The Ming Dynasty's "Imperial Capital Jisheng Picture Scroll" reflects the performance scene of urban folk rap
The core of art is interconnected, whether it is music belonging to the art of time or painting of space art, with the help of artistic synaesthesia, the communication and transformation between art forms is possible. This is reminiscent of the pictorial titles of Debussy's musical works, such as "Printmaking Collection", "Reflection in the Water", "Flooded Church", etc., from which the viewer can feel the unique visual imagery of the music. Similarly, Kandinsky, who has always had music throughout his painting career, regards color as the music that jumps in the music and composition as the tone of the work.
Aesthetic activity takes place in life, and it is inherent in life. As early as ancient China, the aesthetic integration of vision and hearing based on artistic synaesthesia has many manifestations. The Ming Dynasty poet Feng Mengzhen integrated the "Mingqin" of the "Thirteen Things" listed in the leisure appreciation into the life theme of painting creation, and Zheng Qiao of the Song Dynasty also divided the "Book of Poetry" into three categories according to musical functions: "Wind", "Ya" and "Ode" in his "Six Classics of The Olympia", and the field of visual arts in China has presented the artistic buds of "wind" letu, "ya" letu and "ode" letu as functional image categories thousands of years ago. The music and painting associated with music and dance carry intuitive, vivid and true information such as the development of music and art, ethnic integration, society and customs in the history of culture and art, and are a precious art style. They not only confirm the development of the art and aesthetic taste of the times, but also reflect the Chinese literati's pursuit of "true happiness in life" and focus on the aestheticization of life with "leisure and leisure".
The Ming Dynasty Wen Zhengming's "Qinshi Picture Scroll" combines the sound of the qin with Han mo and tea tasting, and the picture is partial
【"Wind" Music Chart】
Convey the colorful music and folk customs of various ethnic groups
If the "national style" of the "Book of Poetry" generally reflects social life through the portrayal of character images and character images, then the "wind" music map is mainly based on the depiction of folk artists' performances and urban and rural music activities in various places to concentrate on the aesthetic interest of folk music life. As one of the important forms and carriers of human culture, "Wind" Letu has accumulated rich experience in folk life and unique artistic charm, which makes people more deeply understand and feel the colorful music and folk customs of various ethnic groups transmitted by the picture.
Taking the images of musical life reflecting urban and rural activities after the Song and Yuan Dynasties as an example, with the increasing development of folk music and opera activities during this period, while music developed in depth and breadth, more audio and painting image data were preserved than before, especially various folk rap activities in towns. The scene depicted on the west wall of Yanshan Temple in Fanzhi County, Shanxi Province, is a scene of female artists singing in the restaurant, of which there are two women on the left, one holding a mallet to beat a flat drum, and one to beat the clapping board. Such singing pictures also appear in the Baisha Song Tomb in Yu County, Henan, the Southern Song Tomb Stone Carving in Luojiaqiao, Guangyuan County, Sichuan, and Zhang Zeduan's "Qingming On the River". At the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Chen Yuanliang's "Shi Lin Guangji" also has a "singing and earning map" painted with Keju, and the painting has the singing and earning situation accompanied by the "drum board" band depicting in the poem "Drum board clear tone according to the music star, that can beat more spirit." Three rhinoceros frames hang silk, and two fairy branches hit the moon wheel. The flute rhymes like a dan phoenix, and the sound of the board has a quiet whip. Several times under the moon, a new song was blown, which attracted Chang'e's ears to listen. ”
Suzhou Taohuawu New Year Painting "Xiao Guanghan Bullet Singing Picture" truly reproduces the scene of seven female artists singing lyrics in the "Xiao Guanghan" book field
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the content and form of urban and rural music life were more abundant and diverse. The popular rap performance content still accounts for a considerable number of music painting works. The Ming Dynasty's "Imperial Capital Jisheng Picture Scroll" reflects the performance scene of urban folk rap, in the bustling streets of Zhengyang Gate (now Qianmen) and inner and outer streets, on both sides of the castle tower, there is a person standing on a rectangular bench, holding a pipa or clapping board, and there are many spectators around. The Qing Dynasty painter Hua Yao has a rap scene depicting the rural "early rice debuting on the farm, idly listening to the father and elder talk about the former dynasty", in which the singer sits at a long table under the pergola, holding a board in one hand and a mallet on the other to hit the small flat drum on the table; next to it are three or two listeners, a naked listener sitting on the ground, an old man with a body and a child holding a toy, etc., and the characters are vividly portrayed. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Painter Ren Xiong also had similar works, and in the "Album of Poetic Intentions of DameishanGuan" composed for Yao Xie, the "Blind Song Map" depicts the Jiangnan customs of a group of old men and women and children gathered under the bean trellis to listen to the blind artists rapping in the summer, and the picture conveyed a strong breath of life. Formal stage performances in this period were also common as one of the folk rap forms. Wu Youru's "Women's Bookstore" picture in "Shenjiang Scenic Map" and Guan Keshouzhai's "Shenjiang Scenic Spots" all have the scene of the bookstore performance. Suzhou Taohuawu Chen Tongsheng Painting Shop painted the New Year painting "Xiao Guanghan Playing and Singing" is a true reproduction of the scene of seven female artists singing lyrics in the "Xiao Guanghan" bookstore, after the painting is on the table, three people play the pipa, one person pulls the erhu, one person holds the clapping board and beats the book drum, one person in front of the table makes a performance, and one person holds the pipa to wait for the stage.
