◆ Ming Dynasty Tang Yin's "Playing with the Moon Map" into a fan, taipei National Palace Museum collection
Han Changjun
The popular costume drama "Wind Rises in Luoyang" recently caused plagiarism controversy due to a prop group fan. This fan originates from a scene of a big wedding in the play, where the woman wears a red dress and holds a fan to cover the face. Its designer is a contemporary folk designer, which shows that the beauty of the fan spans thousands of years and endures for a long time.
In the ancient Chinese historical life, through a series of time and space flows and the evolution of artistic roles, fans have gradually broken away from the seasonal restrictions of "autumn fans see donations". Nowadays, the design of fan surfaces is probably derived from the ancient tradition of fan painting. Looking at the forms of Chinese paintings in past dynasties, there are vertical and horizontal hanging axis panoramic landscapes between brushes and inks, which show the trend of lofty mountains and mountains and rivers rushing and springs; There are also pleasant scenes that fall on the square pattern such as bucket squares and albums, or sparse or fine brushstrokes, mostly painted with strange rocks, plum bamboo branches, and birds crying. In addition to this, there is an irregular shape of the carrier since the Song Dynasty began to become a new form of painting brush and ink, and in the subsequent dynasties and dynasties continue to evolve its aesthetic meaning, this is - fan.
The elegance of the ancient literati, who was the most important object, hoped to show their artistic talent and life taste through the fan surface; and the word elegance happened to be the living realm pursued by some ordinary people. Therefore, fan painting and painting and even fan manufacturing have produced rich forms of expression under the appeal of different groups of people. Today, the difference in appearance and the variety of its appearance are all inherited from the legacy of the aesthetics of ancient life, which still makes people today feel moved.
Beauty in the hands, holding the fan in hand; gently shaking the wind, gentlemanly and elegant
The word "fan", based on the feather, reminds people of the image of "lupine scarf, between talking and laughing, the tree ashes and smoke". Zhou Yu wore a green scarf on his head, the lupine shook slightly, and he was calm and self-assured in the face of Cao Cao's 800,000 male soldiers, showing the demeanor of a general between conversations and laughter. During the Three Kingdoms period, when the Wei and Jin styles were popular, the scholars preferred the Eguan Bo belt and the lupine scarf. The "lupine fan" is the earliest form of fan in Chinese history. It flourished at the end of the Han Dynasty, taking the half wings of birds and arranged with bamboo sticks or metal wire through the pipe. It is recorded in the "Chronicle of Huzhou Prefecture" that there was a traditional craft of making crane feather fans in China in BC, and strived to make bird feathers as moist as brocade, rich in brilliance and refinement. The waterfowl that grows in the fertile land of Jiangnan Water Town are an excellent source of feather supply. Even during the Qianjia period of the Qing Dynasty, fan makers still went to Huaiyang, Huguang and other places to collect various colors of bird feathers in February every year. When it comes to March, "Changqu Jia Alley, spring breeze than households, celebrities and rhymers, competition to hold the cool".
If there are any objects in the traditional life of ancient China that have abandoned the obvious gender intentions of men and women, the fan is one of them. Since the lupine, the materials and forms of fan making have become more abundant. Before the Sui Dynasty, silk was used a lot, and it was not until the Sui and Tang Dynasties that paper fans began to appear. In addition to lupines, the fans in this period are mostly tuan fans and fans, which cannot be folded. In the Tang Dynasty's "Picture of a Lady with Flowers", under the expression technique of the painter Zhou Fangping," the maid standing behind the lady appeared to be small. She combed her hair in a cross-knot bun and tied it with a simple red ribbon. Holding a long-handled tuan fan, the fan surface is painted with a gradient of red peony, and the green used to give color to the peony leaves is also light and elegant, which looks graceful but not colorful. In the painting, the season seems to be spring and summer, and the long-handled tuan fan is held high and can also be shaded from the sun. The women in the painting show superiority and wealth between their hands and feet, showing the lazy and leisurely living conditions of the aristocratic figures in the Middle and Tang Dynasties. "Zhao Liang Shi Female Figure" was painted at the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, and also uses a woman as the protagonist of the picture. Unlike the slightly plump posture of the Tang Dynasty ladies, the two Southern Song Dynasty women in the picture are light and slender, with a delicate posture, a smile between their eyebrows, and they walk together in the courtyard. The two women each hold a short-handled tuan fan to avoid the heat and cool. Because most of the cinnabar in the picture has fallen off, the overall picture is relatively bleak and simple, and the fan pattern is no longer recognizable.
