"The wind is gentle and the face is happy, and the flowers are red and the clouds are busy in spring", the Qingming Festival is a good festival for enjoying the flowers and walking on the green. The northern morning cherry blossoms fall in the wind, and the misty grass color that can only be seen from a distance has become moist, while the southern part shows a "green fat red skinny" weather after a few spring rains.
Although in classical poetry, the most used color words to describe the spring season are "red" and "green", such as "xiao look at the red wet place, the flower is heavy in the official city" and "the favorite lake is not enough to go east, and the white sand embankment in the shade of the green poplar" seems to be able to collide with the whole spring. In ancient China, the diversity of colors was beyond our imagination, and the colors were closely related to the five elements of yin and yang, national fortunes, social classes, the good fortunes of the public, the cultural atmosphere of a generation, and the level of craftsmanship, which constituted a huge and complete cultural system.
Spring flowers are full of flowers, everything grows, the surging news interviewed Shantou University professor, color researcher Chen Yanqing, we start with the green department that best represents spring, to see how the colors of this department have flowed in various eras.
Part of the Palace Museum's collection of "Spring Tour and Late Return"
Look at the green from the "Five Colors and Five Elements View"
To understand green, it is necessary to understand the most basic rules for evaluating a certain color in ancient China. For the traceability of Chinese color, color researcher Chen Yanqing synthesized various historical materials and excavated cultural relics and proposed that the understanding of color concepts and the use of color in the early days of ancient China had a development process from simple to complex, and the growth of its color concept was deduced as follows: the first division of two colors (yin and yang, black and white, pure miscellaneous) - the three-color view (black, white, red) - the four-color view (black, white, red, yellow) - the five-color view (black, white, red, yellow) - the five-color system under the xuan color system (xuan huang - black, white, red, red, yellow). , cyan) and the generation of the intercolor system. Their generation and evolution has a process of natural growth and purposeful construction.
Among them, the most noteworthy is the "median color system" and "five-color view". Looking back at history, in the Warring States period, the concept of positive color and intercolor has appeared, color scholar Xiao Shimeng believes that in order to distinguish the five positive colors, at that time people took the ancient "auspicious bird" - pheasant (pheasant) as the dyeing standard, compared with the larger color blocks on the pheasant to dye blue, red, yellow,
White and black. The Qin and Han dynasties were the systematic period of color knowledge in ancient China, based on the "Yin and Yang Five Elements" cosmic system, forming a traditional "five-color" system, and stipulating that colors other than the positive five-color system belong to "intercolor".
Pheasant "With the help of the results of pre-Qin dyeing, restorative dyeing experiments were carried out, and the color of the dyeing was compared with the color of the pheasant feathers, and the results also confirmed that pheasant feathers are very likely to be used as dyeing standards." (Xiao Shimeng's "Ten Lectures on the History of Chinese Color")
In the cover of the "Ten Lectures on the History of Chinese Color", the hue of "blue, red, yellow, white, and black" is displayed.
Positive color and intercolor are not just a simple naming, but contain a strong hierarchical meaning and emotional judgment, the chaotic use of intercolor in history will always cause a variety of public cases, such as the first popular color trend in Chinese history - Qi Huan gongfu purple, caused by the public's imitation will also push themselves into the whirlpool of public opinion; He Yan's annotation "Analects" also put forward the "evil purple to seize Zhu", that is: "Zhu, positive color; purple, the good of the intercolor." Evil is good and evil is good. ”
Understanding the five elements and five colors system is of great significance for understanding and distinguishing the oriental concept of color, and we believe that the colors that are very close in hue performance are actually very different in ancient times. In the five-element five-color system, five important intercolors are matched by five positive colors, namely: green, red, blue, purple, and yellow. Today will always be confused about "bi" and "green" belongs to two intercolor systems, bi is made of blue and white ratio, belongs to the "Western intercolor", close to the white system; green is made of blue and yellow ratio, belongs to the "oriental intercolor", belongs to the cyan system.
The "Shuowen Jiezi" says: "Green, Shu Qing Yellow also", that is, green is the harmonic color of cyan and yellow, the traditional "five elements and five colors" system, green is included in the cyan series, located in the east, the sun begins to rise here, is the color of all things with the growth, the timing is spring.
The five positive colors are matched in pairs to form five colors. Later, "intercolor" can refer to all colors except the five positive colors, and "intercolor" has also been constantly innovated and vibrant in history.