The theme of music and painting also has many manifestations in folk customs and other aspects, such as the Song Dynasty's "Da Shu Tu" showing the Song Festival's song and dance activities that make the people beg for smooth wind and rain and abundant grain. Twelve people in makeup and performances are dressed in different costumes and different looks, including some people wearing or playing various musical instruments, and the picture is full of joyful atmosphere. It is also based on the recording of drumming and singing in the field, such as the "Xue Drum Diagram" in the "Three Talents Tuhui" (Wang Xi), which depicts the Sichuan mountain song "Xue Yang Song", on which several people plant seedlings in the field, hang flat drums on the branches of the field, and one person holds the hammer to beat.
In addition, the "wind" music map also preserves works reflecting the musical activities of ethnic minorities in China, and most of these images are closely related to their production and living customs, and contain strong national aesthetic characteristics. For example, the song under the tree in the Mural painting of the Yi people in Weishan, Yunnan in the Qing Dynasty may be a grand event held for the "sacrifice of crops". The Miao music and dance diagram in the "Guangyu Shengguan" (Qing carved version) is a true portrayal of the Miao people's "dancing moon in MengChun every year, male blowing reeds, female ringing bells and singing harmony, dancing side by side, and being tireless all day long" (Ni Ren's "History of Nanzhao Wild").
Picture of the Dong pipa song sung by the Qing people
【"Ya" Letu】
It presents the aesthetic trend composed of art collection and banquet music
Different from the artistic characteristics of the "wind" music chart that reflects the lives and feelings of the people, the "Ya" music map is more embodied in the content of swallowing and the music of the dynasty.
First of all, the literati collection combined with the performance of musical instruments is one of the themes of the "Ya" music diagram presentation. As a form of literary and artistic exchange between ancient Chinese literati and doctors, Yaji often expresses the natural and open-minded artistic and life attitudes of the literati, and accordingly the visual images depict scenes such as Fuqin appreciation, incense burning and hanging paintings, poetry and wine singing, and cooking tea and tea hidden in the mountains and forests or private spaces. The paintings of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest of the Southern Dynasty and the Mould Bricks of the Rongqi Period excavated from the Tomb of the Rongqi Period in Xishanqiao, Nanjing, are typical of the elegant collection, which includes the images of the Wei late violinist Ji Kangfuqin, the Spring and Autumn "Recluse" RongQi Period Drum And Song, and the Wei and Jin Dynasty Ruan Xian duan sitting under the broad-leaved forest obliquely hugging the straight-necked pipa. The Tang people attach importance to the art of living, and the National Palace Museum in Taipei collects "Tang Dynasty Palace Music Map" as a rare Collection of Tang Dynasty Palace Women, the picture music is accompanied by tea and wine, showing the interest of artistic life, and the same scene also appears in the literary associations and art collections of the past dynasties. This kind of "Ya" lot is more concentrated in the Song and Yuan dynasties. For the scholars in this period, the appreciation of music is a form of daily interaction, and in this community of exchanges, the social relationship between the internal classes of the scholars is eliminated, so that the daily "things" of Yaji's friendship have aesthetic implications. We can feel the leisurely and elegant art of life from Zhao Mengfu's works such as "Songyin Huiqin Tu", "Boya Drum Qin Tu", "Yuan Ren Painting Listening to Qin Tu" and other works, the pictures are mainly light ink, and the stone color is blended, the color is quaint, and the ink color is reflected.
