Abstract: The color used in the Silk Library Quanshu embodies the five-color concept of ancient China. The five colors, namely "blue, yellow, red, white, and black", carry more symbolism and cannot fully correspond to secular colors. The color separation decoration is for the convenience of consultation, the four libraries are yellow in general, implying the center, and the four seasons are compared to the four seasons by the subset of history, distinguished by color. Among them, the "white and black" corresponding to the sub-part and the collection part are the special images given by the Chinese ancestors to autumn and winter, which are not simple visual reproductions, but originate from the ancient people's understanding of the change of the four hours. The moon white used by the sub-department, whose color attribute is blue, enjoyed a high status in the Court of the Qing Dynasty.
The Four Libraries are one of the "Four Special Collections" of the National Library of China[1], and are called grand events whenever they are exhibited. Readers and scholars flocked to the book, sighing before the macro production, and also asked some questions, such as about the color of the book cover. Throughout the research of predecessors, there are few special articles, occasionally involved, and the language is not detailed. Readers often know what it is, but they don't know why. The reason is that there are huge differences in the color concept of ancient and modern times, which is not clearly sorted out, and it is difficult for modern people to understand the color design of the "Four Libraries". In view of this, a special article is written to describe it, and combined with the historical materials that have not been excavated before, it gives a clear and faithful interpretation.
I. Overview of the Four Libraries Encyclopedia
The "Four Libraries Complete Book", the full name of "King Ding Siku Quanshu", is a large series of books edited and revised during the Qianlong period. From the collection of books to the finalization of books, it took more than ten years and was the largest cultural project in the Qing Dynasty. There are seven sets of books, which are collected in the Wenyuan Pavilion of the Forbidden City, the Wenshu Pavilion of the Forbidden City of Shenyang, the Wenyuan Pavilion of the Yuanmingyuan, the Wenjin Pavilion of the Summer Resort, the Wenzong Pavilion of the Jinshan Temple in Zhenjiang, the Wenhui Pavilion of the Xinggong of the Tianning Temple in Yangzhou, and the Wenlan Pavilion of the Xinggong of the Shengyin Temple in Hangzhou. In modern China, wars are frequent, and nearly half of these seven sets of books were destroyed by war, and the Wenjin Pavilion book collected by the National Library of China is the most complete set of preserved books, letters, and shelves, just as in those days.
The saying "four libraries" originates from the traditional book classification method in the mainland, and the ancients divided all books into four categories: classics, histories, sub-books, and collections, called the four parts. For example, the New Book of Tang and Yiwen zhi records: "The two capitals each gather four books, with A and B and Propylene as the second, and the four libraries of the subset of the history of the scriptures. [2] The rulers of the Qing Dynasty followed the classification method of the previous generation, and Qianlong once pointed out in the edict: "The four libraries of the Shuyi Have never been in the bibliography, taking the classics, histories, sub-collections, and collections as the program, and compiling and storing them, which is not easy in ancient and modern times." [3] The reasons for the classification of the Four Libraries are clarified." The whole book embodies Qianlong's ambition to sweep the world's books and achieve a generation of prosperity.