The "Green Family" has gained in the past dynasties
Chen Yanqing introduced the use of color in each era in "The Color of Concepts: A Study of Traditional Chinese Color", such as which hues and color words appeared. The book begins with statistics from the pre-Qin (Warring States) period and ends with the two Song Dynasties, Liao, and Western Xia. The author believes: "Judging from the use of color in the pre-Qin color literature that has been collected, the accumulation to the Warring States period has become a grand view in terms of color words alone. ”
Regarding which documents to refer to and which rules to follow when sorting out the color words that appeared in the previous dynasties, Chen Yanqing said: "The combing survey of the use of color in the past dynasties according to the literature follows several principles, that is, to use the records of the use of the era or the closest era as much as possible, such as the Song Dynasty colors combed out through the Song Dynasty documents and the "History of song" compiled by the Yuan Dynasty; several typographic distinctions are made in use: hue, hue, description, and color. ”
In the oriental intercolor-green system of the pre-Qin period, there were six main hues, namely "green" and "qi" in the original meaning of green; "cui" called the color of kingfisher; "ai", "cang", etc., which called green with gray and white mugwort hue, and "green onion" called green and bright green; "stone green", "lu", "empty green", "green goose", "green goose" called stone green; and "silk" called wheat green.
It can be seen from this that a number of color words that were widely used later appeared in the pre-Qin period, such as Cang, as a color noun, which can cover a variety of hues, and the Shuowen Jiezi says: "Cang, grass color also"; "Erya Shi tian eighth" subdivides the four seasons of heavenly colors: "Spring is the sky, summer is hao tian, autumn is min tian, and winter is heaven." Combined with Zhuangzi's writing in "The Getaway": "The heavens of the heavens, its positive color, its far away and nothing to the extreme? The word cang can refer to the vast color of grass or the deep sky, and cang always seems to be based on a strong physical feeling, and the distance is related to the vastness.
Stone green is more familiar to the public, stone green is an important pigment of Chinese painting, made of malachite grinding, with stone green, stone green as the main color of the green landscape painting, in the Tang Dynasty Wei Wei grand view.
In 1984, the Erlitou site unearthed inlaid turquoise bronze plaque ornaments, collected by Luoyang Museum.
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Li Sheng's "Green Landscape Atlas"
The following eras continued the former dynasty, and by the time of the Two Jin Dynasties and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, there was more "green sinking" under the green system, and the thick green of all utensils or painted and dyed as thick green was often crowned "green sink". Chen Yanqing commented that this is a deep green. Qian Qianyi notes the "Qian Zhu Du Poems" Volume 9 "Heavy Over the Five Songs of the He Family" Qian Notes: "... Cloud some people with green heavy paint bamboo pipe and dew pipe to see the legacy, hidden for many years is really cute to play, afraid of green sinking to adjust green paint, its color is deep...
During the Sui and Tang dynasties, various cultural forms have developed greatly, and so has color. From the perspective of green system, the new and refined hues and color names include wheat green; puqing, pulan; willow green, willow green; duck head green, cui mao bi; stone green; tianshui blue; head green.
The color of the Tang Dynasty is very distinctive, and Chen Yanqing believes that the most noteworthy point is the "refinement of color feelings from cultural implications", that is, an important influencing factor of Sui and Tang color is the strong presence of poetic colors from the literati class. The hue experience of color is refined into various poetic expressions with high psychological factors, and colors are delicately renamed from the expression of a single color name. Intercolor has become a very important color element in various cultural expressions, and the cultural meaning level of color has become more abundant, and the "Tianshui Bi" of the five generations has achieved the most layered expression of meaning in Chinese color. We'll expand on this in detail in the next section.
The green of new leaves
The material culture of the Tang Dynasty flourished, and the most mysterious color was the "secret color". The Tang Dynasty poet Tortoise Meng wrote in his poem "Secret Color Yue Instrument": "The nine autumn winds dew more and more kilns open, and win the green color of the thousand peaks." Good to the mid-night feast, the common ji in the scattered bucket cup. "It can be seen that during the Tang and Song dynasties, people had a concept of secret color porcelain. However, after the Song Dynasty, the secret color porcelain gradually faded out of people's vision, until 1987, shaanxi Fufeng Famen Temple underground palace site began archaeological excavations. With the appearance of artifacts in the underground palace one by one, people found a stele called the "Account of Props and Gold and Silver Treasures and Clothing with the True Body When Sending the True Body", which is an account that records the buried items in the underground palace, and the secret color porcelain is in this account.
The "secret color" of the unearthed secret color porcelain is a rare glaze color between the ai color (pale) and the blue-green color, Chen Yanqing did not include the secret color in the green system, he believes that the naming of the "secret color" is very complicated and the most controversial, and can be roughly judged as a description of a certain celadon color, such as tortoise Mond "Thousand Peaks Green" or a name in a specific context. In terms of color description, it is closer to the visual perception description of "ghost" or the emotional color expression of "broken intestine color".