By the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were many literati and elegant collections in the "Ya" Music Chart, which were full of images that were paired with the music of Pu Ruan, and the characters were mostly located in the landscape, such as Qiu Ying's "Jade Cave Immortal Source Map", "Banana Yin Knot Xia Tu", Tang Yin's "Qin shi tu volume", You Qiu's "Xiyuan Ya Ji Tu", and the anon. Taking the first "qin" theme in the four axes of the Ming Dynasty's "Eighteen Scholars' Diagram" as an example, in the painting, the four scribes sit in the pine shade, around the tang, one is sitting precariously, like burning incense, and the other person twists an object in his hand, as if enjoying incense; the other two sit idly by, one person holds a fan, with a leisurely attitude, behind a child holding a lupine fan, a child bending the body to undo the piano sleeve, and the sitting literati seem to be playing the piano with their smoked hands. The other man stands on the side of the lake stone of the blooming peony stone fence. The second child behind the pine tree is busy with tea. There are two in front of the court, pecking very tamely, and there are peony lake stones planted in the white jade pots on the side, which echo with the front railing, which is extremely rich and elegant. The piano and tea are accompanied by incense burning, flower arrangement, potted plants, and strange stones, which are full of elegance and fun, just like "boiling tea to clear words, and making the piano know the sound". Even the Qing Emperor, who was good at tasting tea, also showed pictures similar to those of the literati tasting tea in the images of Fuqin tea tasting painted by painters such as Lang Shining, Zhang Zongcang, and Dong Bangda, and the "Hongli Fuqin Diagram" (Zhang Zongcang) depicted the scene of Qianlong sitting idly on the stone in the courtyard in front of the Qinghui Pavilion reading, playing the piano, tasting tea, and burning incense, and there were also "Hongli Guan Hefu Qin Tu" (Lang Shining) and "Yin Chan Xingle Image" (Qing Renzuo) and so on.
The first of the four axes of the Ming Dynasty's "Eighteen Bachelors' Diagram" has the theme of "Qin"
We found that the "Ya" music chart with the first of the four arts of the literati, the qin as the core "object", also recorded a good story of the literati who met the piano. The "Banana Stone Singing QinTu" now in the Wuxi Museum is an example. From the title of the work, this painting was painted by Wen Zhengming when he was 59 years old (Jiajing Pengzi March 26th) for his friend Yang Jijing, in the painting a pianist sitting on the seat to play the piano for fun, the style is leisurely, the right side of the back is made of lake stone and two bananas are written in light ink next to it, and the top is painted with a silk bar, and the "Qin Fu" of the Jin Dynasty ji kang in small letters is used, which is round and exquisite. This kind of "elegant" music map reproduces the elegant hobbies and idealistic aspects of the literati's leisure life for future generations.
Secondly, the theme of expressing "Yan le" (Yan Le) is also one of the visual expressions of "Ya" Letu. Anhui Ma'anshan Three Kingdoms Zhu Ran Tomb Museum collection of "Palace Banquet Letu" presents us with a grand Western Han court banquet, extremely luxurious. The Tomb of the Sixteen Kingdoms of Astana in Turpan, Xinjiang, has unearthed murals of music and dance, and there are also pictures of three people sitting and drinking on the upper floor. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the court banquet music represented by the popular song and dance was not only expressed in literati paintings (such as "Tang Palace Music Map"), but also prominently in murals and tomb stone reliefs, and the scene was huge. For example, Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes 445 Caves during the Tang Dynasty "Maitreya Jingchang" wedding picture in the music and dance performance, the middle one dances alone, the upper right three people respectively hold Xiao, cymbals, clapboard accompaniment. Five generations and two Song Dynasties, this kind of "Ya" music atlas appears on the silk scroll material. Khitan painter Hu Biao's "Zhuo Xietu" vividly recreates the scene of the five generations of northern Khitan nobles resting in the middle of the hunt, feasting, drinking and dancing, depicting a male dancer in the middle of the picture, two people standing on the left to play the vertical basket, and three people clapping their hands. The Palace Museum in Beijing's collection of "Han Xizai's Night Feast" (Gu Hongzhong) narrates Han Xizai's night feast music and dance life in a unique compositional way, of which three sections (listening to music, drumming, and watching dance) plots depict scenes of court performances. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the "Ya" music chart that recorded the feast and drink scene was more abundant, not only the scene of acting, but also the picture of the combination of musical instrument performance and sports activities, and the "Four Things of Sai Yan" composed by the Qing Painting Academy people showed the four activities of "Shibang" (Mongolian music performance) and "fraudulent horse" (young children's horse racing), "sumo wrestling" (wrestling competition), and "teaching jumping" (horse training) held by Qianlong at the Chengde Summer Resort.
The "Ya" Music Chart takes us to watch the leisure lifestyle of the ancient literati doctor listening to the natural elegance of the piano rhyme and tasting the tea taste, and also interprets the colorful and colorful scenes of the feasting, drinking, dancing and dancing within the ruling class where various nationalities are integrated. As a concrete practical expression of the aesthetics of "Ya" Letu's life, Yaji and Yanle constitute the aesthetic trend of the musical life of the ancients.