Wenjinge "Four Libraries complete book", Qianlong, Qing Dynasty, National Library collection
2. The Silk Face and the Five-Color View of the Four Libraries
Every time the exhibition is exhibited, as soon as the audience enters the hall, they are first attracted by the different colors of the writing, which is rare in ancient books. The writing is decorated with various pigments of silk, the general purpose is yellow, and the scriptures, history, sub-collections, and sets are green, red, blue, and gray. This begs the first question: Why should a set of books be covered in five colors? In this regard, Qianlong gave an explanation in the "Song of Wenjin Pavilion": "Hao ru is worried about its five colors, and the outline is divided into four seasons. Jing Chengyuan is marked with green, Shi Zeheng is red, Zi Xiaoqiu is also suitable for harvesting white, and Ji Nai Dong hides his position. For example, when Qian Side was four years old, each of them was marked the same by square color. [4] To the effect that the whole book is voluminous, and for the sake of ease of reference, the four seasons are specially compared and distinguished by color. [5]
Once the idea of the four seasons of the classic, history, sub-collection and collection method is determined, the next step is to "give color", that is, to give the color of the four seasons. The colors that Qianlong gave to spring, summer, autumn and winter were blue, red, white and black, and this color ratio was not his first creation, but originated from the color concept of the ancients. The cornerstone of ancient Chinese color theory is the five-color concept, and the five colors: blue, red, yellow, white, and black are the five basic colors that the ancient ancestors summed up in practice, called positive colors. According to the Zhou Li, "The things of painting are mixed with five colors, the east is called green, the south is red, the west is white, the north is black, the sky is xuan, and the earth is yellow." [6] This is the earliest record of the Five Colors Concept on the mainland. With the development of the theory of yin and yang and the interpretation of confucianism and Taoism in the Qin and Han dynasties during the Warring States period, the five colors and the five elements, five squares, and four hours (five hours) were integrated into a stable system. [7] This system has five groups of one-to-one correspondences that constitute the world order in the eyes of the ancestors, as shown in the following table.
| Colored | green | red | yellow | white | black |
| Wu Xing | wood | fire | earth | gold | water |
| Five parties | east | south | middle | west | north |
| 4 o'clock (5 waits) | spring | summer | Season summer | autumn | winter |
At four o'clock, there is an additional "Ji Xia", which can be traced back to Zou Yan in the Warring States period. He said, "Take the fire of elm willow in spring, take the fire of jujube apricot in summer, take the fire of mulberry in summer, take the fire of tulip in autumn, and take the fire of locust sandalwood in winter." [8] It is said that the wood is drilled for fire, and now it seems that in order to construct a complete philosophical system based on the number "five", "Ji Xia" was artificially added. Zou Yan's theory of the Five Elements of Yin and Yang was inherited and developed by later generations, and Dong Zhongshu of the Han Dynasty said: "There are five elements in the heavens, and wood, fire, earth, gold, and water are also ... Water is winter, gold is autumn, earth is seasonal summer, fire is summer, and wood is spring. [9] In this way, the meaning of "five" is constantly superimposed, forming a cyclical universe, in which man, nature, and society are mutually perceptual relations, and the Chinese ancestors used it to explain everything in the world.
The Theory of the Five Elements of Yin and Yang has various forms of application in the ruling class's statecraft. The history books record: "Wu Hou came to the dynasty, placed four districts, a total of one room, listed in the court hall. Oriental spring color blue... Southern Summer Red... Western autumn white... Northern water color Xuan. [10] It is about Wu Zetian setting up a system of inspection in order to open up the way of speech. The copper box, with openings on all four sides for the submission of books, is similar to the current opinion box, and the four directions of the copper box correspond to the four seasons, matching different colors. There is also the five-colored soil of the Ming and Qing Dynasty Jitan (Zhongshan Park in Beijing), and the five-color soil, which is paid tribute by all over the country, symbolizes "under the whole world, can not be the royal land". Here, "five" is not a simple numerical concept, it represents the whole. There are many examples of such things in the literature, and it can be said that the five-color concept provides a basis for the visual transmission of the ruler's thoughts, and the Siku Quanshu is no exception.
Dong Yu landscape and book Imperial Wenjin Pavilion as a song fan, Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, the Collection of the Palace Museum
Third, the interpretation of "autumn color white" and "Xuan dong"
The silk color of the Siku Quanshu reflects the inheritance of the five-color concept by the rulers of the Qing Dynasty. The general catalogue is the catalogue that governs the entire book, in yellow, alluding to the center. The subset of jingshi corresponds to the four hours, namely: youth, red summer, white autumn, and black winter, and this set of color ratios is quite different from the modern understanding. Spring and summer are well understood, such as spring grass and tree germination, marked with cyan; summer red sun, marked red. But the difference between autumn and winter is relatively large, and today's people are more accustomed to using gold to represent autumn and snow white to represent winter, which is a big difference in ancient and modern cognition.
