and night, all the time, and can enjoy various mountains and rivers without leaving home, as if they are in the middle of the painting forest, to achieve a suitable state of harmony with nature. The painter uses superb skills to make the viewer feel like a painting, break through the boundaries of time and space through a fully attentive gaze, and transform the two-dimensional landscape painting into a three-dimensional three-dimensional space in the imagination, so that the landscape image is projected in the living room, and the natural landscape can be tilted from sitting in the bedroom, so as to realize the purification and purification of the soul.
Du Fu's "Fengxian Liu Shaofu's New Painting of Landscape Barrier Song" vividly depicts the illusionary power of screen painting: "The maple trees in the hall are not suitable, and the smoke rises in the strange bottom of the country. "The trees, rocks and smoke on the screen seem to have dived from the painting into real life, transforming the hall into a magical world with a natural atmosphere. For the poet, the charm of this screen is not only in its realism, but also in its transcendent local landscape, presenting the imaginary eternal natural landscape, which reminds the poet of the mythical grand scene: "To this melt the mind ... Quietly sitting under my heavenly grandmother, my ears seem to smell the ape. "The poet's mind completely merges with the landscape in the painting and enters the realm of transformation. As a place of life feelings and spiritual comfort for scholars, the landscape screen has been endowed with spiritual and cultural connotations on top of practical value and aesthetic value, and has opened up an entrance to the spiritual world in the material world.
The close relationship between the literati doctor and the landscape screen attracted the attention of the painter and became a common painting motif. The painter uses the landscape screen to juxtapose natural scenes and human figures, and plays an auxiliary role in the portrayal of characters. This type of painting appeared in the Five Dynasties period, such as the "Survey Book Map" created by Qi Han, the king of the Southern Tang Dynasty, the protagonist is a scribe sitting at a desk to pick his ears, but the focus is not here, but in the center of a huge screen that almost runs through the entire painting and the short table in front of the screen. The painter depicts the scribes with slender lines and draws the screen with heavy brush and ink, highlighting the dominant position of the screen in the picture. On the screen is a panoramic landscape, a house is located in the charming natural scenery, the dwarf and the screen constitute two sets of images, representing two aspects of the literati's life: several books, scrolls and musical instruments placed on the screen hint at elegant interests and hobbies, and the mountain forest grass hall on the screen painting is a reflection of his inner world, symbolizing the literati's spiritual pursuit of retiring from the mountains and not asking about mundane things: the world inside and outside the screen together constitutes the dual identity and complex state of mind of the painter Chinese.
Survey Map
【03】 Hidden and Zhang: As an integral part of the garden
After the Song Dynasty, the literati class rose and grew, becoming the dominant group that occupied the main discourse power, social ideological forms and aesthetic tastes. The literati group's acceptance and promotion of the screen continued to evolve as part of traditional culture. It is worth noting that when the literati talk about screens and screen paintings, they seem to deliberately avoid all discourse about political thoughts, to view and think about the screen with individuals who are detached from the socio-political identity, and to write and transform the screen with the literati's aesthetic ideal of freedom and life.
This new demand for screens stems from the most fundamental contradiction in the consciousness of the literati: on the one hand, they have received Confucian ideological education since childhood, eager to seek fame and enter the career path, and have the heart to support the society and establish meritorious deeds; on the other hand, under the influence of Taoist hermitage, they yearn for a hermit life that is beyond the world and free. This inherent contradiction prompted the literati to seek a way of life that reconciled the two: since the ideal of truly retreating to nature was difficult to achieve, one compromise was to occasionally retreat into the small world that symbolized nature, the private garden. Therefore, after the Song Dynasty, private gardens representing the interests of the literati flourished greatly: in the space enclosed by high walls, scholars and doctors piled stones for mountains, diverted canals into water, built pavilions and pavilions, and built a landscape that could be visited and lived. This kind of private garden not only opens up a space for scholars to enjoy a free and peaceful life, but also provides an ideal place for literati to collect elegant activities such as painting, calligraphy, chanting, and playing the piano. The literati walked out of the hall and moved in the natural landscape of the garden, moving some of the furniture to the open air to create a comfortable outdoor living atmosphere. The screen is flexible and convenient to use, and can be placed in the outdoor environment together with tables and chairs, etc., becoming an organic part of the garden.
Compared with indoor screens, the nature and meaning of screens in gardens have changed to a certain extent. Placed in a picturesque garden, the significance of the screen as a painting medium takes a back seat, and the practicality of the shelter is highlighted. One of the spiritual cores of the Chinese garden layout is "hiding", and the screen acts as a barrier to activities in the garden, effectively achieving this purpose. Of course, the "hiding" and "zhang" of the screen are accompanied by each other: the two sides of the screen are yin and yang, and they are mutually exclusive, and the space hidden by one side is manifested on the other side. As for which side is hidden and which side is manifested, it depends on the "position" in which it is located. As mentioned above, the screen transforms the abstract space into a concrete "bit": the vertical screen divides a whole space into two equal areas, and the position of the person determines their different properties. When choosing to be in front of the screen, the space behind the screen disappears from the line of sight, invisibly gaining control over the space on its own side. The Southern Song Dynasty Ma Yuan's "Carved Platform Lookout Cloud Map" fully reflects this: the soldiers on the high platform are gazing at the towering and strange peaks in the distance, and the screen behind them blocks all unauthorized peeping, thus providing privacy and security, ensuring that he is the only appreciator of the scene in front of him. While "hiding" the protagonist's personal space, the screen opens up the mountain scenery corresponding to the other side, establishing a quiet place that is exclusive to him. The beauty of the mountains and forests that are "hidden" seems to become an image independent of time in the gaze of the viewer, so that they forget the passage of time in the space they control and enter the eternal realm beyond the world.