According to legend, after the Hancheng Emperor's concubine Ban Jieyu fell out of favor, she made a poem "Song of Grievances", in which the hehuan tuan fan was used as a metaphor for itself, from the attachment of "entering and leaving the sleeve of the junhuai" to the autumn fan of "abandoning the donation of the basket", telling the tragic situation of the court women who lost the grace of the jun. In the pen of the Poet of the Tang Dynasty, Tuan Fan is also associated with the cold and lonely deep palace picture: the cool moonlight of Du Mu's "Light Luo Small Fan Fluttering Fireflies", and Wang Changling's lonely sleepiness of "and the Tuan Fan wandering together". At the same time, this also hints at the living state of the woman at that time. Tuan fan in the hands of ancient women, in addition to spring and summer shade, is also often used for barriers. Only this "barrier face" is used to vividly show the beauty of the subtle and reserved oriental women. Imagine a lady coming from a distance from the bridge, dressed in a long pale dress, misty sideburns, bright eyes and teeth, eyebrows, and a shallow smile. Before anyone could see her face, she had already wielded a tuan fan that painted landscapes with a brush, covering most of her face, revealing only a peony with her sideburns slanted. The delicate petals are hidden between the black hairs, trembling with the breeze. If you look closely, the green bamboo handle of the fan seems to be cold to the tentacles, lining her delicate and soft body, and it is more white than snow, which makes people feel like spring water breaking, and ripples for no reason.
In recent years, in the domestic costume TV series, the figure of Tuan Fan has also been seen. Empress Fucha in "Yanxi Raiders" often holds a tuan fan painted with a fiery red pomegranate, which hints at the obsession of the characters in the play; Luo Shiyiniang in "Jinxin Like Jade", who holds a tuan fan pure and elegant, shows the dignity and beauty of the character; in "Do you know if it should be green fat red skinny", Minglan covers her face with a tuan fan on the wedding night, which not only symbolizes the hope of a happy life, but also shows the self-sustainment of women under the traditional etiquette of the old times. However, the fan is not only a woman's exclusive object because of its practicality and its unclear gender attribution. For the ancient literati, fans can be used to cool off from the heat, shield the wind and dust, and are also a kind of personal ornament. In the realm of ancient Chinese traditional aesthetics, the companionship of a gentleman is not only for the purpose of daily life and to satisfy the pleasing of the eye. The literati pursue the beauty of things, and even more seek to show their own disposition in material things, and use them to nourish their character.
During the Song Dynasty, fan painting and calligraphy prevailed, thus forming the peak of tuan fan fan art creation
On the "Lady of the Hairpin Flower", the tuan fan fan held by the maid is painted with a peony, which shows that the Tang Dynasty has already decorated the tuan fan painting, but at that time it has not yet broken away from the practical limitations of the fan, and the fan painting has not become an independent category of artistic expression. Tang paintings are old and rare, and there are no relevant records of fan paintings in the literature. This phenomenon underwent a qualitative change in the Song Dynasty. As we all know, the rulers of the Song Dynasty were particularly fond of ink painting, and several emperors were good at calligraphy Danqing. During the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty, Emperor Zhao Tuo, who created his own thin gold body, made a "Loquat Mountain Bird Map" and collected it by the Qianlong Emperor in the Qing Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, Deng Chun wrote in the "Book Succession": "Between Zheng He and Emperor Huizong, every fan painting, the residences of the Six Palaces were imitated, or hundreds of copies. It can be seen that the wind of court painting fans began with the rise of the emperor.
From the overall development of ink painting, the material tools used by the painters of the Song Dynasty are more exquisite than those of the Tang Dynasty, and the next stroke strives to be neat and beautiful, although it does not have the heavy color atmosphere of the Tang Dynasty, but it is more exquisite and elegant. At that time, there were both large-scale central axis composition landscape paintings, representative works such as the Northern Song Dynasty Fan Kuan's "Xishan Travel Map", also known as "monumental" composition; at the same time, unlike the magnificent murals of the previous dynasties that focused more on showing historical figures and religious beliefs, the Song Dynasty began to appear in large numbers of painting forms such as vertical scrolls, long scrolls, and albums, and painted more natural landscapes of landscapes. The tuan fan fan, which is easy to carry and often shows people, has gradually become a form of painting for court painters and literati to show their calligraphy and painting achievements. In addition, the scale is small, the subject matter painted tends to be diverse, and it is more full of humanistic feelings and worldly interests.