The words "secret color" in the stele of "When supervising the delivery of the real body, the props and gold and silver treasures and clothing accounts" are provided.
Yue kiln secret color porcelain eight-edged net bottle
By the two Song Dynasties, the new colors in the green system included plum green, head green, dark green, big green, two greens, three greens, green flowers, oil green, bright green, grape green, pink green, copper green, patina, mung bean brown, plate green.
From these new colors, it seems that two forces have spawned the discovery and confirmation of some new colors, one of which is to continue the practice of naming colors with poetic expressions that have become clear since the Tang Dynasty, and the descriptions in some verses are singled out to call some new hues, such as "plum ziqing", which is initially a description, Lu You's "From the Rain" poem has the sentence "Plum Green and Bitter And Not Yellow", and Lu You's "Early Spring" poem also has the sentence "Near Pi Niu Tong Bai, Yuanpu Duck Head Qing" sentence.
With the prosperity of Tang and Song poetry, countless descriptions of color appear in the verses. Chen Yanqing believes that many of the color descriptions in poetry are not universally used, but the poet's temporary language shaping. Although the new colors in each era do not look like much, but the use is cumulative, the Tang and Song colors, including the former Qin and Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Tang and Song colors, the number is very large.
The second is the new discovery of the painting pigments of the Fengya Song, who advocates calligraphy and painting, such as the big green, two greens, and three greens are all painting pigment words that are different due to the different "methods of taking stone colors". Patina, as early as the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there are three kinds of "bad colors", namely the "bad colors" used by the Buddhists, blue (patina color), black (miscellaneous mud) and magnolia (bark color). The Mogao Caves documents also record: "Patina one two, shangzhi qian three pick wu wen, second three pick up text, lower two pick five text". Chen Yanqing used patina as a new color for the Song Dynasty, "the description used in the literature as a pigment in the Song Dynasty is explicitly used, and if you find a similar color to use in the previous generation, you can trace it back to the Southern and Northern Dynasties." Chen Yanqing said.
The Palace Museum collection, gold and silver line land "Yutang Fugui" velvet tapestry in which a variety of green hue expressions can be seen.
In addition, after the Song Dynasty, "blue and blue" and "green and green" have begun to refer to each other, Chen Yanqing introduced, the ancients for the understanding and application of hue is related to the context, intercolor is also in the classification of the difference is only, there is only a "degree" judgment, it is difficult to be specific. Even if it is a dyeing technology, it is very different, and the same "qing" is difficult to unify.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the green system appeared the most, such as bean green, bitter green, sand green, juice green, melon green, green verdant, apple green, snakeskin green, grape green, etc., most of which appeared in the glaze color.
The Palace Museum collection Qing Guangxu Green space pastel vine Rose moon pattern bucket
Chen Yanqing said that ancient colors, in addition to mineral colors, plant dyeing colors are greatly restricted by technology, so Chinese colors can only maintain a relatively stable color presentation on the representative colors of positive intercolor colors, but they cannot unify the color values. Therefore, most of them are just class-named, and Chinese colors cannot be presented in a clear CMYK value, but can only be presented as much as possible.
The derivation of Tianshui bi and its cultural meaning
Color researcher Xiao Shimeng believes that each era has a "typical issue" about color, for example, when discussing the Tang Dynasty, it is first necessary to pay attention to the Tang Dynasty, yellow officially became the color of the emperor; the Northern Song Dynasty believed in the "five virtues and the beginning", and the Song Huizong was particularly superstitious, which was reflected in his paintings such as "RuiHe Tu" to "Furong Jinji Tu"; literati painters before the Yuan Dynasty pursued "painting to carry the Tao", and found a method from the "discernment of speech and meaning" in Wei and Jin metaphysics, realizing the deconstruction of shape and five colors. Ni Zhan's ink landscape is a collection of its masterpieces. The color preference of the late Ming Dynasty literati "elegant and plain color" is the way the literati reflect their own existence through "culture", this color preference is both realistic and strategic; the color of the folk New Year paintings in the Qing Dynasty contains the color order under the framework of the five elements of yin and yang, but at the same time, the folk color starts from the "usefulness" and forms the characteristics of the freedom and richness of folk colors.
The "typical issue" of the many colors of the green family may have occurred in the peak of the development of classical culture, the Tang Dynasty, and the most important story of it is "Tianshui Bi".
There is a story behind Tianshui Bi, which is the color dyed in the main palace of the Southern Tang Dynasty Li Hou. In the "Ancient and Modern Things", it is recorded: "Before Lord Li Guo was broken, he practiced in the palace, drifted by the wind, flew away in the air, and fell through the square of Su, becoming a light blue, light and lovely, with the color of nature, the sky and water blue." This color has many mythical legends, and it is popular after the Tianshui Blue entered the Song Dynasty.
