| Ming and Qing Dynasty Furniture Study Society |
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Knowing the present and not knowing the past is called blindness. Qingming is imminent, it is better to look at the earliest furniture in archaeological excavations, and see what kind of kitsch work the ancestors of the Chinese nation have.
The Qingming Dynasty is approaching, some people take advantage of the spring light to travel out, and some people respect the ancestors and eventually chase away. At the time when all things are born, when the old is new, when spring and jingming, joy and sorrow, life and death are subtly fused into a festival, a festival – a day worth remembering.
For Chinese with a strong sense of respect for their ancestors and family concepts, it is indispensable to remember their ancestors: it is precisely because of the accumulation of thousands of years, and because of the blood of their predecessors, that there is now a prosperous world for my generation. Remembrance, gratitude, remembrance, and then lightening up are the meaning of this special day for everyone.
On this occasion, they packed up the old boxes and cages, and the earliest surviving furniture obtained from archaeological excavations was turned over for you to celebrate the great cause of the ancestors of the Chinese nation.
The earliest physical bedding
Although the most widely used bedding today is a variety of beds, but back to ancient times, people who have not yet had the habit of sitting on their feet, their sitting furniture is a mat, and even after the death of a person, the funeral ceremony is also used in the table.
This kind of lightweight furniture, which is mainly made of grass fibers or animal fur, has been the main furniture in people's homes for a long time. From the monarch to the people, although they all used seats, the rulers in class society still formulated rules for the use of different seats on different occasions such as houses, feasts, and ceremonies to distinguish between the noble and the lowly.
Han Jin Silk Glass Seat The tomb of Marquis Xiahou of Jiangxi Was excavated
As stated in the Book of Rites and Funerals: "The small is in the house, the big is in the house, the king is on the mat, the doctor is on the mat, and the soldier is on the reed seat." In other words, the seats used by monarchs, doctors, and scholars after their deaths are actually different, and this system itself is to maintain a strict hierarchical system.
Because the material of the mat is often light and soft, and later sitting furniture occasionally uses it as a soft drawer, but this material is also very fragile, so in archaeological excavations, there are not many physical objects that can be seen.
Song "Female Filial Piety Sutra" (partial) Collection of the Palace Museum
Among the existing archaeological excavations, the earliest mat was found at the site of Tianluo Mountain in Yuyao, Zhejiang, which belongs to the Hemudu culture, dating back about 7,000 years. There are several mat fragments in the site, the largest is even about one square meter, because the TianluoShan site is blessed with unique natural geographical conditions, the mat fragments are well preserved, and the crisscrossing lines on it can also be seen.
According to the results of the sample extraction by archaeologists, it is very likely that it is woven from the stalks of reeds, and there are no grain residues on them, almost all of which are flakes found near the site of the house, which should be used for paving the floor or hanging curtains.
Fragments of the Tianluoshan site were unearthed
Hemudu Culture Phase I Reed Mat Fragments The Hemudu site was excavated
The earliest actual bearings
And if you want to find the earliest bearing, then start with the ancestor of the table case - trick, trick itself is a kind of ritual instrument for cutting and aged animals during sacrifice, as the saying goes, "Man-made knife trick me into fish meat", which comes from this.
Through historical documents, we can see, for example, in the "Li ji Ming Tang Position": "Li, there are Yu clan to be a tree, Xia Hou clan to be a toss, Yin to be a ton, and Zhou to be a fang. "There was this kind of carrier before the Shang Zhou, and it has a very far-reaching impact on future generations of carriers and even seats."
There are not many surviving tricks, and the current upper limit can be traced back to the Longshan culture in the Neolithic period, but it is only a remnant of lacquer tricks, which is difficult to identify. There are a very small number of relatively well-preserved remnants of the Bronze Age, such as the stone tricks excavated by Dasikong in Anyang City, Henan Province, and the gluttonous plate foot suspension bell bronze tricks excavated in Yixian County, Liaoning Province.
The stone trick already has a very clear structure of supporting the case surface with four legs, and even the central case surface is slightly sunken, so that the four-sided line has the function of a water barrier, and two sets of animal face patterns are also carved on both sides of the body.
The stone trick allows us to see that the core structure of the table case will not change no matter how it changes, as early as the Shang Dynasty has been very mature, at the same time, the water barrier and the carving appeared on such an early piece of furniture at the same time, but also let us see the ancestors of the furniture practicality and decoration of the balance.
Shang Dynasty Stone Tricks Collection of the Sackler Museum of Archaeology and Art, Peking University
In the bronze trick of the Shang Dynasty, this plate foot sylvatic bell trick is particularly chic, its basic structure is consistent with the shape and stone trick, and it also has a grooved face, and even the ornamentation on the plate foot surface has similarities, which can be seen that this should be the classic shape of the Shang Dynasty trick.
It is especially in the line between the legs has a very obvious door pattern, as well as two between the crotch of the plate foot, each hanging a bell-shaped copper bell, and even one of the bells has a pattern on it, which shows that people have mastered a certain level of bronze casting and people's ultimate pursuit of artistic beauty during the Shang Dynasty.
Late Shang Dynasty and Early Zhou Dynasty Gluttonous Plate Foot Sylvet Li Jinzhou Museum Collection
The earliest physical seats
In the earliest bedding objects mentioned above, we have already mentioned that the mat is a kind of furniture that can be sat and reclined, so here we want to show the earliest stool furniture objects.