The Chuanzhou Wenzhi "Hele Tu" depicts court performances
【"Ode" Music Chart】
Recreate the great journey of the ancestors to explore the unknown world
According to the interpretation of the "Preface to the Poem", the essence of the early "ode" is "singing praises to virtue". In the Qing Dynasty, the theory of "ode" focused on singing the praises of ancestors, sacrificial music, dancing appearances, polishing Hongye, performing scripts, and music distinctions. Correspondingly, the "Ode" Letu depicting these contents can truly reproduce the great historical journey of the ancestors to explore the unknown world.
The theory of positioning "Ode" as "the description of Meishengde" in the Preface to the Poems was most widely spread in the Han Dynasty, and since then there have been a large number of "praise" lots of "praise" music that praises ancestors and prays for the blessing of the gods. Among them, the image is prominently represented as a depiction of religious ceremonies and activities. Taking the Lifo diagram on the front wall of the cave in Binyang as an example, as the only royal grotto in the Longmen Grottoes of the Northern Wei Dynasty, it specifically presents the early Buddhist activities. The third relief, the Empress Dowager (from the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City), can be seen as a portrait scene combined with music, which not only preserves the imperial life style of the grand ceremony, but also contains a floating religious meaning and a calm state of mind. Another work, Chaoyuan Xian Tu (Chuanwu Zongyuan), depicts a huge pilgrimage ceremony led by the two emperors of "Donghua" and "Antarctica", composed of xianguan, attendants, and leju. Among them, the instruments played by the musician are the pipa, the horizontal flute, the shakuhachi, the sheng, the flute, and the drum. The characters in the picture are dignified and elegant, the costumes are magnificent and gorgeous, and the belts flutter in the wind, as if they are moving in the air, as if "Sen Luo moves the axis of the earth, and the palace wall moves." The Five Holy Dragons, the Thousand Palaces of The Wild Goose Line. Crowned with beautiful hair, the flag is flying as far as possible" realm. Generally speaking, this type of "ode" music diagram embodies the aristocratic aesthetic taste of pursuing flashy pleasures and expressing the psychology of piety, hoping to bring everything in life to the other shore.
The Qing Dynasty Ruan Yuan, based on the "Rong" interpretation of "Ode" in the "Preface to Poetry", proceeded from the shape of the dance, and incorporated the early music and dance elements into the discussion of the connotation of "Ode". The type of dance theory expressed in the "Ode" music chart is "music dance", such as the visual image of the original ancestors singing and dancing hand in hand on the inside of the faience pot excavated from ShangsunZhai in Datong County, Qinghai Province. This "earliest image of music and dance in China" is the visual transformation of the ancestors' witchcraft-type religious sacrifice activities through musical realization, which can be regarded as the origin of the combination of ancient music and painting.
On the inside of the faience pot excavated from Shangsun Village in Datong County, Qinghai Province, there is a visual image of the original ancestors singing and dancing hand in hand
During the Qin and Han dynasties, with the transfer of ceremonial worship centers from the Zongmiao to the cemetery and the prevalence of thick burial customs, the visual culture of tombs became increasingly prosperous. During this period, the "music and dance" type was mainly manifested in the tomb murals and portrait bricks, especially in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, which was very prosperous, such as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the Linger County near Xindianzi Township and the Linger Eastern Han Tomb Mural "Music and Dance Hundred Plays". This Han Dynasty "Ode" Le Tu vividly reproduces the hedonistic life situation of the feudal landlord bureaucrats at that time, and from the content of the murals, it can also understand the ethnic cultural factors, national spiritual inheritance and aesthetic standards of various regions of the Han Dynasty, which can be described as a mirror of the social life of the Han Dynasty. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the "music and dance" genre was mostly concentrated in the murals of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes. According to statistics, there are more than 200 caves with sound and painting themes in the murals of the Mogao Caves of the Tang Dynasty alone, more than 500 groups of various musical instruments, musical figures and bands, and about 40 kinds of instruments such as blowing, plucking, and percussion. Among them, the music and dance pictures in the most representative 220 caves of the early Tang Dynasty show the musicians vivid and vivid, the dancers dance in a novel and unique style, and the scale of the band is grand. It is worth noting that this kind of "ode" music gradually evolved from a culture of witchcraft sacrifice to a culture of ritual. After the Liao and Song dynasties, with the development and prosperity of music in the folk, the "music and dance" type was more expressed as scattered music (hundred plays), which contained various new elements of folk music, such as opera with music, dance, and storyline. The shapes, dresses, and expressions of the characters in the "Ode" music picture also directly reflect the aesthetics of life at that time. Undoubtedly, with its profound cultural connotation and comprehensive artistic expression, especially the multiple aesthetic structures that integrate painting, literature and music, "Song" Letu has become a precious source of inspiration for cultural and artistic research.
Author: Wang Heng (Youth Scholar, Institute of Letters, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences)
Editor: Fan Xin
Editor-in-Charge: Wei Zhong
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.