In ancient China, the five-color concept was not just a visual cognition. For example, in autumn, "Erya" has clouds: "Autumn is white", Jin Guo Pu notes "qi white and collected", northern Song Dynasty Xing Fushu "autumn qi and, then white and collected also." [11] If we use the phrase "crab leaves are pale, and white dew is frost" to explain the "whiteness" of autumn, we have not yet fulfilled its meaning. Specifically, "qi" speaks of breath, focusing on holistic feelings. "Color white" is not a simple color presentation, its meaning in ancient Chinese is quite different from modern Chinese. First of all, when "color" is used as a color, it refers more to the color and appearance of the substitute, such as Du Fu's poem "Is there no green fine rice, so that my color is good." [12] It refers to the color of the qi; the Yuan Shu poem "Where is the Color of Xi Shi Now"[13] describes the woman's face. "White" here is not used as a pigment hue explanation, in the ancient concept, white also extended the meaning of "nothing", which derived many of the terms we still use today, such as "blank" means nothing, "white" means useless, does not work. To sum up, "qi white" and "color white" are to describe the autumn harvest, the earth is empty, a plain. In Qianlong's poem, "Zi Xiao Qiu harvests white is also appropriate" is exactly this meaning.
Another example is winter, "Erya" said: "Winter is Xuanying", and Jin Guo Pu notes "black and clear". It is still "qi black", as explained above, "qi" is not simply equivalent to "color". The phrase "Xuanying" comes from the Chu Ci: "Serve innocence to be at ease, and be different from Xuanying." Wang Yi's note: "Xuan Ying, pure black also, to symbolize greed." [15] The use of pure black to refer to winter, the ancients had their own understanding. Bangu's Book of Han says: "In the winter month of Xuan, the heavens and the earth are strong, and the rights of all things are inside and fall outside." [16] Yan Shigu's note: "The north is black, so it is known as Xuandong, and the spirit of the strong is full of yin." This explanation uses the yin-yang five elements theory to pair the position and the season, and its reasoning process is: winter corresponds to the north, and the north corresponds to black, and black is Xuan, so winter is called "Xuandong". This preconceived logic does not seem to convince the present people, but his next commentary provides us with some ideas: "Power and opinion, the beginning, the fall, the death, the buds of the grass and trees are born inside, and the branches and leaves wither and die and hurt the outside." "It means that in winter everything withers away, with the breath of death. The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic also says: "In the winter and March, this is called closure." Wang Bing's note: "The grass and trees wither, the stings go, the land is blocked, and the yang qi is hidden." [17] In short, "XuanDong" describes the suspension of life in winter, the prosperity of yin, and the obscurity of heaven and earth.
The above examples show that the ancients had given a subjective idea to color, and they cared more about the symbolism of color than the color itself. The autumn we see is the golden yellow of rice and the layers of forests, and the autumn in the eyes of the ancients is the convergence of all things and the emptiness, just as the Song Dynasty poet Zeng Feng wrote: "The four hours of autumn are white, and the push is to pull all things into it." "We have the impression that the winter is snowy and wrapped in silver, while the winter of the ancients was the end of one year, and everything withered. Whether it is "autumn color white" or "Xuandong", it is not a simple visual cognition, but stems from the ancient people's understanding of the four times of change, namely: spring birth, summer long, autumn harvest, winter Tibet. Therefore, the naming of the colors of each season cannot be seen in isolation, and it is only meaningful to understand it in the order of the cycle of the four seasons.