Although the fan paintings of the fan attracted the imitation of everyone in the palace during the reign of Emperor Huizong, the fan paintings of the Song Dynasty that have been handed down to this day are quite many during the Southern Song Dynasty. For example, the old inscription on the "Qifeng WanmuTu" shows that it was composed by Yan Wengui, a painter in the Northern Song Dynasty, but most modern scholars believe that it was written by Li Tang in the Southern Song Dynasty, or by painters influenced by Li Tang in the early Southern Song Dynasty. This fan picture is just like the name "Qifeng Wanmu", and the close-up main mountain only exposes the rocks above the peaks that open to both sides and in front of the mountain, and shows the texture and convex layers of the rocks in a horizontal oblique brushwork. The peaks of the mountain are lush with pine fir trees, and occasionally mixed with a few trees with deep ink points, showing the layers of the trees and the height of the trees. The distant mountains are lined up, thick and light, the left side of the peaks towering, as if suspended among the clouds; the right side of the layers of mountains, it seems to be far-reaching and infinite. The overall dyeing is quite light, and the pen is relatively soft, which scholars believe is quite similar to Li Tang's "Small Scenery Scroll of Jiangshan".
In the beginning, most Song Dynasty painters painted fans, simply reducing the landscape paintings, or taking a corner of a landscape landscape and moving it from the vertical axis to the fan. The old inscription is Zhang Xunli's "Spring Mountain Fishing Boat Map", which depicts the scenery of the stream and mountain in spring with green and green landscapes. The distant mountains are long, the ancient pines are lush and lush, and the peach blossoms are delicate. Above the river is a small boat, the fisherman raises his hands, grasping the bamboo pole tied to the fishing net; on the bank of the river is built a hut, backed by a strong pine, facing the stream soup, hidden behind the mountain stone, which is the common "three-sided surround view" layout of Song-style houses. This fan has both freehand and delicate color, and contains a bit of high magnificence in the delicate and feminine, creating a quiet and comfortable scene.
The fan paintings of the Southern Song Dynasty are like the living buildings of its time, compared with the previous dynasties, the scale is gradually reduced, the craftsmanship is becoming more and more refined, and it tends to pay attention to the "corner" small scene. "Green Maple Giant Butterfly" is a classic, with pieces of tender green maple leaves and huge ochre butterflies in the diagonal balance of the picture. The objects in the painting are outlined in thin lines, and the lower stroke is like a gossamer, light and flexible. The color is light but the contrast is sharp, between the green of the maple leaf and the brown of the butterfly, the red of the ladybug is dotted, and the freshness is jumpy and not conventional. According to legend, the "Izumi Furong Diagram" painted by Wu Bing of the Southern Song Dynasty is even more delicate and exquisite, with full lotus petals, almost boneless, but full of lightness. The flower buds are clearly silky, the ends are gradually reddish, and the texture is clear and fine. This time the layout is atmospheric, the color is elegant, there is no green leaves reflecting the custom of red flowers, enough to paint the lotus flower's "Mao Qing Lian without demon".
Looking at the fan paintings painted by the literati of the Song Dynasty, the fan surface is still biased towards the expression of sketch ink painting. The fine work of the brush and the high color of the painting show that the painter treats the fan surface as a painting work. The quiet and deep beauty of the Fan surface of the Song Dynasty is just like the gentle song words, hidden in the starting and closing of the pen and the wrist. The tip of the pen is lightly touched, the silk is slightly elastic, and the ink is gradually dyed, even within inches, it is also a lofty and pure state of mind as green mountains and green water. Through the small fan painting, people can't help but think of the era when the aesthetic style was quiet and quiet, the literati hung calligraphy and painting in the hall, built gardens in the courtyard, rocky mountains, flowing water and flowers. People burn incense, cook tea and watch paintings, drink and listen to the rain, and are not elegant and happy.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, folding fans became a display of the taste and talent of the literati
During the Song and Yuan dynasties, the world believed that folding fans were introduced through foreign countries, so there were not many people who used folding fans, and it is said that it was gradually popular after the Japanese tribute during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty. The New Record of the Staff Fan records: "In the Yongle of the Ming Dynasty, the Joseon Dynasty entered the fan, and the soldiers liked the convenience of their scrolls, and the order work was as follows. Women in the south all use tuan fan, but le women use sprinkler fans, and this year women use it", which shows that the folding fan of the Ming Dynasty was promoted by the imperial family and imitated by the people. In the initial stage, it was only used by singers and dancers, and it was popularized in the later part of the civic class. Just as in tao gu's "Qing Yilu" of the Song Dynasty, the sentence "Liangyou Zhao Qingfeng" describes the characteristics of the fan and the elegance of the reader. The folding fan that prevailed during the Ming and Qing dynasties was not only used to cool off the wind, but also became an ornament for literati doctors to symbolize their own identity.