The use of chairs and stools began with the way of life of sitting on the floor being replaced by sitting with feet hanging down, and this habit originated from the Hu people (the ethnic minority in the northwest), and among the seats used by the Hu people, the representative is the Hu bed.
According to the Book of the Later Han Dynasty and the Five Elements Chronicle, Liu Hong, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, was particularly fond of this kind of Hu bed: "The Ling Emperor was good at Hu fu, Hu Bed, Hu Sitting, and Hu Rice, and all the nobles in Kyoto did it." "But at this time, the Hu bed was still only a valuable furniture that could be used by the nobility, and its real popularity was after the Tang Dynasty, so the physical age of the chair and stool class was relatively late, and the later the number, the more the number.
During the Northern Wei Dynasty, dunhuang 257 caves were frescoed on the middle wall of the west wall
What exactly is a beard bed? In "Yan Fan Lu", Cheng Dachang of the Song Dynasty discussed in detail the difference between a hu bed and a rope bed:
The bed of handover (that is, the bed of hu) and the bed of rope, which are now in people's homes, are also two things. The bed is made of wood for noon, and it is a horizontal wood before and after, flat on the bottom, so that the wrong place is safe; at the top of the foot, the front and back are also applied to the horizontal wood and flat on it, and the horizontal wood is tied to the rope strip, so that it can sit. The foot crosses the noon and is re-worn in a circle, running through the iron, which can accommodate the knees, the back of the back, the left and right hands, the arms can be rested, and the lower four feet are on the ground.
Southern Song Dynasty Cheng Dachang "Yan FanLu"
It can be seen that the focus of the beard bed is that its legs and feet are staggered, and they can be folded together and carried very conveniently. Nowadays, the earliest figure of the Hu bed found comes from dunhuang murals, and there are many furniture with crossed legs in the paintings of later generations, but few physical objects have been found, and the Maza in the Tuguhun Tomb of the Tang Dynasty in Wuwei Tianzhu, Gansu Province, may be the earliest physical object of this type of furniture.
Gansu Wuwei Tianzhu Tuguhun Tomb unearthed Maza
The four-legged fixed non-crossable rope bed is not a small role, and some scholars believe that the Hu bed is actually not the ancestor of the chair, and the rope bed with armrest backrest is the most recent ancestor of the chair, and its origin can be traced back to the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, such as the rope bed where Fo Tucheng sat.
In the Western Wei murals in Dunhuang Cave 285, we can already see a relatively mature chair image, supported on all fours, with armrests and backrests, and even in order to meet the needs of Buddhists to meditate, the chair surface is quite wide.
Western Wei Dunhuang Cave 285 Mural (Partial)
The Dunhuang murals have many images of furniture from quite an early age, and the earliest square stool image we can see so far is also among them, which is the Northern Wei mural of Dunhuang Cave 257. The image of this square stool is extremely simple, consisting only of a stool surface and four stool legs, and the rest is devoid of any superfluous materials and decorations.
Northern Wei Dynasty Dunhuang Cave 257 South Wall Mural (Partial)
The earliest physical stool data is from the two porcelain stool models excavated from the tomb of Zhang Sheng in the Sui Dynasty of Anyang, Henan in 1959, with a rectangular stool surface and two small square holes in the middle, and the stool legs are the same width as the stool surface, which is similar to the modern stone stool.
The earliest screen objects
Among the many furniture, there is also a relatively special furniture, which first appeared as a symbol of power position, of course, it also has a certain practical function, but with its own characteristics and the development of later generations, it has become the most colorful and innumerable possibilities in the field of Chinese furniture.
The term screen was first seen in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but in fact, as early as the early Western Zhou Dynasty, Tianzi had already used this kind of furniture, but at that time it was called "residence", "axe", "yi" and so on.
Qing Mahogany Inlaid Shou Shan Shi Shan Landscape Character Story Big Case Screen Study Club Collection
The earliest excavated screen objects today are the remains of the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, such as the three screen seat objects such as the wrong gold and silver tiger eating deer and the copper screen seat in the tomb of the King of Zhongshan, which are the animal images of the tiger eating deer, rhinoceros and cattle, and the animal sorrow has a copper hole connected to the screen fan, and its supporting use can be combined to insert a curved ruler-shaped screen with an angle of about 84 °.
According to the analysis of the remains in the tomb, it can be seen that the screen was originally two screens, 2.24 meters long and 1.1 meters high. The fan is a thick wooden board painted with red paint, the four borders are painted black, and the lively birds and churning clouds are painted in red and orange. In the middle of the outer side of the frame of each screen, a bronze animal face ring is set as a decoration.
Warring States period Wrong gold and silver tiger eating deer copper screen seat Hebei Museum collection
Among the many archaeological excavations, the lacquer screen in the tomb of Sima Jinlong of the Northern Wei Dynasty is particularly worth mentioning, although it is also partially damaged due to excavations and natural reasons, the lacquer screen has been scattered throughout the tomb, but it is relatively intact, and its overall shape, shape, and image can still be roughly restored.
There are painted paintings on both the front and back sides, and the zhudi is divided into four columns, each painting a group of figures, and the content of the paintings includes pictures of women, such as "He Empress", "Wei Linggong" and "Linggong Lady" and so on. According to the size comparison, the screen plate and the base seat can be inserted into a whole, which is a four-foot screen suitable for use on the bed.
Northern Wei Stone foundation lacquer painting wooden screen Shanxi Datong Sima Jinlong tomb
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