Three questions from ancient and modern gatherings:
Who's coming today? What do we eat? What are we playing?
A painting related to a banquet is nothing more than this: who painted whom, how to arrange to eat, drink, and play.
“
Twelve horses and one donkey, five men without horses should be straight.
Wu'an Shi Tamarin was forbidden to obey, and the eldest grandson Fang Du Wang Wei tu.
One person is drunk on Xiao Shifu, and one person is understretched.
One person watches the goose standing on the fence, and one person carries the pen.
”
This is the poem "Inscribed Yan Liben Eighteen Bachelors Diagram" composed by the Southern Song Dynasty poet Zheng Fu for the one who saw him as Yan Liben, who was "brilliantly divided into pens and baht", which was originally a specific description of the scene painted by the "Eighteen Bachelors", but it is consistent with the various human and material characteristics of this painting that was now titled "Spring Feast Map".
There are horses and donkeys:
One person's lazy waist stretched out like a bow, and one person was so drunk that he didn't know whether to mean "I can't drink" or "Don't help me, it's no problem to play another round":
There's also a guy who says "Oh, I'm watching a goose":
So what is the connection between the two, and what is the relationship with Yan Liben?
There are 65 people, 5 species and 15 animals, an eagle, a thin dog, two geese, ten horses, a donkey, and 17 seals.
From the beginning of the volume, it can be divided into three broad types and scopes of activities.
Section 1: Stop the horse in an open space;
The second stage: wandering between the pond and the dead trees, playing music, drinking and cooking tea, is the most abundant part of the whole volume;
Three paragraphs: Chanting and communicating between the trees at the end of the capuchin.
Southern Song Dynasty Anon. Collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing
The tail paper can be seen in two connoisseur inscriptions, written by zeng lun, an empty old man in the Song Dynasty, and Lu Shidao in the Ming Dynasty. The direct connection between the eighteenth scholar's poem and this picture occurs on this inscription, and Zeng Lu clearly wrote in the first sentence "Eighteen Scholars' Spring Feast Map of the Tang Literature Museum" and then said that "it is said to be Chen Hong's pen" and "competing with Yan Right".
This turned out to be the result of the omission of the important first half of the name.
However, there are many unique cultural products and food utensils of the Song Dynasty in the picture, so this "Eighteen Scholars Spring Feast Map" is not a tang dynasty authenticity, but a temporary imitation of the Southern Song Dynasty that incorporates many elements of the times.
Compared with Chen Hong, the theme of "Eighteen Bachelors' Diagram" is more closely related to Yan Liben.
In Tang Zhu Jingxuan's "Catalogue of Famous Paintings of the Tang Dynasty", Yan Liben's eighteen scholar figures are listed as divine products.
The Eighteen Scholars of Tuqin Province, the Twenty-four Heroes of Ling Yan Pavilion, etc., are also reflected in the present and ancient times... He also wrote that the eighteen scholars of the Qin Dynasty, the heroes of LingYange, etc., all of them reflected the former ancients, and the people of the time called it wonderful.
As for the quarrel between the auditor Chen Hong and Yan Liben, it can also be seen in the "Xuanhe Painting Notation", saying that every time he painted a portrait of the imperial face, it was wonderful at that time, not only did he have "the shape of the dragon face and phoenix, the sun and the moon" but also "the pen power is heroic, and he really competes with Yan Liben to be the first" and the horse painting is also wonderful, and even mentions a saying that the Ming Emperor disliked Han Gan's horse and could not draw Chen Hong's brushwork, and let Han learn from Chen.
But in short, in the subject of the Eighteenth Bachelor's Chart, the clues related to Yan Liben are more direct and far-reaching.
Southern Song Dynasty Anon. "Eighteen Scholars' Spring Feast Map" Part of the Collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing
In later generations, there are many works similar to the pattern of this "Eighteen Scholars' Spring Feast", such as the Song "Wenhui Tu", the Chuanhuizong "Eighteen Scholars' Picture Scroll", etc., and there are also "Eighteen Bachelors" with similar activities but completely different schemas in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.
Northern Song Dynasty Zhao Tuo's "Wenhui Map" Part of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Now, the relationship with the "Eighteen Bachelors" is clear, but this "spring feast" is really not necessarily spring.
"Spring Feast" food
Look at the fruit plate on the table, which contains peaches, grapes, pomegranates, pears, lotuses, etc., of which grapes and pomegranates were introduced to the mainland in the Han Dynasty.
Peaches also appear in several works with similar patterns.
Peach in "Wenhui Tu"
It is indeed very rich, but where is the fruit of spring?
