In the early Western Zhou Dynasty, one of the most important materials of ancient Chinese architecture, tiles, appeared, which was an epoch-making event in the history of ancient architecture. With the continuous summation of the experience of the ancestors in the use of tiles in China's unique civil engineering structures, Wadang came into being.
The "Archaeology and Civilization Series" "Eaves Art - Ancient Chinese Wadang" launched by the Cultural Relics Publishing House introduces that the two Han dynasties, especially the Western Han period, are the second peak of the development of ancient Chinese Wadang after the Warring States and Qin. Its most important symbol is the appearance of the early script Wadang in the middle of the Western Han Dynasty. At that time, the script Wadang was widely used in the royal palace in Gyeonggi up to the remote local government offices. It is mainly based on auspicious languages such as "Changsheng Weiyang", "Changsheng Wuji" and "Changle Weiyang", because the circle unfolds, it is transferred and simplified, and each has its own state. The "meaningful form" produced by the successful deformation of seal books is breathtaking and favored by epigraphists since the Tang and Song dynasties.
The pattern of the moire prevails in the wadang
In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the pattern Wadang dominated the world. The imprint of Qin Wa is still very strong, such as the deformed sunflower pattern Wadang excavated in Han Chang'an City (Figure 1), which is almost the same as Qin Wa. At the same time, the common cartouche wattang (Figure 2) and even the cloud pattern wattang (Figure 3) all show the characteristics of transition to the Han style moiré tile.
Figure 1 Early Western Han Dynasty deformed sunflower pattern wattang
Figure 2 Paisley Wadang in the early Western Han Dynasty
Figure 3 In the early Western Han Dynasty, even the cloud pattern Wadang
Han Chang'an City also unearthed a kind of Western Han Mountain cloud pattern wattang, ten different ways, in fact, can be cut into two mountain cloud pattern tiles, can be said to be a valuable specimen evolved from the Warring States half wattang to the round tile.
Later, the cloud pattern wattang (Figure 4) was popular, and in the Western Han Dynasty, the proportion accounted for about 70 percent. There are two most typical forms of cloud-shaped moire tiles. One is to divide the face into a double cross, beware of being divided into four parts, each with a triangle added (Figure 5), which is earlier. One is to bead a circumference around the hemispherical bead (Figure 6), when there is no trace of cutting on the back, which is slightly later and popular in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty.
The above is the general appearance of the cloud pattern Wadang in the Gyeonggi (Guanzhong, Shaanxi) area of the Western Han Dynasty.
Figure 4 West Han Mountain Moiré Wadang
Figure 5 Moiré Wadang in the early Western Han Dynasty
Figure 6 Moire Wadang in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty
The cloud-patterned wattang in Henan, represented by the Luoyang area, was dominated by mushroom-shaped moiré wattang in the early Western Han Dynasty. At this time, there are two kinds of wattangs, semicircular and circular, and the moire wattang is mainly double-leaf and four-leaf. By the time of the Han Dynasty, beware was mostly decorated with round cakes, and in the Eastern Han Dynasty, a circle was added to the beware round cakes, and this type of wattang was extremely popular in the late Eastern Han Dynasty (Figure 7).
Figure 7 Hanyun Wadang (facsimile) in Luoyang area
In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the face was still a simplified mushroom-shaped cloud pattern, and a triangular pattern or deformed Jomon pattern was added to the outer circle of the cloud pattern. The formation of this characteristic may be influenced by the ctenophores in the popular moire tiles in the Guanzhong region of the late Western Han Dynasty. Wadang with this ornament is still used in the Luoyang region during the Cao Wei dynasty.
In the Western Han Dynasty, the number of round tiles in Qi began to increase, and in the context of the history of unification, a large number of round tiles began to use the same cirrus cloud pattern as the Qin and Han cloud pattern tiles in Guanzhong, Shaanxi, and their beware patterns also imitated the former (Figure 8). In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the round wattang was mainly composed of round cakes, and the face was mostly mushroom-shaped and horn-shaped clouds, and some Wadang clouds were mixed with text, forming a Wadang with a combination of clouds and words (Figure 9).