Yuan's "Complete Collection of Things That Must Be Used at Home" records the production method of Tianshui Biji: "Pink Green Notes: the same color as Tianshui Bi, use indigo to clean up, clear the ash, add silver powder, cook the pulp and mix evenly, the color is light, and the brush paper mallet method is the same as before." "Tianshui Bi and Pink Qing should be extremely similar in hue, and the light blue color of Le Qi's body in "Han Xizai's Night Feast" should be the Popular Tianshui Bi in Jiankang City at that time."
"Han Xizai's Night Feast" music trick
Chen Yanqing expressed the derivation process of the meaning of color as follows: "Just like the reason why we pour wine into a pyramid-shaped wine glass in a cocktail party, after the wine in the top cup overflows, there is a cup below, and the level of the meaning of color is also the same." ”
Poetry and history give color expression at different levels, from the reference of identity to emotions, fate, etc., the overflow of meaning makes the level of meaning of this color itself produce a new meaning structure, under the action of various scenes, the overflowing meaning is inherited by another meaning level and becomes one of the meaning structures.
From the most directly pointed symbol performance, Tianshui Bi pointed to Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty; later, the color of Tianshui Bi superimposed on the basic situation of this color and its use and popularity; on the third level, the color gave people a strong emotional impression because of the story behind it, such as Tianshui Bi pointing to the loss of the southern Tang Dynasty and its tragic fate, on this sensory level, Tianshui Bi pointed to some kind of pretermination or proverb related to the predetermined fate, predicting the fall of the homeland, and was continuously deepened in subsequent interpretations.
The interpretation of the "Tianshui Bi" color cloak in "The Biography of Zhen Huan"
Color in contemporary naming
Regarding the naming of color, many new color popular science books have been published in recent years, such as the book "Traditional Chinese Colors: Color Aesthetics in the Forbidden City", the authors Guo Hao and Li Jianming selected 96 pieces of the corresponding seasons in the cultural relics of the Forbidden City according to the 24 solar terms and 72 phenology, extracted colors from the cultural relics, and presented the color names and color values.
From the perspective of Qingming, the following four colors are included in the book, from which you can get a glimpse of the author's writing style.
Traditional Chinese Colors: The Aesthetics of Color in the Forbidden City, inner page
One of the noteworthy points in "Traditional Chinese Colors: Color Aesthetics in the Forbidden City" is the author's naming of colors, the author Guo Hao Chen: "First, the same thing has multiple color names (even as many as 80 names of ancient dyeing materials), in ancient times, out of the love and reluctance of a very small number of color names, there are a very small number of homochromatic names in this book, and the color values of the target are slightly different. Second, in addition to the orthodox color name, we carefully introduced the gagaku, the word plate and a little image word in the old village to refer to the color, this idea is to use the image as an extension of the color, we are naughty, but try not to create a sense of violation. Third, the consistency and accuracy of color names and color values require professional consensus, industry consensus, and social consensus..."
Compared with the rigorous deceptiveness of color researchers, "Traditional Chinese Colors" seems to adopt a more free and even subjective naming method, sometimes picking an image from a verse, sometimes naming an antiquities name.
"Traditional Chinese Colors" hand-painted cultural relics of the Forbidden City, extracted the colors and then named them.
In the latest "Chinese Traditional Color Academic Annual Conference", Guo Hao also published an article entitled "The Fusion of Matter and Concept - The Formation and Acceptance of traditional color aesthetic system", in which he believes: "Traditional Chinese color is not a simple hue, color value, but the coexistence of 'material and concept', which means that traditional color carries the rich information of Chinese culture and carries the way of Chinese view of the world." Academic collation, in order to form a system of traditional Chinese color aesthetics, the formation of this system, my personal view is to form an aesthetic system of 'material and concept' integration, this view and the Western modern aesthetic system can be communicated, the traditional Chinese color aesthetic system can go to the world. The acceptance of the public is actually the communication effect of 'color general knowledge', the first thing the public needs is not academic, the most direct thing the public needs is pleasure or pleasure, and pleasure or pleasure is the essence of emotional observation in aesthetics. ”
Regarding this color popularization and naming method, Chen Yanqing also talked about his own views: "The popularization of color as a concept mainly involves imagery and context, that is, the inheritance and acceptance of culture as a whole, and it is impossible to have such color perception only as a hue. However, in today's Chinese color research is only the initial stage, too free and subjective selection and naming and hue endowment, I am afraid that a common social cognition of the misunderstanding. ”
Chen Yanqing, "The Color of Ideas"
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