Different from the past today, people can now eat a variety of anti-seasonal fruits in the four seasons, and the ancients had such a blessing.
Peaches, grapes, pomegranates, pears, lotuses, etc. are fruits and vegetables that ripen from late summer to autumn, and the earliest is also in July, far from spring.
If it must be said that it is a spring feast, it has nothing to do with the seasons in the image, and at most it can only be attached that Li Shimin set up a literary museum in Chang'an that had the intention of budding. Therefore, it is not clear the origin of the "spring feast" in the inscription.
Therefore, it is more appropriate to call it the Southern Song Dynasty Anon. "Eighteen Scholars Diagram".
Although the time, name and picture do not match, the cuisine is worth mentioning in the Song Dynasty in which it was created.
During the Song Dynasty, there were many kinds of banquets, such as the grand celebration banquet held by Dengdi Shizi, and the Qionglin Banquet, one of the "Four Feasts of the Imperial Examination", began in the Song Dynasty; there was also the Kaifang Banquet that inherited the previous generation;
The former is extravagant, the wine is like water, and the food pile is like a hill. (Song Kuo, "Gengwu Chunguan Xinjinshi Gift Feast Qionglin Yuan Yin Shu Shu See": Swamp Floating Wine, TuJu Shun. ）
The latter mainly describes the more private feast and drinking music of husband and wife in the tomb frescoes.
In the Tang Dynasty, there are poems indicating that it can be a night feast:
Jinli opened a feast, Lan Wanyan's early years.
The colors are far apart, and the light is far away.
——Lu Zhaolin, "Fifteen Nights of Watching the Lights"
Where there is a feast, there must be a good taste. During the Southern Song Dynasty, with the lotus puff appearing in our "Eighteen Scholars' Chart" as the main ingredient, we could create a delicious and exquisite dish - Lianfang Fish Bun.
Photographed from the illustration of the book "Song Feast"
Simply put, the bottom of the tender lotus puff is cut flat and hollowed out, and then the marinated salmon meat is minced into the lotus room, steamed and then the fresh fish balls full of fragrance are taken out and eaten.
This is a creative dish of Li Chunfang's family feast recorded by Lin Hong in the Southern Song Dynasty in "Mountain Family Qing Offering". This book is not only a recipe, but also a palm and a poem, which is rich in knowledge.
"Spring Feast" drink
The food is down, and the drinks can not be less.
The tea event in the picture is a key factor in pointing out the upper limit of the era in which the work is located.
Sencha activities existed as early as the Tang Dynasty, and the wind stove and chostet were used as tools for sencha.
As for ordering tea, it is used in soup bottles instead of choles, and the combination of tea soup bottles and square stoves is also seen in Song Dynasty images.
Unlike Sencha, which is mostly used for small gatherings and conversations between two or three confidants, tea is mostly used for banquets, including family banquets, multi-person art sets, etc.
Song Dynasty soup bottles, in the Tang Dynasty called zhuzi, there is a warm bowl of the note and no warm bowl of the note may point to the tea note and wine note two uses respectively, due to the heating process of cooking tea, the more direct function of the warm bowl is to prevent scalding.
And the Tang Dynasty's note, that is, the outlet, its length is often shorter than that of the Song Dynasty.
Compared with the Tang Dynasty, although the popular way of drinking tea in the Song Dynasty is mainly based on the tea method, the tea order method has changed the previous form of boiling the tea powder in a tea kettle and then drinking it, and instead placed the tea powder in the tea cup and sipped the soup with boiling water in the soup bottle. This change changes the main utensils used to drink tea from a tea kettle to a tea cup.
And as shown on the table of feasting and cooking in the roll, the cup or cup is paired with a saucer.
The term "cupto" was first recorded in the Northern Song Dynasty, but there are excavated cultural relics that prove that in the Tang Dynasty, it has roughly possessed a plate of the upper and lower brackets, but the specific size, material, and shade are slightly different from the Song Dynasty, and the cup tray in the picture is closer to the celadon tray of the Song Dynasty from the shape and outside.
Here you can see the stacked form of the cup holder, and you can also find that the upper part of the cup in the painting is larger than the bottom foot of the tea bowl, and when the white tea bowl is placed on the green cup holder, the white is shortened, and when the tea bowl is not used, it can be upside down on the cup holder.
In addition to porcelain, gold and silver, there is also a lacquerware texture. During the Southern Song Dynasty, there was a very special book that personified twelve kinds of tea sets and gave them names and official positions. This book is the "Tea Set Tuzan" written by the Southern Song Dynasty Elder Zhen'an, and it is also the first tea set atlas in the history of the mainland.