Clarified the problems of "autumn white" and "xuandong", and then returned to the real thing. As mentioned at the beginning, the written representation of the scriptures, histories, sub-collections, and collections is the color of green, red, blue, and gray before our eyes, and compared with the king's "blue, red, white, and black", the biggest difference is the sub-part. The colors of the other three parts: green to blue, red to red, and gray to black, can be explained by the tonality of color and the difference between ancient and modern color words, except for the blue of the sub-part, which is far from the expected white. White is blue, why? If you want to answer this question, you need to go to the Qing Palace archives to find the answer.
Among the communications from the Ministry of Internal Affairs collected by the First Historical Archive of China, there is a document issued by the Qianlong Office of the Forty-fourth Year undertaking the "Four Libraries and Complete Books",[18] the full text is as follows: "The Investigation Department undertakes the decoration of the "Four Libraries and Complete Books" and other matters, and the materials and paper required are used in the case of the branches of the Department. The second point of the book decoration now counts 2,48 sets of 11,266 copies, which need to be sent with 78 green plain silks with a length of three feet and a width of one foot and four inches, a red silk of one hundred and twenty-six, a white plain of the moon and seventy-four, and a gray pigment of one hundred and twenty-four, and the corresponding writing of the Interior Ministry is transferred to the Interwoven Office. [19] This historical document is invaluable because it explicitly states the silk color of the four books as green, red, moon white, and gray, which is in line with the language habits of today's people. The "moon white" in it literally fits the white setting of the subpart.
"The Four Libraries of the King's Republic of China", Qianlong, Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Fourth, the color attributes and court status of "moon white"
"Moon white" is the real name "moon white", not to describe the white of the moon itself, but to refer to the blue color of the white object under the moon, which is what we call light blue. From the perspective of color genesis, white objects under the moonlit night will reflect the blue light from the canopy, showing a faint blue color, which modern people call the ambient color. This subtle effect has long been observed by the ancients, such as Lu Youshi: "The wine is thirsty and the night is drawn, and the moon is green during the day." [20] An excellent representation of the moon's white colored background, the poet notes that the night of the moon is not pitch black. And "white under the moon, a jade rabbit Hua, the flower is blue and white, such as the moon under the view." [21] The color rendering effect of the moon white is vividly described, meaning that there is a chrysanthemum called the moon white, which is blue-white, as if it were seen under the moon.
"Moon white" is borrowed to show color, from the perspective of word creation, it is settled on "white", but it is still blue in terms of color properties. There is no objection to this. The Ming Dynasty's "Tiangong Kaiwu" records: "The moon is white and the grass is white, and the indigo water is slightly dyed, and the current method uses amaranth to fry the water, half raw and half cooked." [22] Amaranth is a plant that produces indigo, and its "micro-dyeing" results in a lighter blue color. The Qing Dynasty's Kapok Spectrum further clarified its color attributes: "The dyeer has a blue workshop, dyeing azure, light blue, and white under the moon." [23] The moon white is the moon white, which belongs to the blue square, so there is no doubt that the moon white is blue. In addition, Wu Zhendi of the Qing Dynasty also said: "The Four Libraries ... Silk is used for writing, yellow for scripture, green for interpretation, red for history, blue for sub-works, and gray for collection. [24] Directly calling the subparts blue, it is known that what people see is what we see.
Although it is blue, it is called white, and this naming is more conducive to the ancients to distinguish between different shades of blue. For example, the two Pieces of Qianlong Dynasty Robes with the same specifications collected by the Palace Museum are accompanied by yellow stripes, which are respectively written with "Blue Silk Depicting Gold-Rimmed Single Dynasty Robes" and "Moon White Silk Depicting Gold-Rimmed Single Dynastic Robes". Among them, the blue robe is a dark blue, equivalent to the ultramarine used in painting, and the moon white robe is light blue, close to the silk color of the subparts of the Siku Quanshu. Of course, strictly speaking, color is a visual object, acting on the human eye, and no matter how accurate the text description is, it is difficult to be satisfactory. For example, the moon white, we call it light blue for ease of expression, but different people may recognize the light blue of different purity. If you use modern color cards to compare the white costumes of the moon hidden in the Forbidden City, you will find that they are not absolutely the same color, and there are always deep and shallow differences. This is a color tolerance issue that does not need to be scrutinized here. There are also subtle differences in the color of the Four Libraries complete book held by Wenjin Pavilion and other cabinets, but it is generally not far from the purpose of taking the four seasons of the Fa.