Figure 8 West Han Qi Ground Moiré Wadang
Figure 9 Wadang of the Eastern Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty cloud-patterned Wadang in Fujian is currently mainly found in the ruins of Chong'an Seoul. A total of more than 700 Han Dynasty Wadang products have been unearthed here, all of which are circular Wadang, mainly cloud patterns, cloud tree patterns and text Wadang. Among them, the moire tile is divided into three types: yang cloud pattern wattang, yin cloud pattern tile and cloud tree pattern wattang. Beware of a double white line as a cross split, plus a horn-shaped moire and a milk nail pattern for a unique pattern (Fig. 10).
Figure 10 Han cloud pattern Wadang in Fujian region
The outstanding style of the four gods Wadang
If the Warring States period is said to be the colorful image of Wadang and the first heyday of Wadang art, then the popularity of the Western Han script Wadang and the emergence of the four gods Wadang have become the symbol of the second peak period of Wadang art.
The four gods (Qinglong, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Xuanwu) represented the stars in the four directions of the heavens in ancient times, and there were clear records of the four gods during the Warring States period. In the Han Dynasty, people were more convinced that the four gods were closely related to all things in heaven and earth, and the five virtues of yin and yang, and had the divine power to protect the four directions, so Wang Mangte, who was quite ancient, decorated his Zong Temple with the four gods Wadang, hoping to drive away evil spirits in the town house and bless the Zong Temple and even the Sheji River and Mountain forever. There are many versions of the four gods of Wadang (Figs. 11 and 12), all of which are graceful in composition, exquisite in production, and extremely high in artistic standards, which are widely used in decorative pattern design for today's people, and can be called the Uranus superstar in the Wadang family.
Figure 11 Han Xuanwu Wadang (excavated from Kengdi Zhai Village, northern suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi)
Figure 12 Hanqing Longwadang (excavated in Kengdi Zhai Village, northern suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi)
The most well-known of the four sacred tiles from the site of the Nine Temples of Wang Mang on the southern outskirts of Han Chang'an City (Figure 13).
Figure 13 Wang Mang Four Gods Wadang
At the end of the 50s of the 20th century, in the Zaoyuan and Yanzhuang areas in the western suburbs of present-day Xi'an, archaeologists excavated a group of architectural sites from the Wang Mang period. Located 1 km south of Xi'anmen and Anmen in Han Chang'an City, the site consists of 11 similarly-sized "hui" shaped buildings, each consisting of a central building, a wall, four gates, and curved ruler-shaped annex rooms at the four corners of the wall. The wall has a square plan, with a side length of 270 meters, and a door in the middle. The Four Gods Wadang was used on these four-gate towers in those days. "Hanshu Wang Mang Biography" records that in the first year of the Earth Emperor (20 years), Wang Mang badly demolished more than ten palaces such as Jianzhang Palace in the West Garden of Chang'an City, and "took their materials and tiles to build nine temples". The Nine Temples "are extremely ingenious... The merit cost hundreds of thousands, and the death of thousands of pawns", the third year of the earth emperor finally came to an end. In September of the following year, while the Green Forest Rebel Army was capturing Luoyang all the way, the other road had already besieged Chang'an City like an iron barrel, and the rebel army dug the mausoleum of Wang Mang's wife and father outside the city, "burned his coffin", and burned the nine temples, the Ming Hall, and the Piyong ceremonial buildings in the south of Chang'an City, "illuminating the city". On October 1, the city was broken, and on the third day, Wang Mang was killed.
It can be seen that Wang Mang spent a huge amount of manpower and financial resources to build the Nine Temples, using the wood tiles of more than ten palaces in Chang'an Xiyuan, and the four gates of each group of building walls of the Nine Temples were specially made with a new four god wattangs, namely Qinglong Wadang (Fig. 14) for the east gate, White Tiger Wadang for the west gate (Fig. 15), Vermilion Wadang for the south gate (Fig. 16), and Xuanwu Wadang for the north gate (Fig. 17). Unfortunately, these tiles were burned by the Green Forest Army after less than a year of use.
