Today is the second day of the first month of February, the dragon looks up, after this day, the rain is gradually abundant, and spring is coming little by little.
Nowadays, there is not much good news, our hearts often feel desolate, and we are deeply disturbed by the unknowability of the road ahead, no one knows whether the situation will improve after the spring comes, but we always have to look forward to it, and we are more looking forward to the arrival of spring.
The present is full of disputes and divisions, where can we get rid of the noise and find life in the silence?
Perhaps returning to Chinese aesthetics is a good way. Shen Congwen once said, "The richer a person's aesthetic experience, the firmer his interest, the more accurate his moral choices, the more free he is."
Spring is completing its footsteps, and those seemingly distant cultures may be able to soothe anxiety and fill the lack of the present.
01.
A thousand years ago, a touch of green landscape
At this year's Spring Festival Gala, there was a program that made people shine, the dance poetry drama "Only This Green".
Popular commentators exclaimed, "'Only This Green' saved my eyes", in a festive red atmosphere, this seems to be a hint of green that traditional culture has shown us, subtle, gentle and full of flowing vitality.
To be able to display the green and green colors so beautifully, a very important fulcrum of "Only This Green" is its "origin", "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains".
The name is not unfamiliar, and "Partial" begins with this amazing painting. Chen Danqing said, "'A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains' is an accident in the history of Chinese landscape painting, an isolated document... Before and since the long scrolls of landscape paintings, none of them have been able to spell it out."
First of all, from the most intuitive visual performance, the most exciting thing about "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is the color - after thousands of years, although some of the pigments have fallen off, the turquoise color of the mountain peak is always bright.
"A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" (partial) Wang Ximeng [Song]
The whole picture is colored with two kinds of pigments, stone blue and stone green, and almost every mountain is colored, even the satin at the water's edge. In ancient times, these two pigments were extremely rare and could only be extracted from rare ores.
There are many ink paintings that have been handed down from generation to generation, and there are very few green landscapes, and the coloring area of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is unique, the thickness of the color used, and the high saturation of the color. It is no wonder that some scholars believe that the green landscape began in the Tang Dynasty and finally reached its peak here.
Its birth was a bit accidental, Wang Ximeng was originally a court painter, under the personal instruction of Emperor Huizong of Song, Zhao Yao, he was able to paint these precious colors without restriction. Wang Ximeng was only 18 years old when he created "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", as Chen Danqing said, "Teenagers are doing things with vitality and feelings."
"A stream of youthful childishness, beauty, aura, heroism", in the picture scroll, the green and green colors are very bold, the colors are extremely distinct, the light is sharp, realistic and open. Writer and art critic Wei Xi also believes that only a teenager can have such a burst of vitality, not too much pursuit of deletion and simplicity, but tirelessly and curiously, in a painting, with green and green colors to grasp the rich changes in the world.
Qing, or "azure blue", is a color commonly used in Song Dynasty painting to express the vastness of the sky, and green can be seen everywhere in spring, implying vigorous vitality.
As a long scroll of landscapes up to 1191.5 centimeters, in the "Map of a Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", the green and green colors are painted between the rolling mountains and the vast rivers and lakes, painting the brilliance of the sunshine of a thousand mountains, and even dotted in many unexpected places, fishing villages and wild markets, water pavilions, thatched grass huts, and even on passers-by who fish, sail boats and walk, becoming the finishing touch.
"A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" (details)
Wang Ximeng sketched with thick ink, and repeatedly used light ink to repeat each other, so that the color broke out from the ink line, and the layers from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain were smudged, open and concrete. The color is thick and beautiful, with flexible and rich layers, but the overall elegance is not kitsch.
"Panoramas and small scenes, sublime and beautiful, ink and heavy colors", are all cleverly integrated with paintbrushes. Looking at the whole picture scroll, it seems that the blue and green in a universe are included in it, and at first glance, I only feel that the light is brilliant, and the close look is even more meteorological.
This may be the reason why after thousands of years, "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" still has the power to directly hit people's hearts. The little faded blue and green still reveal the colors and luster of spring, implying hope, and the aesthetic power in it transcends the time limit and still has an echo today.
02.