Moon white has always been loved by literati because of its elegant color. Gao Lian of the Ming Dynasty said of the five-color notes of wax: "It is also preferable to white, pine flower color, and white ribbed notes under the moon, and the remaining color is not appreciated." [25] However, the choice of Yuebai as the cover of the Siku Quanshu was not only for the sake of literati elegance. Looking at the Qing Dynasty court costumes collected by the Palace Museum, quite a few of them are moon-white, not only regular clothes, but also dresses. Can become a ceremonial celebration color, it can be seen that the status of yuebai in the Qing Palace is extraordinary, because for the color of clothing worn on various occasions, the royal family has strict regulations, such as the "Great QingHui Rules" recorded: "Yongzheng Yuannian fixed sacrifice to take the azure qingming yellow red moon white four-color weaving for the round golden dragon nine dang." [26] The use of various colors of dresses is also exquisite, such as "the emperor's summer court dress, the color is bright yellow, but the blue is used for the often goose, and the moon is white for the sunset moon." [27] This means that in the spring and summer, the moon is used to take bright yellow, blue is used for praying for rain, and the moon white is used for the moon festival. Therefore, it is not accidental that moon white can become the color of silk in the "Four Libraries of the Whole Book", but in fact it is closely related to the rise of its status in the Qing Dynasty.
It may be doubtful that the final version of the "Four Libraries" has deviated from the original regulations, which is also a lot of concern. The above-mentioned office that undertook the "Four Libraries quanshu huijiao" issued the article in the forty-fourth year of Qianlong, and five years later, the transcription of the fourth "Four Libraries Quanshu" was completed and transported to Wenjin Pavilion. While the Qianlong Emperor was happy, he wrote the "Song of Wenjin Pavilion", pointing out the basis for decorating the scriptures, histories, sons, and collections according to spring, summer, autumn and winter. That is to say, the "Four Libraries" that Qianlong saw was the silk surface that the former office called "green, red, moon white, and gray", but Qianlong still expressed it as "green, red, white, and black" in the poem. This difference in written expression shows that there were two parallel systems of color words at that time, one was that the ontology referred to the words, such as green, red, moon white, blue, and gray, which were suitable for popular expression; the other was the extended meaning of words, such as blue, red, yellow, white, and black, especially when these colors appeared in the overall form, emphasizing their symbolism.
Blue silk depicts gold-rimmed single dynasty robes, Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, collected by the Palace Museum
Moon white silk depicts gold-rimmed single dynasty robes, Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, and the collection of the Palace Museum
5. Conclusion
From the "white" in Qianlong's poems, to the "moon white" in the Siku Guanchen's writings, and then to the "blue" in the eyes of today's people, they describe the same object, change is the vocabulary, and what remains unchanged is the color. From antiquity to the Qing Dynasty, the five-color view was deeply rooted in Middle-earth and became part of the ancient cosmology. "Blue, red, yellow, white, black" is not so much an objective statement as an ideal expression. Qianlong adhered to the concept of "opening up the foundation with wu and ruling by right text", and used the strength of the whole country to edit the "Four Libraries of the Whole Book", hoping to search the books of the world, so the selection of binding colors also pinned on the meaning of encompassing the four seas. As part of the Yin-Yang Five Elements Theory, the five colors already possess the symbolic genes of Bao Ju yu, and it is not difficult to understand that they were selected as the cover color of the "Four Libraries Complete Book".
exegesis:
[1] The "Dunhuang Testament", "Zhao Cheng Jinzang", "Yongle Canon", and Wenjinge "Four Libraries Complete Book" are known as the "Four Great Collections" of the National Library.