Figure 14 Wang Mang Qinglong Wadang
Figure 15 Wang Mang White Tiger Wadang
Figure 16 Wang Mang Suzaku Wadang
Figure 17 Wang Mang Xuanwudang
Because this four gods Wadang is dedicated to Wang Mang's Nine Temples, it lasted for a very short time, and it was deliberately and completely destroyed, so its existence is quite limited. From the perspective of process technology, the level of craftsmanship and technology in the Wang Mang period was superior even in the already high level of the Two Han Dynasty, such as Mang Qian and Mang Yin, as well as the Four Gods Wadang. This kind of Wadang side wheel is wide, pangshuo, graceful, rich in pattern, precision molding, uniform fire, worthy of Qin Han Wa's leader. Therefore, the Wadang Collection Since the flourishing of the Qing Dynasty, the four gods of Wadang have always been the supreme product that Wadang collectors dream of. As far as Qin Han Wadang's hometown - Shaanxi is concerned, the state-owned cultural collection institutions with this grade of complete sets of four gods Wadang are only Shaanxi History Museum, Xi'an Museum and several other institutions. Private possession of one or two or even half of the four sacred tiles is the envy of Tibetan friends, and there are only a few people who have a complete set of tiles hidden in the folk.
The text of blessing and good fortune is Wadang
Wadang can be divided into three categories: image, pattern, and text Wadang. The literal wadang appeared late, but people's interest in it occurred the earliest and most persistent.
If in the Tang Dynasty people first noticed Wadang because of their love for pottery, then in the Song Dynasty, in the "Talk of Shuishuiyan" and "Dongguan Yu Theory", we see the earliest clear record of ancient Wadang. The two books recorded several writing tiles excavated from the ruins of the Yuyang Palace of the Qin and Han dynasties and the Yiyanshou Palace of the Wudi of the Western Han Dynasty, and made research and inferences. The Song Dynasty was an era of great prosperity in traditional epigraphy on the mainland, and as the predecessor of modern archaeology, it focused on the recording and examination of ancient written materials. Therefore, the Song people were the first to pay attention to the written tiles, and it is understandable that there is no word about the images and patterns without words. This phenomenon continued until the Republic of China. Luo Zhenyu, an outstanding epigraphist of the late Qing Dynasty, wrote a masterpiece on Wadang "Qin Han Wadang Text", and the dominance of Wadang in it is known from the title alone. There are very few images and motifs in this book. In the past seventy years, modern archaeology has been in full swing, but the status of the written Wadang has not been fundamentally shaken.
Since the earliest appearance of heavy ring tiles in the Western Zhou Dynasty, tile houses have almost always been enjoyed by rulers, and ordinary people "have no tiles on the house" (Meiyaochen of the Northern Song Dynasty, "Potter"), and there are endless books in history. On the eaves of the ruler's majestic palace, Wadang has been constantly changing various images and patterns over time, and some images and patterns may still carry the ruler's good intentions. But for the viewer, it is not easy to understand the meaning. Therefore, the direct use of words to express the king's intention and the mentality of blessing and good fortune on Wadang is the most direct and clear at a glance, so the appearance of the written Wadang becomes inevitable.
Opinions differ on exactly when the text Wadang appeared. The Song people may have appeared in the former site of the Qin Palace to determine that the writing tile was indiscriminately used in Qin. For example, the previous examples of "Talk on Shuishuiyan" and "Dongguan Yu Theory" recorded "Yuyang Chitose" and "Yuyang Linwei" and other tiles, and based on the fact that Yuyang Palace was built in the Warring States Qin Wugong, it is pointed out that it is a Warring States thing. The Compilation of Wadang, also written by the "Nian Palace", refers to all the things created by the Warring States Qin Huigong. As everyone knows, palace buildings can often be used for a long time, and future generations often renovate and replace tiles, and the Qin Palace and Han Dynasty are a common phenomenon, how can this confirm that the tiles unearthed on the foundation site of a building used by both Qin and Han dynasties must be Qin objects and not replaced by the Han people during major repairs? Other scholars believe that the Wadang script appeared in Qin based on the fact that some Wadang scripts are close to Qin Xiaozhen. For example, the most famous 12-character Wadang "Weitian descending spirit, extending the yuan for ten thousand years, the world is healthy" (Figure 18), and the "eternal blessing" of the bird and insect book Wadang (Figure 19), that is, mostly refers to Qin Wa, and is cited as evidence that Qin has written tiles. This argument was still popular in academic monographs published in the 90s of the 20th century and even in Wadang research papers. In fact, the Han Dynasty, especially in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, did not change its writing as clearly as regime change. Often a cultural relic from the early Qin or Western Han Dynasty is extremely difficult to distinguish only from the text, and it is necessary to identify it by the shape and production method of the cultural relics. This phenomenon is commonly found in wadang and seals.
