Virtual pole press: Shaohua is easy to pass away, red face is easy to age, the moon is cold and the sun is warm, to fry life, the mirror is still there, where to find the flying light?
Cultural inclusion refers to the internalization phenomenon that occurs when different cultures come into contact with each other, and this process includes many stages such as acceptance, synthesis, and creation, through which culture absorbs external factors to enrich itself. Cultural inclusion is different from both cultural confrontation and cultural assimilation, which is a process of systematic absorption, transformation and reconstruction of foreign cultures and heterogeneous cultures, and at the same time it is also a process of revaluation, reflection and transformation of local cultures. The artifacts depicted in his works by the Persian miniature painting Holy Hand Abasi in his works perfectly embody the fusion of Eastern and Western art.
▲ Reza Abbasi's "Beauty in the Mirror", a miniature album
In "Beauty in the Mirror", this Persian beauty reclines in the splendid embroidery and takes a self-portrait in the mirror. Today, we will start from this "handle mirror" in her hand and talk about the history of the development of Chinese mirrors.
▲ Handle mirror
Ancient Chinese bronze mirrors are basically shaped by round buttons, while mirrors with handles are generally considered to be a style from the West. Iraq has unearthed 4900-year-old bronze mirrors, Iran's bronze mirror history can be traced back to 4300 years ago, and the beginning of the history of continental mirror casting is roughly equivalent to it. At present, the earliest bronze mirrors in China have been excavated from the Qijia cultural site, which is located in Gansu and Qinghai, where agriculture and animal husbandry are combined and Hu and Han are mixed, dating back about 4,000 years. The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic records that "the emperor and the Queen Mother of the West will meet with the royal house, but cast the twelve sides of the large mirror, and use it with the moon." "It is clear that both ancient texts and excavated objects tend to prove that ancient Chinese mirrors originated from cultural exchanges between the East and the West.
▲ Qi family culture "geometric xingwen bronze mirror", 2000 BC
After the Qi family culture, the production of copper mirrors showed a significant decline period, and the number of copper mirrors unearthed in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties was very small. The Zhou Li Kao Gong Ji (周礼考工記) says: "Jin Xi Ban is called the Qi of Jian Flint". Flint, or yang, is a kind of concave mirror that takes fire to the sun. Qi, tong "agent", meaning bronze formula. "Gold tin half" refers to the copper-tin ratio of the cast mirror is 1:1. Such a high copper-to-tin ratio will make the hardness of the copper mirror extremely high, but at the same time, it will also cause the copper mirror to be brittle and fragile, which may be the physical reason why the copper mirror in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties is difficult to survive to this day.
▲ [Warring States] even arc phoenix mirror, face diameter 18.3 cm, weight 480g
Collection of the Palace Museum
When the time came to the Warring States, the production of bronze mirrors was renewed, not only a huge number, but also exceptionally exquisite, the back of the mirror was decorated with intricate decorations, including huī (huī) pattern, grass leaf pattern, continuous arc pattern, dragon and phoenix pattern, mountain pattern, cloud pattern, thunder pattern, diamond pattern, animal pattern and so on. There is no doubt that China's mirror casting industry ushered in its first peak in the Warring States era.
▲ [Eastern Han Dynasty] Bo Bureau pattern portrait mirror, face diameter 16.5 cm
The size of the bronze mirrors in the Two Han Dynasties became larger and larger, and the mirror buttons changed from "bow buttons" (or "bridge buttons") to semi-circular "steamed bun buttons", and the steamed bun buttons of the Eastern Han Dynasty were taller than those of the Western Han Dynasty, showing the magnificent and generous strong man atmosphere. The Warring Han Mirror pattern conveys many messages of ancient mythology, such as the Eastern Han Bronze Mirror in the picture above, which is decorated with the Liubo chess game that was popular at that time, and there are four groups of portraits at intervals: hunting tigers, running the moon, fishing, and releasing birds. The characters involved in the portrait are all derived from myths and legends, except for Chang'e, who is now familiar, everyone else is a "feather person" with two wings.
▲ [Tang] Sea beast grape pattern copper mirror
After the Han Dynasty, the mirror casting industry during the Wuhu Chaohua, the Central Plains Plateang, and the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Northern and Southern Dynasties shrank significantly, and there was a three-hundred-year downturn between the strong Han and the Tang Dynasty, but at this time, the deep integration between Hu and Han and the increasingly developed overseas trade also gave birth to the improvement of the mirror casting process and the innovation of the mirror decoration style. Sui and Tang Dynasties were the era of high prosperity of Chinese bronze mirrors, at this time the bronze mirror got rid of the restraint of the Han mirror, and the back of the mirror was more free and vivid, and the "sea beast grape mirror" was the most attractive representative. So, what exactly is a "sea beast"? Let's talk about the copper mirror next time.