[2] Ouyang Xiu, New Book of Tang, vol. 57, 47th, Qianlong WuyingDian Inscription.
[3] Qing Gui, Continuation of the History of the State Dynasty Palace, vol. 83, Qing Jiaqing eleven years of the government banknotes.
[4] Emperor Gaozong, Five Collections of Imperial Poems, vol. XVII, Qianlong Sixty Years of the Qing Dynasty (1795).
[5] This article focuses on the color matching of the four seasons, and the matching of Qian Side (Yuan Henry Zhen) with the four seasons belongs to another issue and will not be expanded here.
[6] Zheng Xuan (Note), Zhou Li vol. 11, four series of publications Ming translated the Song Yue clan.
[7] Wang Wenjuan, "Five Elements and Five Colors", in Art Observation, No. 3, 2005.
[8] Zheng Xuan (Note), Zhou Li, vol. VII, four series of publications ming translation of the Song Yue clan.
[9] Dong Zhongshu, Spring and Autumn Dew, vol. 11, Qingwu Yingdian Juzhen Edition series.
[10] Li Fang, Taiping Imperial Records, vol. 223, 21st, 4 series, 3rd edition of the Jing Song Dynasty.
[11] Guo Pu (Note), EryaShu, vol. VI, Qing Jiaqing 20 years of Nanchang Fuxue republished song ben thirteenth sutra annotations.
[12] Du Fu, Nine Collected Notes on Du Shi, vol. 1, Qing Wenyuan Ge Siku Quanshu.
[13] Cao Yin (ed.), Quan Tang Poetry, vol. 416, Qing WenyuanGe Siku Quanshu.
[14] Guo Pu (Note), EryaShu, vol. VI, Qing Jiaqing's 20th year Nanchang Fuxue republished the Song Ben Thirteenth Commentary.
[15] Wang Yi (chapter and verse), Chu Ci, vol. XIII, four series of Jingming translations of the Song Dynasty.
[16] Ban Gu, Book of Han, vol. 87, inscribed in the Wuying Hall of qianlong in the Qing Dynasty.
[17] Wang Bing (Note), Yellow Emperor Neijing Su Qi, vol. 1, four series of Jingming translations of the Northern Song Dynasty
[18] The Siku Quanshu Huijiao is a condensed version of the Siku Quanshu, with reduced content and no difference in decoration.
[19] Wei Qingyuan, "The Three Weavings of Jiangnan and the Politics of the Early Qing Dynasty", in Collected History, No. 3, 1992.
[20] Zhang Yuzhang (series), Four Dynasties Poetry and Song Poetry, vol. 195 Ancient Poems, Qing Wenyuan Pavilion Siku Quanshu.
[21] Wang Hao (ed.), Peiwen Zhai Guangqun Fang Genealogy, vol. 48 Flower Notation, Qing Kangxi inscription.
[22] Song Yingxing, on the volume of Tiangong Kaiwu, Ming Chongzhen was initially stereotyped.
[23] Chu Hua, "Kapok Notation", Qingyi Haizhu Dust Book.
[24] Wu Zhendi, Yang Ji Zhai Series, vol. XVIII, Qing Guangxu engraving.
[25] Gao Lian, "Zunsheng Eight Notes", Ya Shang Zhai volume 15 Yan Xian Qing Appreciation Note middle volume, Ming Wanli engraving.
[26] Guan Xiu, "Rules and Regulations of the Great Qing Dynasty", vol. 65, Qing Wenyuan Pavilion Siku Quanshu
[28] Liu Qiduan, "Great Qing HuiDian Tu", vol. 57 Crowns, One, Qing Guangxu Stone Print.