Figure 18 Wadang fragment of "Weitian descending spirit, extending the yuan for ten thousand years, the world is Kangning" in the ash heap of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty
Figure 19 Wadang in the Western Han Dynasty
To sum up, whether the script Wadang appeared in the Qin or Han dynasties, traditional epigraphy methods are no longer able to identify, and the heavy responsibility falls on the shoulders of modern archaeology. At present, many Qin and Han ruins have been scientifically excavated in Guanzhong in Shaanxi and other parts of the country. In the Warring States and Qin strata such as the ruins of Qinyongcheng, the ruins of Qinxianyang, the ruins of the Ancient City of Qi Linzi, the ruins of Han Chang'an City, the ruins of the Han Dynasty in Luoyang, and the Qin and Han architectural ruins in Suizhong in Liaoning, the script Wadang has never been seen in the Qin and Han strata, proving that the appearance of the written Wadang was in the Han Dynasty. Among the Han Dynasty ruins in Guanzhong, such as the ruins of the Liyang Ancient City of the Western Han Dynasty and the architectural ruins of the Han Taishang Emperor's Mausoleum, a large number of Wadang have been unearthed, but there is no Wadang with text as the decorative theme. There are "Long Live the Thousand Autumns" and "Hetian Wuji" text tiles unearthed in the Hanjing Emperor Yang Mausoleum Cemetery, and from its production method, face-to-face layout and character font analysis, it may be the building materials used by the Han Jing Emperor to build the Shou Mausoleum during his lifetime, which is earlier than the writing tiles unearthed by Wudi Maoling. In the ruins of the Han Wudi period, the writing tiles have become very exquisite and prosperous. The above archaeological excavations prove that the written tiles may have appeared in the period of Emperor Jing of Han (156~141 BC), popularized in the period of Emperor Wu (140~87 BC), and flourished in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty. In the middle and late Western Han Dynasty, on the royal palaces and mausoleums in the Gyeonggi region, the written tiles had become the mainstream, and the proportion of patterns or image tiles had decreased sharply. For example, among the six building foundation sites excavated in the ruins of the Duling Mausoleum of the Han Xuan Emperor, more than 400 complete Wadang products were unearthed, and the Chinese Wadang has exceeded 400 products, and the number of moire Wadang is only a fraction of the number. The Western Han Dynasty was an empire of unprecedented size, as evidenced by the excavation of the Western Han script Wadang. Lake Baikal in Russia, the Korean Peninsula in the northeast, Guangzhou in the south, Fujian in the southeast, and Qinghai in the west, all have Han Dynasty script Wadang unearthed. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the written Wadang declined sharply, and there were not many physical objects, mainly found in Linzi, Shandong and Luoyang, Henan.
According to the content of the Wadang script, the Wadang script can be divided into seven categories: palace garden, official office, mansion, ancestral tomb, chronicle, other and Ji language. According to the available data, there are about 400 kinds of Wadang with different script contents, of which about half of the types of Kyrgyzstan script tiles, and the physical objects of different editions account for the vast majority of the surviving script tiles. There are several or thirty or forty types of other types of writing tiles.
All kinds of writing tiles, such as palaces, official offices, mansions, and ancestral tombs, are naturally applied to different specific buildings, in fact, the Ji script tiles are not necessarily only intended to pray for blessings and good fortune, but are commonly used in various buildings. For example, archaeological excavations tell us that the gate gate of the Tianzi Mausoleum during the Xuan Emperor period mainly used "Changle Weiyang" tiles, and rarely used "Changsheng Wuji" tiles. On the contrary, the Empress Cemetery is more common in the ruins of Chunhua Ganquan Palace, and there are very few "Long Live the Thousand Autumns" and "Changle Weiyang" tiles. The "Long Live Changle" Wahanshi in Chong'an City, Fujian, is mostly used in the gate tower of the local government office.
The diameter of the Western Han character Wadang is mostly between 15~18.5 cm, the small one such as "Zuoyi" Wadang, the diameter is only 13 cm, and the large one is such as "Yiyanshou" Wadang, the diameter can reach 22 cm. More than 2,000 years ago, the first people who could enjoy the tile houses and even the beautifully decorated tiles were the royal family, followed by the government and individual high-ranking officials and dignitaries. Such Hanwa calligraphy should be attributed to the excellent artists of the time rather than ordinary craftsmen. How do you know? Let's take two examples from the Tang Dynasty. Yan Liben, a great painter of the Tang Dynasty, participated in the painting of the Six Horses of Zhaoling, and his brother Yan Lide (about 596~656), who was also a painter, was the person in charge of the construction of the Tang Gaozu Xianmausoleum, Cuiwei Palace, Yuhua Palace and Emperor Taizong's Zhaoling Mausoleum. For another example, on May 16 of the second year of the Tang Dynasty to De (757), Du Fu (712~770) was worshipped by Emperor Suzong as a left picker (from the eighth product to the civil official). Two years later, Du Fu came to Chengdu with his family to avoid the "Anshi Rebellion". In August of the second year of the last yuan (761), he composed "The hut is broken by the autumn wind". A former "section-level cadre" still could not afford to live in a tile house a thousand years after the Western Han Dynasty, let alone use a tile dang.
