The Liao, Song, Jinyuan period was an important peak in the development of ancient jewelry art in the mainland, which was not only the inheritance of tang dynasty culture and art, but also opened up its own unique artistic style.
In this similar historical period of rule, the northern region of China was ruled by a variety of ethnic minorities, during which the regimes of the ethnic minorities Khitan and Jurchens not only existed in opposition to the Han regime of the Song Dynasty in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, but also the exchange and infiltration of culture and art between them was silently occurring.
Earrings during the Song Dynasty were the peak of the development of ancient earrings, and in addition to their own deep-rooted foundation of Han culture and art, some of them were also influenced by the liao and jin dynasties and other northern ethnic minorities in the same period.
Distribution of Liao-Song Jinyuan earrings
1. A medium for communicating with God – ornaments
As early as the primitive period, human beings knew how to decorate themselves with some natural substances, such as animal bones, stones, coal essences, shells, etc. The decorative culture of the mainland appeared in a very early period, some of the early ones had the Hongshan culture in the north, the Liangzhu culture in the south, etc., and a large number of ancient ornaments called "Jue" were unearthed everywhere.
Most archaeologists believe that this kind of notched ancient ornament is often excavated in the ear of the tomb owner, which can be seen as earrings.
The ancients advocated nature, when Darwin did not write the scientific "Biological Evolution", the development of social civilization was backward, most of the people in some areas believed that humans were created by gods, so no matter what area there will be myths circulated to this day, under this concept of thought, there will be a certain material artifact to sacrifice mountains and gods. These ornaments are used as material carriers for the worship of the gods, one of which is a medium used by the ancients to communicate with the gods, and the ear is an important organ for the human body to perceive the external world.
With the reason for sacrifice, there will be a series of sacrifice activities, the Sanxingdui culture unearthed in Guanghan, Sichuan Province, is considered to be a representative of Chinese witchcraft culture, the mask unearthed in Guanghan is the ceremonial vessel used in the mysterious ancient Shu Kingdom sacrifice, some of which are worn with ear holes, indicating that the ear part is considered to be an important organ of communication between people and gods in the Neolithic Age, is to serve the role of religion, and takes into account the special content of social activities.
From the beginning of the historical period, the Han nationality in each different period, due to the different areas and cultures of the ruling, resulting in the wearing of earrings is also very different. This is also related to the historical ruling culture of various periods and the different customs of various ethnic groups, and the function of earrings in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties has changed, due to the establishment of the "liturgical music" system during the Zhou Dynasty, which promotes nature and does not attach importance to carving.
The Han people in the Central Plains are influenced by the traditional ruling culture, believing that the body skin is given by the parents, not damaging the skin is a kind of filial piety, earrings are the only jewelry in the traditional jewelry that needs to destroy the integrity of the body, the ear is a relatively small organ of the body, if you need to decorate the ear, you need to wear ear holes, in order to be able to fix or hang earrings.
This kind of ear piercing behavior was not accepted by the liqueur system at that time, so earrings were not common as ornaments for a long time, even if women became popular in the Song Dynasty to wear earrings, it was also influenced by the dominant ideology and culture, and the wind of ear piercing was to restrain and remind women to standardize behavior.
Therefore, the widespread wearing of earrings by women in the Song Dynasty was, to a certain extent, also a product of the rule of the ruling class. After that, with the development of social productivity and the improvement of living standards, people's spiritual aesthetic needs will grow day by day, so that the development of art culture will also be improved, earrings, which are ornaments that originally have decorative functions, have been added to a more exquisite artistic effect.
2. Ethnic minorities in the north
The Han Dynasty's "Interpretation of Names and Interpretation of Jewelry" clearly states that the custom of piercing the ears is used to punish some ethnic minority women, because compared with the women in the Central Plains, the behavior of women in some ethnic minority areas is more unrestrained, and once the behavior is inappropriate, earrings will be worn through the earlobes and punished with pain.
Therefore, the wearing of earrings was introduced by ethnic minorities, and they are also utensils that appear with a kind of punishment. Judging from some excavated tombs of ethnic minorities in the north, in the early period, some people of ethnic minorities in the north had the custom of wearing earrings, and the tombs with earrings unearthed in the early period in the northern region were mainly male tombs, for example, the gold earrings excavated from the tomb of King Guanyan yan and his wife in Juyuan Township, Acheng City, were located on both sides of the king's ears, indicating that these northern ethnic minority men have always had the custom of wearing earrings.
There are also many earrings in the tombs of men and women unearthed in northern ethnic minority areas with different distributions. The area where earrings of ethnic minorities in the north are found is mainly based on the cloth of the northern or northeastern part of the mainland, which has always been the birthplace and settlement of the northern nomadic peoples. The main areas are Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hebei and other places. Among them, the number of earrings found by different ethnic groups in the north is also different.
The basic category of Liao Song Jinyuan earrings
1. Earrings
Whether it is in the areas inhabited by ethnic minorities in the north or in the Han inhabited areas in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, the shape of the earring form is more than the form of earrings. "Golden custom good dress white... Earlobe gold rings. It can be seen that the Jin Dynasty people like to wear gold earrings in the form of rings on the ears.
Therefore, there are many exquisite earrings unearthed in the northern ethnic minority areas, because some ethnic minority areas like to decorate various types of rings on various body organs, such as collars, nose rings, earrings, bracelets, etc., at the beginning most scholars thought that it was used to protect the body from disasters and the role of ornaments, until modern times there is still the custom of children with collars and bracelets.