"Visitors, but green is enough"
In 2017, the Forbidden City exhibited "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", which was in the city. There were two people in the audience, han zhen and zhou liya, the directors of the dance drama. Han Zhen said that although he could only watch it for a few minutes, he "only looked at it and never forgot it", which became the starting point for the creation of "Only This Green".
The process of creating a play from a painting to a stage play is very difficult and requires "recreating a language". The new language needs to use a new content form and carrier, but at the same time, it must firmly grasp a certain core of the original work.
The color combination of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is amazing, but its deeper core is also one of the cores of the aesthetics of the Song Dynasty, that is, "rhyme".
Wang Hao, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, believes that "rhyme" does not specifically refer to a certain style, but the aesthetic connotation that all style works can have, whether it is beautiful or majestic, elegant or gorgeous, classical or contemporary, can have "rhyme". Not only painting, but in all fields of art, "rhyme" is the highest aesthetic standard for judging art.
This coincides with Han Zhen's feelings, and in an interview with the Daily Economic News, she said that the biggest charm of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" lies in a kind of capitalization: "Wang Ximeng's sense of green rhythm laid out in the long scroll is full of rhythm like a dance."
Dance poetry drama "Only this green"
The creators captured this "rhyme" aesthetic and decided to make every detail, every dancer, a touch of flexible color in the painting, so that the painting could truly come alive on the stage.
In the stage transition, position design, and control of mechanical lighting, they are accurate to the level of "seconds", avoiding any abrupt dislocation or piercing, forming a "feeling of flowing like water".
The color collocation of Fu Hua Dao, with reference to the green of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", and repeatedly tested the color and texture of the costumes in the stage environment, not only to be able to make the costumes appear in high light, but also to look light and transparent visually, such as the "azure blue" that looks like a warm jade like a Ru kiln, as well as blue, willow yellow, and aqua green... The whole presents a subtle and lofty oriental aesthetic charm.
Whether it is plot arrangement, costume design, set installation, or overall stage design and visual presentation, they all firmly grasp the beauty of this "rhyme". Under such an overall collocation, the dancers wave their sleeves, just like the turquoise landscape extends like a picture scroll, forming an endless visual feeling.
In addition, the core of a dance drama lies in the dynamics, methods and overall form of the actors, how to transform the language of the heart into dance.
On the spring evening of the Year of the Tiger, the excerpt "Green Only" is "Green", which can be said to be the highlight and essence of the whole dance poetry drama. Green, the mineral pigment of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", has not faded for thousands of years, and even in the dark environment, it is still glowing with gemstones.
Han Zhen and Zhou Liya strip away the abstract colors, and "Green" becomes the only abstract, freehand character in the whole dance poetry drama, which slowly comes from the thousand years of lonely waiting, although there is no concrete, personal life, but full of temperature.
The dancers walk in a semi-squatting style, the feet slowly protrude forward, the moment of probing reaches the maximum value of the center of gravity movement, and then gently rubs forward, the body is upright, straight and full of strength, and the whole has both a sense of alienation and belief, and Wang Ximeng formed a divine intercourse across time and space with Wang Ximeng a thousand years ago.
"If you can tolerate the hills and valleys in your heart, the next pen can meet the mountains and rivers", "Only this green" gives the soul to Wang Ximeng's green, which is the embodiment of nature, the embodiment of culture, and a bridge connecting people and time and space.
Since the exhibition of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", the Forbidden City has produced relevant turquoise theme cultural creations, broadening the application of this aesthetic in life; because of the success of "Only This Green", it has attracted the brand Zhuyeqing for joint cooperation... On the basis of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", they have rediscovered and interpreted a "green aesthetic" from a more current and more suitable dimension of life - embracing a long distance and full of vitality.
"Bamboo Leaf Green x Only This Green Joint Spring Tea"
In modern society, it is no longer difficult to obtain pigments, let alone use computer software to produce colors, lusters and textures that were previously difficult to modulate. But why is this "green aesthetic" still so appealing?
Perhaps, the more in the dazzling but inevitable feeling impetuous at the moment, the Light and Simple Colors of the Song Dynasty Aesthetics, the minimalist and delicate expression, the structural coordination and the overall texture of the "rhyme" flavor, the more it can bring a simple concentration.
In the study of color, blue has a meaning of transcendence and tranquility. The Latin word for green is "viridis", which is associated with growth, life, and means green and vibrant. In color psychology, green and blue are also representatives of healing and hope.