"Carved Platform Looking at the Clouds"
The screens in the garden not only provide space for individuals to be alone, but also create an ideal environment for literati gatherings. Screens obscure the private spaces of the garden, but are always open to like-minded people. Behind the screen may not be a public space of "rational interaction", but a private friendship space composed of "fun": listening to the piano, playing, chanting, discussing the Tao, the elegant life that resonates unfolds behind the screen, and the visiting literati gradually enter an artistic and poetic comfortable "Taoyuan". In the paintings depicting yaji after the Southern Song Dynasty, we can often witness the leisurely and comfortable figure of the people below on the screen. For example, in the Ming Dynasty Qiu Ying's "Bamboo Courtyard Pin GuTu", two huge screens painted with landscapes and flowers and birds surrounded three scholars, who were watching antique artifacts, and the atmosphere was relaxed and relaxed. The screen hides the activities of the literati independently, making them the absolute masters of the private space, highlighting the unique aesthetic interest of the literati.
《Bamboo Courtyard Pin Gutu》
[04] With or without: as a painting scene of the garden
The landscape screen placed in the garden began to directly correspond to and integrate with the natural landscape and became part of the natural landscape. This is particularly evident in some Southern Song Dynasty garden paintings. For example, Zhao Bohua's "Wind Eaves Exhibition Scroll" reflects the subtle interaction between the two: the protagonist is placed in an open pavilion in the garden, reclining comfortably on the bed, facing the natural scenery of the outside world, with a landscape screen behind him and a small ink screen on the edge of the bed. Obviously, the screen painting with his back to the protagonist is not the object of his appreciation. The screen painting here is no longer a landscape in the human field of vision, but appears as a part of the overall natural landscape. The landscape paintings on the screen seem to deliberately respond to the landscape environment of the entire work, with large trees on the left and mist-shrouded mountains on the right. Through the mutual echo of internal and external scenes, the landscape screen not only highlights the "picturesque" characteristics of the garden landscape, but also "enters the painting" as part of the garden landscape, and is fully integrated into the garden painting scene.
"Wind Eaves Exhibition Scroll"
Corresponding to the landscape screen integrated into the garden painting scene is a plain screen that leaves blank space for the garden painting scene. Plain screen refers to a screen that is completely blank and does not have any calligraphy and painting pen and ink. The literati's love for Suping originated from Bai Juyi, who was demoted to Sima of Jiangzhou, and after he built the hermitage "Lushan Caotang" at the foot of Lushan Mountain, and sang songs and chants for the three most beloved objects in the hall, Suping was one of them. In "The Ballad of Su Ping", Bai Juyi expressed the reason for his love for Su Ping: white and flawless, without a little brush and ink, is the meaning of "true"; pure, abandoning all decorations, cutting off all the distractions of sensory sounds and colors; "useless", does not have any artificial value, close to the essence of expressing the spirit. When landscape screens became increasingly popular and almost flooded, the attraction of empty plain screens to literati became stronger and stronger. This stems from the mentality of the literati group that wants to be different from the public, and it is also due to the unique "ethereal" temperament of SuPing. In some garden paintings of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the screen depicting landscapes was replaced by plain screens.
Wang Meng, one of the four Yuan families, and Wen Huiming, one of the Wumen painters of the Ming Dynasty, both liked to use plain screens in garden landscape paintings. Such plain screens are usually depicted in an open-facing living room facing the landscape, with only parts exposed, and are covered by eaves in high-angle depictions. In Wen Huiming's "True Appreciation of Jai Tu", there are one or more scribes sitting in front of the screen from time to time, and their figures are further pushed into the outdoor landscape under the blank background. However, sometimes the painter also omits the figure, giving suping an independent status. For another example, in Wang Meng's "Huilu Small Hidden Map", there is only a blank screen in the grass hall in the painting, and the owner image is not seen. This simple furnishing not only metaphorically describes the noble character of the owner, but also invisibly invites the viewer to look for the traces of the absent master in the landscape and water in the painting - its image has been hidden in the natural landscape, realizing the unity of matter and self. In the midst of a large landscape scene, Suping, as a special "blank space", adds a profound meaning beyond words to the painting.
"True Appreciation of Jai Tu"
"Huilu Small Hidden Map"
In China's traditional culture, the charm of the screen is far more than the above. As furniture, painting medium and imagery in painting, the screen reflects the rich and profound encompassing nature of Chinese civilization with its multiple identities and nature.
◎ This article was originally published in the "Macao Rule of Law Newspaper" (author Zhu Mingjing, Master of Art School of The University of London), the source network, the copyright of the picture and text belongs to the original author, if there is infringement, please contact to delete.