For example, the lacquer cup is called the lacquer carving secret cabinet, also known as: chengzhi, easy to hold, gutai old man. Praise:
With the affliction of perseverance, there is no columptuous overthrow...
And close to the gentleman.
The twelve tea sets are: Wei Hongxuan (tea cage), Mu Beizhi (wooden vertebrae), Jin Fa Cao (tea mill), Shi Zhuan (tea mill), Hu Yuanwai (tea pole), Luo Shumi (tea luo), Zong Congshi (tea broom), lacquer carving secret table (tea saucer), Tao Weiwen (tea cup), Tang Tipian (soup bottle), Zhu Vice Shuai (tea basket) and Si Lu Fang (tea towel).
Then, if you look at the background of the theme and the era of the painting, the officials in the painting can be more than a few bachelors, and there are many "colleagues" lying on the table, on the ground, scattered.
As for the wine in the painting, it appears in a more special way, which is expressed by the support of drunks and others, and it is the gentleman mentioned above who "does not know whether he is drunk high or not".
"Spring Feast" music
Contemporary people watch variety shows when eating, but ancient musicians have to play music at the table hungry.
In the middle of the feast plot, there is a group of musicians, and the instruments can be seen in the flute, sheng, xiao, flute, guzheng, clapping board, and the lute played horizontally using plucked bullets.
箜篌, ancient name "Kanhou" or "Empty Hou". It is a teaching tool that has been popular in the general society during the Eastern Han Dynasty, and ordinary families have carried out music education for girls.
Sheng, somewhat vague, takes a work that also depicts the theme of eighteen bachelors as an example.
Shaw
flute
zither
The clapboard is not only in this painting, but also in the "Wenhui Tu". The white drawing is the size of the picture drawn by the "Book of Music".
In the late Tang Dynasty, pipa was greatly developed from playing techniques to production structures. The most prominent reform in playing techniques was the change from horizontal to vertical playing, with the use of plucks replaced by direct finger playing. Bai Juyi's "Pipa Line" in the song "Deep Moaning and Plucking the Strings" indicates that the pipa in the poem is played with a pluck.
"Spring Feast" small animals
There are 4 kinds and 15 animals in the painting, and several of them are played.
In addition to human activities, there are also the participation of small animals.
Scratching fine dogs:
Eagles that don't look like eagles:
Rolling horses:
A horse with a red ball hanging from its chest
This red ribbon ball that was held in his hand, at first he looked at it sharply, and thought it was a lantern——
Looking at it, it turned out to be a decoration to hang on the horse. This kind of red tassel ball is also found on the chest of the horse and the Qianling stone horse in the "Lady of the Lady of The Kingdom of Yu Chuntu".
The term "thin dog" has been commonly used in Song and Yuan literature, and the wheezing dog next to Yang Erlang is a thin dog, the sixty-third time in journey to the West:
The strange wing swept to the side, about to bite Erlang; only then did a head stick out from his waist, and the thin dog picked it up, and with a mouthful, he bit down the head bloodily. The monster escaped in pain and threw himself into the North Sea.
In addition, ancient graphics often juxtaposes thin dogs and eagles, especially in hunting scenes.
Yuan Liu Guandao's "Hunting Map of the Ancestors of the Yuan Dynasty" is part of the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
Let's see the mysterious fur that appears on horseback in the picture...
Looking back at the Southern Song Dynasty poet Zheng Hao's "Inscription Yan Liben Eighteen Scholars" in the sentence "Five saddles are marmosets are forbidden", it actually refers to a monkey with long and soft hair, whose fur is often used as a saddle mattress, that is, these fluffs on horseback.
Monkey-like and large, hairy yellow, raw between the Valley of Quang Nam.
The skin is used as a saddle mattress.
The painting appears in four marmosets, which are close to the poem but do not exactly match. Based on the position of refusing to deprive wild animals of their right to live in luxury, and today's strong material research and development capabilities, it is not necessary.
Nearly a thousand years apart, although the "Spring Feast Map" reflects the spring of real objects, the "Eighteen Scholars' Diagram" also moves from the earliest commemorative literature museum of the Tang Dynasty to the private appreciation function of Yaxing with the change of dynasties.
But you, who are wrapped in spring in front of the screen, still have the opportunity to participate in this millennium feast that has lasted until now from your perspective, and still have the opportunity to look forward to your "green wine a cup of song again", "fighting wine must be drunk".
The most important thing is to discover and know ourselves who have not yet penetrated the spring mud, and develop and usher in new possibilities in everyone's journey with like-minded people.
so
"Who do you want to call for a feast this spring?"
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