The simple combination of green and green seems to come from the messengers of spring, they mean the germination and growth of life, and nature brings a sense of vitality to people - which is what we crave in a complex and chaotic world.
As the saying "Only This Green" says, "This painting is painted with the people of heaven and earth, and those who come and go, but it is enough to see the green."
03.
Taste a mouthful of "green"
The vitality released by "green" is like a long and delicate hope.
We may feel that a painting and a dance epic are calls from afar, and it is not an easy task to continue to perceive hope and beauty in life.
However, painting and dancing are only one of the forms of Chinese aesthetics, and the long meaning can be integrated into the ordinary actions of daily life. For example, taste tea, light an incense stick, and make tea.
Song Huizong not only contributed to the birth of the "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", but also his research on the tea ceremony was also unique. In the Treatise on Tea in the Great View, he mentions the essence of tea art, "Qing, He, Shui, and Jing".
The tea, which integrates the aura of the mountains and rivers, is gently brewed with sweet water, and the melancholy in the heart is also kneaded. If you can deeply appreciate the flavor, you have the opportunity to enter the realm of "zhongzhuang leisure" and "rhyme high and quiet".
In detail, the tea here refers to green tea. It was not until the late Ming and early Qing dynasties that oolong tea and black tea appeared in China, compared with the former, green tea has always been the largest tea produced in China, and it is also the mainstream taste of tea that has been Chinese since ancient times. In order to preserve the fresh taste, the season of tea picking and the process of making tea are particularly important.
The biggest feature of green tea is that it is tender. Green tea is not fermented tea, which determines that it can retain more of the natural substances in the fresh leaves, through the steps of killing, Titian, preservation and other steps, passivation enzyme activity, retain more vitamins, so that the taste is pure and fresh.
Among green teas, Mingqian tea is particularly tender. Mingqian tea is the tea picked before the Qingming Festival, the temperature before the Qingming Festival is low, there are few insect pests, and the buds and leaves that grow, although the amount is small, are emerald green and moist, which is very precious.
If it is grown in the high mountains, its taste will be stronger, such as the alpine green tea bamboo leaf green that grows in Mount Emei, and the tea brand "Bamboo Leaf Green" is named and rooted here - not only because of the zhong ling yu xiu and tea quality here, but also because it has a long history of tea making.
The Tang Dynasty scholar Li Shan once wrote in the "Selected Notes on the Zhaoming Text": "There are many herbs in Asan, and tea is especially good, which is different from the world." Now the black water temple after the top production of tea, good taste and two years of white and one year of green, intermittent out of the constant. I don't know why we are changing each other."
For its taste, Cai Lan once said, "Sometimes drinking other teas requires a lot of tea leaves to feel the taste, but the strange thing is that a small bag of bamboo leaves is enough to put down."
Cook a pot of hot soup, brew carefully, the tea leaves in the cup are upright, the leaves are soft, and the tea soup is green and bright.
A cup of tea implies the whole spring, full of greenery, fresh tea buds in the cup up and down, like a very cascading mountains, but also like the song Dynasty women's dance. Between the falles, the peaks are high and low, and the lady bends down and gets up again, "Huan Huan Yi Chu Gong Waist", with the aroma, the past and miscellaneous thoughts float into the air and slowly dissipate.
Everything in the world has become fresh and elegant, but from a cup of tea, how can you see the vitality?
The Zen koan has a story about eating tea. The two monks came to Zhao Prefecture and asked the Zen master how to be Zen. The Zen master asked: Have you ever been here? Monk: I have been there. Zen Master: Eat tea and go. Asked another person, have you ever been here? Monk: Never arrived. Zen Master: Eat tea and go. The backyard master who led the two monks asked: Why do you have to eat tea when you have come, and why do you have to eat tea if you have not come? The Zen master only said: Eat tea and go!
It turns out that everything has its own operation law, nature is endless, although there are thousands of miscellaneous thoughts and troubles, but people are only a drop in the ocean after all.
What "eat tea to go" contains is an indifferent mentality, arguing is useless, and life has its own solution. Eating tea is to perceive the passage of time in the touch, think about the reachability and inaccessibility of life, so as to achieve spiritual enjoyment.
Zhao Puchu once said, "Seven bowls of taste, one pot is really interesting." If you have nothing to do, it is better to eat tea."