With the fan surface of tuan fan and folding fan successively becoming the expression of literati ink painting, and the change of a variety of painting scales, the relationship between the size of the painting carrier and the expression of painting has gradually entered the painting theory system. Tang Zhiqi of the Ming Dynasty said in the "Painting Of Facts": "Covering small scenes is the most, and how large is how high and far, it is to be able to be big, always can not be small; can be small, always can not be large", clearly stated that the size of the painting is not compatible with the scene. As for the same small-scale painting expression, why the painter chose the fan instead of the bucket square, first, because the fan is closely related to daily life, and second, the fan art has established its own aesthetic indicator that distinguishes itself from other forms of painting: stick figure freehand. According to ancient living habits, the use of fans varies according to the season, roughly in the early summer with folding fans, in the middle of summer with tuan fan, in summer with lupine fans, when the weather is cool, then change to tuan fan or folding fan. The folding fan is originally a "wavering wind full of grace" sleeve elegant object, the artistry of the fan surface is increasingly concerned, also because intellectuals regard it as a display of taste and talent.
Literati painting fans, most of them are good at calligraphy and painting, landscapes, flowers, trees, lakes and even characters can be fanned, and outstanding literati painters are all working, such as Wen Zhengming, Qiu Ying, Tang Yin, Shen Zhou and others. The fan paintings that have been handed down to later generations are not only exquisite in picture, but also numerous, which shows the envy of the literati doctors at that time for folding fans. In the Ming Dynasty, Lu Rong said in the "Miscellaneous Records of Shuyuan" that the folding fan can be "curled freely" due to its small shape, which is very convenient to carry around, and it is also suitable for improvisation, and the opening and closing of the fan surface creates a gradual appreciation effect for the fan painting. Because of this, the popularity of folding fans has pushed the integration of practicality and aesthetics of fan painting to a new height: fans have become a social tool for literati to travel and sing.
In the book "Ya Debt: Wen Zhengming's Social Art", the art historian Kruger comprehensively interpreted Wen Zhengming's life and social life in the name of art, as well as the social relationships that covered the ming court and the multi-faceted mix of folk, and placed the artist Wen Zhengming in the social relationship network for role restoration. Under the mainstream atmosphere of "Shangwu" in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Wen Zhengming's talent was undoubtedly recognized by art history. He innovated the artistic creation of the fan, preferring the fan inscription poem, combining calligraphy and lexicon, and pioneeringly made the fan one of the carriers of poetry. The difference from fan painting is that the expression of fan calligraphy is especially necessary to manage the layout position. Wen Zhengming is accustomed to using the layout of "one long and one short", the line spacing is unified, sparse, so that the calligraphy fan presents a sense of rhythm and rhythm. At the same time, each word knot is smooth, the thickness is staggered, the pen is smooth, and the pen is broken. Just seeing the rhyme of the fan, it is as if you see the gentle and elegant appearance of its people.
Today, if you travel to a cultural attraction, it is not difficult to see the scene of "live fan inscription" or "live painting fan". Most of the stall owners are a man who holds a folding fan in his hand and shows himself as an unruly literati. The tourist went forward to report his name, he thought about it a little, waved a large pen, and made a tibetan poem in the name of the tourist, and wrote it on the paper fan. But if the price of this fan is a few dollars, it is not only the price of poetry and writing, but also depends on the material, workmanship and quality of the fan, and there are different prices to choose from - this is also derived from the ancient old rules. The rules of calligraphy and painting from Yongle to Qing dynasty in the Ming Dynasty were more or less: the fan surface was one foot for two feet, the mud was doubled, and the big green was doubled. During this period, leaving aside the class of literati and scholars, when folding fans entered the life of the citizens, the popular tone of life carried by them turned. Red gold fans, black oil painting fans, red opera painting fans, etc. are all fine works in folk fan making craftsmanship, and Suzhou's water-milled jade bone fans are even more excellent. The water-milled jade bone fan adopts the "old alum noodle" process, with sprinkled gold, antique and other fans to adapt to ink painting. The fan bone is made of winter moso bamboo from Zhejiang and Xiang, with a slender texture and a deep color. The shape of the handle is even more diverse, with more than 120 kinds of swallowtails, gourds, magnolias and so on. Water milled fan bones may also be accompanied by carvings and inlays, and the nail holes are mostly used with buffalo horns. Folk do not have much contact with Confucians, so they rely on strange skills and precious materials to highlight their different status. At the same time, fan painting has also turned to a subject matter that meets the preferences of the public, such as auspicious themes, gorgeous landscapes, and craftsmanship. During the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, there was even a difference in the scenery of the fan painting between the north and the south, the south side was more painted with the west lake scenery, and the north used more Jinxi Yangliuqing, which was similar to the difference between the goods sold by the modern tourist attractions in the north and south, which was very interesting.
(The author is a phD candidate in the Department of History, Shanghai University)
Source: Wen Wei Po