The seal lines of Western Han characters have reached a high degree of harmony in many aspects such as rigidity and softness, straightness, denseness, and leaning on righteousness, or square or beautiful, which is natural and breathtaking. There are not many Jinshi writings left in the Western Han Dynasty, and the "Complete Works of Chinese Calligraphy: Qin and Han Carved Stones" only records eight places, including "Qunchen Shangxiao Carved Stone" (158 BC) and "Lu Xiaoyu Carved Stone" (26 BC). The West Han Wadang characters are large and beautiful, numerous and endlessly varied, and are precious and strange in Western Han calligraphy. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, the art of Wadang gradually declined, and the written Wadang gradually declined.
After Qin Lisi founded the small seal and unified the Chinese script, the seal books and affiliated books of the Qin and Han dynasties took symmetry and balance as the main principle of knotting characters, forming the shape of square characters. Books are written in steles and hewn in bronze, neat and regular, which is inappropriate. However, the application of this widely used square script to the Qin and Han calligraphy almost unified the world encountered unprecedented challenges in Wadang, because the shape of Wadang was circular (some were semi-circular). Taking the most common four-character tile in the Western Han script tile as an example, the early tile core was basically a protruding sphere, individual in the shape of a column or cake, and its outer string pattern (circular partition) was applied, and later the double partition was decorated with bead patterns. In short, the Waxin partition and the outer wheel divider are divided into four fan-shaped parts, which is a new stage provided by the practical decoration for the square kanji. Therefore, breaking symmetry and metaphysics became the only way for Wadang writing.
Cover of "Archaeology and Civilization Series" "Eaves Art - Ancient Chinese Wadang"
In the period of transformation of Western Han calligraphy from the mature small seal of the Qin Dynasty to the mature of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it is a period of artistic transformation in which the old system has been broken and the new law has not been established, such a special historical period not only creates people's tolerance when appreciating different and even strange calligraphy styles, but also provides Western Han calligraphers with extremely rare psychological freedom in artistic creation. More exaggerated flexion, concession, interspersion, addition and subtraction became a sharp weapon for Shanshuren at that time to construct decorative Wadang character glyphs, and the organic combination of square circles and the unfolding of straight shapes formed a new and highly personalized "meaningful form". Strokes increase and decrease more freely, allowing flexion and extension to be more staggered, and some Waverns also pay attention to stroke waves to highlight the taste of writing. In addition, the West Han Wattang script also pays attention to matching with milk and other motifs (such as birds), or double-hooking a simpler text to make the face appear colorful. The control and soaring imagination of the Han people in transforming square characters on the non-round and non-square Wadang are breathtaking.
The surface of the non-square Wadang creates the strange knots and chapters of the Wadang script, and the artist designs and writes, and then the craftsman imitates the Wadang script, and finally produces the Wadang script, this special "writing" method (engraving) and the special calligraphy carrier (clay pottery) also affect the Wadang script or curve, or round, or simple linear characteristics. Just as when we study the formation of the Han Jian calligraphy style, we should pay attention to the influence of its unique calligraphic carrier (narrow bamboo simplification) and the writing method of writing with the left hand and the right hand, which are completely different from the writing method after the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
The pre-Qin Zhuangzi once said: The Tao is in Wayu. Mr. Lu Xun also sighed: However, the Han people are carved in stone, and their spirit is deep and majestic. With the words of the Western Han Wadang being strange and changeable, and the words of the sages are not false!
(The original title of this article is "Brilliant and dazzling, like the sun in the sky - Wadang in the Two Han Dynasties", the full text was originally published in the "Archaeology and Civilization Series" of the Cultural Relics Publishing House "Eaves Art - Ancient Chinese Wadang", which was edited when the surging news was published.) ）