Quietly feel the taste of tea bud growth in early spring, connect the germination and maturity of life with the charm between the teeth - in the moment full of uneasiness, tearing, conflict, confrontation, eating a cup of bamboo leaf green, can't we find the sense of vitality that we are particularly eager for?
Seriously tasting every taste of bitterness, incense, sweetness, etc., there is no need to take grandness as the only pursuit, nor does it have to confirm the existence of the self through debate. Life goes, "eat tea to go", is the real vitality behind the "green aesthetics".
May after the disturbance, we have the courage to settle down, let's start with a cup of fragrant tea.
The tea buds made from hot soup stand upright and verdant upwards, like the dance of the beauty of green clothes, and more like the fairy wanderers in the bamboo forest completing an elegant gathering.
"Green and green aesthetics" contains a strong sense of freshness and vitality, this time, "bamboo leaf green" and "only this green" cooperation, the "green aesthetics" contained in the fresh and strong vitality to show the vivid - the shape, beauty, fragrance of fresh green spring tea, and "only this green" aesthetic expression of the interesting, in the new year to bring people fresh and vitality.
Green is the soul of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", but also the essence of this green, its every link, every connection, every detail of the layer of polishing, together for this dance epic to create a painting-like beauty, and green is also the background color of bamboo leaf green high-end green tea.
It is precisely for this reason that Zhuyeqing and "Only This Green" hit it off immediately, and launched a joint green tea. Spring begins with a cup of bamboo leaf green and personally feels the beauty of "green".
The aesthetics inherited by Zhuyeqing are inseparable from the unique local environment, the respect for tea craftsmanship, the use of cutting-edge technology, and the adherence to high-end quality.
As China's high-end green tea, Zhuyeqing has led China's sales for 14 consecutive years, and at the beginning of the new year in 2022, Zhuyeqing's omni-channel sales increased by 72% year-on-year in January, and the star single product increased by 85% year-on-year in January. With the accumulation of high-end quality and high-end brands, Zhuyeqing has long been noticed by the world: it has been given as a gift to foreign heads of state as a gift for international exchanges; in 2020, it was elected as "Concierge Green Tea for The Chinese Pavilion at the Dubai World Expo", and in 2021, it was honored to be selected as "Concierge Tea for the 21st China International Fair for Investment and Trade", and won a number of international quality gold awards.
The adherence to the three major standards of Takayama, Mingqian and Tea Bud, as well as the use of five-fold lock fresh technology, make it special. On the top of Mount Emei of Zhong Lingyuxiu, every 1,000 tea buds can be selected before they can be gathered into 1 gram of Dao-grade bamboo leaf green, and each tea bud condenses the natural aura of early spring and also gathers the ingenuity of tea making.
The freshness of bamboo leaf youth tea, the beauty of spring tea, and the preciousness of spring tea are all vividly reflected in this touch of spring green.
Drink a cup of tea, spring, hidden in a sip of tea.
Resources
1. "Partial" 1st painting: a thousand miles of rivers and mountains| Chen Danqing, see the ideal App
2. "The Treasure of the Nation: 600 Years of the Forbidden City in Beijing" 11 Lecture: "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" Whose Jiangshan's Map? | Wang Hao, look at the ideal App
3. "Chinese Art 2000: Through landscapes, understand Chinese painting" Lecture 20: "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" If Wang Ximeng has a long life| Wei Xi, look at the ideal App
4. "Global History from China Season 3: Commodities, Trade and Material Exchange" Fan wai: Wuyi, Thirteen Lines and American Independence, tea trade in the modern world| Liang Jie, see the ideal App
5. "Illuminating the Night", | Wei Xi, Republic of China/Taiwan Straits Publishing House
6. "From the Exploration of the Color Characteristics and Pigment Composition of Green Landscapes" | Wang Shuang, "Beauty and the Times" (2017-11)
7. "Dialogue Spring Festival Gala Blockbuster Creator: There are not a few national treasure-level famous paintings, why is it exactly it?" "| Wen Menghua, Daily Economic News"
8. "Only this green, mountains and rivers, square views of hundreds of rivers" | behind-the-scenes documentary
Head image: "Only this green"
Author: Su Xiaoqi, Juice
Producer: Cat is not easy, Jiajun