2. Earrings
The production process of earrings is more complicated than the production process of earrings, which is an extension of earrings, and the decorative function is much larger. Earrings are mostly late in the development of earrings. And the earrings can carry a variety of decorative forms. At present, there are more earrings unearthed in the Liao, Song and Jinyuan periods, the number of earrings unearthed is small, although the history of earrings is relatively long, but the prevalence of earrings is in the Ming Dynasty.
Jin Dynasty earrings are different in shape, there are ring ornaments, pendants and most of them are relatively small and simple, because of the historical reasons of Liao, Song and Jin, the three kingdoms have close exchanges, before the Jin Dynasty liao, the Jurchens submitted to the rule of the Liao, and were influenced by the advanced art culture of the Khitan in culture and art, so the early earring art style of the Jin Dynasty can be compared and analyzed together with the Khitan earring art style, and the influence of this culture will not completely assimilate the affected part of the culture.
Song Dynasty earrings
1. The development of Han earrings
During the reign of the Two Song Dynasties, not only in the cultural and artistic style has changed, but also in the norms of women's etiquette, in order to standardize women's behavior, women began to wrap their feet and wear earrings, so that earrings prevailed in the folk, and promoted the development of earrings shape and style. Due to the prominent ethnic problems in the late Tang Dynasty, the Chinese civilization in the Han areas shifted from open to conservative.
During the Song Dynasty, more attention was paid to the development of local culture, and due to the weakening of exotic styles in Tang Dynasty jewelry, the style of Earrings in the Song Dynasty also ushered in a special period of change. Therefore, the two dynasties of the Tang and Song Dynasties were originally two dynasties before and after, but the jewelry styles were obviously different, most of the excavated Song Dynasty earrings did not have an exotic style, and the excavated Tang Dynasty earrings were very exotic styles, such as the Tang Dynasty inlaid treasure earrings collected by the Yangzhou Museum, which have the characteristics of Western culture and art.
2. Image of gold leaf shaped earrings
Song Dynasty earrings shape and pattern of biomimicry throughout the Song Dynasty earring art style, this kind of bionic is also called "like life", the main bionic object is a very common thing in daily life, simple and vivid melons, flowers, plants, animals and plants, etc., closer to the folk vivid living objects. The shape of the earrings is also relatively simple and natural, the simplest Song Dynasty earrings are folded in half with a gold wire, and then around the shape of a long eggplant, the small gap in the middle, the end of the ear is thin, the one hanging at the ear is thicker, extremely simple and there is no excessive decoration.
The Song Dynasty was the most brilliant period of Classical Chinese culture, using profound cultural precipitation "imagery", creating traditional auspicious patterns, injecting the soul of art and culture into traditional Chinese earrings, so that the meaning of earrings is no longer a simple ornament, giving traditional earrings a unique artistic and cultural temperament.
Analyze the commonality of the plastic art of Liao and Song Jinyuan earrings
1. Gold acorn earrings
Unearthed in the ancient city of Orimi in Suibin County, Heilongjiang Province, the earrings of golden acorn earrings are made of imitation oak fruit as a pattern.
In the middle of a large conical oak seed fruit, the bottom to disperse five leaves to support (has been left two), the surface of the leaf engraved leaf veins, leaf thickness 0.08-0.09 cm, the fruit directly in the middle of the length of 0.92-0.98 cm, empty circle to the surrounding dotted with four rows of small dots, realistic, so that the fruit form prominent and realistic, in the two leaves indirectly a curved gold wire, that is, as a flower stem, but also as earrings feet and ears for hanging, the overall weight of 13 grams, very small and exquisite.
This pair of earrings is an important witness to the pattern of Jin Dynasty earrings deeply influenced by the Han culture, acorns are the world's oldest plants, evenly planted around the world, also grown in the northeast region of the mainland temperate broad-leaved deciduous shrubs, here is also the place where the Jurchen tribes live, but also the birthplace of the northern ethnic minorities and the place where the northern ethnic minorities live, the acorns grown here are very strong local characteristics, is the Daily Sight of the Jurchen people.
The people of the ancient northern ethnic minority areas believed that acorns symbolized the meanings of fertility, strength, immortality and prosperity. The acorn is designed into a pattern theme, and the earrings are made according to the pattern, which contains the worldly wishes of the people of the Jin Dynasty for their children and grandchildren and health, and the Han region designed the melon fruit into the shape of the earrings, and the psychological cognition of the sweetness of the will is the same.
2. Good intentions
Whether it is the ethnic minority areas in the north or the Han areas in the Central Plains, people's good wishes for secular life have never stopped, and in ancient times, when they did not have enough understanding of the power of nature and their own ability to develop, they would rely on the protection of the gods, and even the custom of wearing ears and wearing jewelry began to be a spiritual religious act.
Gods do not exist in real life, and can only rely on the human spiritual imagination and then attach themselves to the living creatures that exist in reality, so they finally form a totemic culture.
summary:
In the Song, Liao, Jinyuan period, the development of the mainland in the art of painting experienced a qualitative leap, pushing the classical art and culture of the mainland to another historical peak, and it is precisely because of such development conditions that the ability to capture the imagery of things in life will be so strong.
The development of earring art of different nationalities has both commonality and differences. Because of the different regional environments and social backgrounds in which they are located, the lifestyles, cultural customs and aesthetic tendencies of various ethnic groups are different, then the development style of earring art of each ethnic group will also be different, and the final characteristics of the earring art of various ethnic groups are very unique and distinct.