Du Fu recalled a sword dance he had seen when he was a child: "There used to be a beautiful person of the Gongsun clan, and a sword dance moved in all directions. The viewer is as depressed as the mountains, and the heavens and the earth are low for a long time. ”
——It was the vigorous and arrogant Datang.
The poet Yu Guangzhong said of the same baggage white of a thousand years ago: "The wine enters the intestines, and the seven points become the moonlight / The remaining three points are roared into sword qi / The embroidery mouth is half a sheng Tang as soon as it is spit out." ”
——It was the talented and wanton Datang.
As one of the most powerful periods in Chinese history, Datang had the most material wealth in the world at that time, and also formed the most brilliant and brilliant spiritual atmosphere. Recently, as the final result of the key project of the National Social Science Foundation "Research on Aesthetic Consciousness in the Tang Dynasty", the book "Datang Meteorology - Research on Aesthetic Consciousness in the Tang Dynasty" was launched by Jiangsu People's Publishing House.
This is also the first academic monograph in China to study the aesthetic consciousness of the Tang Dynasty, and was created by a team led by chen Wangheng and Fan Minghua, famous aestheticians and professors of Wuhan University. Through the appreciation of Tang Dynasty poetry, calligraphy and painting, music and dance, sculpture, architecture, religion, etc., the book shows different aspects of the aesthetic tastes of the Tang people, and restores the prosperity and decline of the Tang Dynasty through the aesthetic changes of the early Tang, Sheng Tang, Middle Tang and Late Tang Dynasties.
The saying of "Sheng Tang meteorology" began with the Song Dynasty poet Yan Yu. When summarizing the development and evolution of poetry and the style of creation, he said: "The poems of the Princes of the Sheng Tang Dynasty... It is both powerful and meteorological. ”
Along with Yan Yu's exposition, posterity has a lot of controversy over the term "sheng tang meteorology". In the 1950s, Lin Geng published an article entitled "Sheng Tang Meteorology", pointing out that Sheng Tang meteorology is "a kind of era character formed by vigorous thoughts and feelings", and its essence is "vigorous vitality, the melody of youth". "Sheng Tang meteorology" became one of the most important theoretical categories describing Tang Dynasty poetry.
With the broadening of academic horizons, the academic community's understanding of "Sheng Tang Meteorology" has gradually deepened, believing that this is a composite concept - many styles are mixed with imagery, artistic conception and temperament, and the fragrance of the garden is concentrated and unified in the style of the times, and even manifested as keen insight and noble sense of social responsibility.
▲ Illustration of "Datang Meteorology" Zhang Xuan's "Trick Drawing" Song Facsimile
In the view of Professor Chen Wangheng, who has been engaged in the study of aesthetic ontology, Chinese aesthetic history and environmental aesthetics for many years, "the prosperity and civilization of the Tang Empire have been displayed in its literature and art with the most vivid, vivid and most physical and mental impact." Therefore, "Datang Meteorology" starts from Tang poetry, but instead of poetry and poetry, it constructs an overall "landscape" that matches and adapts to all material and non-material foundations such as Datang culture and its dynastic system and social context, and presents the overall spiritual outlook of an era: prosperous, rich, powerful, open, and full of vitality.
The author team also specifically mentioned that the position of the Tang Dynasty in the history of the development of the aesthetic consciousness of the Chinese nation is far from being reflected in the great achievement of its collection of aesthetic consciousness of the Chinese nation, but also in the key period when the aesthetic consciousness of the Chinese nation was transformed.
The "transmutation" here is mainly manifested in two aspects: First, the rise of the aesthetic concept of "tranquility". The aesthetics of the Tang Dynasty, on the whole, advocated brilliance, which of course had a lot to do with the tang dynasty's economic prosperity, cultural development, and the implementation of the national policy of opening up to the outside world. But it is worth noting that when the whole society is admiring brilliance, a relative "idyllic" aesthetic is also quietly emerging. Tranquility as an aesthetic concept did not begin in the Tang Dynasty, but in the Tang Dynasty, it gradually became an aesthetic orientation with considerable social influence; after the Tang Dynasty, it became an aesthetic style comparable to brilliance.
The second is to sublimate from the theory of "conveying God" to the theory of "realm". From the Tang Dynasty onwards, Wang Changling, Liu Yuxi, Sikong Tu and others all had expositions on "realm", "connotation" and "taste"; the "realm" theory developed in the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, and in modern times, Wang Guowei attributed it to the theory of "artistic conception" and the theory of "realm", making it the highest form of classical Chinese aesthetic theory.
▲ The inner page of "Datang Meteorology"