"Carved beams and painted buildings" is the unique beauty of traditional Chinese architecture, and the grand and majestic buildings add gorgeous brocade colors because of colorful paintings. Painting is also the first line of defense against wind and rain in wooden buildings, and the pigments used to protect them from moisture and insects. This thin layer of colorful clothing, distributed on the beams, ceilings, bucket arches and caissons, decorated with the magnificence of the building, the comprehensive wooden structure. The cultural connotation behind the color painting is worth pursuing and understanding. The final work of the 10th anniversary series of exhibitions of the Chinese Garden Museum, "Brocade - Exploring the Architectural Paintings of the South of the Yangtze River" is on display in the first theme exhibition hall. More than 140 pieces (sets) of exhibits, rich in content and clear ideas, will be the ancient and modern transmutation of Jiangnan color paintings, to tell us. The audience walks along the winding corridor of the exhibition hall, as if stepping into this history, slowly opening the long scroll of Jiangnan color paintings.
Caiyitang gable river fang brocade painting.
Painting the pattern of Dong Liudan.
After thousands of years of development and evolution, Chinese architectural color painting integrates practical functions and decorative arts, with a long history and profound accumulation. According to the architectural grade and composition, traditional architectural color paintings are mainly divided into Hexi color paintings, rotor color paintings and Soviet-style color paintings. Hexi color painting appeared in the late Ming Dynasty and is the highest level of color painting, mainly used in the main hall of the imperial palace and the main hall of the royal altar temple. In the Qing Dynasty, the level of rotor color painting was second only to Hexi color painting, and it was mainly used in the auxiliary halls of the imperial palace complex, the royal altar temple, the royal mausoleum and the temples built in the imperial palace. Soviet-style color painting is second to Hexi color painting and Zhuanzi color painting, and is mostly used in the inner court of the imperial palace or in the imperial garden architecture. These three kinds of color paintings are also known as "official color paintings". The most active folk color painting is the Jiangnan color painting, the Jiangnan color painting is free and flexible, and although the composition, pattern, and color are lawful, they are not restrained. Compared with the strict grade and standardized painting method of official-style color painting, Jiangnan color painting shows its exquisiteness and liveliness in front of the world. The exhibition is divided into three parts: "Jiangnan Painting Landscape", "Colorful Craftsmen" and "North-South Blending", focusing on the historical background of Jiangnan color paintings, Seiko ornamentation and the important influence on northern official-style Su paintings.
"Jiangnan" refers to **, and why did it become the center of international exchanges in the Ming and Qing dynasties? The first part of the exhibition, "Jiangnan Painting", will tell you the answer. "Jiangnan" is not only a geographical concept, but also a historical concept, and at the same time, a cultural concept with rich connotations. From a cultural point of view, Wuyue culture and Huizhou culture are the main body, and based on the characteristics of the distribution of color painting resources in the south of the Yangtze River, the color paintings in the south of the Yangtze River are mainly in southern Jiangsu, Huizhou and Zhejiang.
Caiyitang East Second Mountain Boundary Beam (West Side) Six out of the hexagonal brocade painting.
On the large curved screen next to the display board, what is scrolling is Qiu Ying's "Qingming Riverside Map" dynamic scroll in the Ming Dynasty. Outside the city, the green mountains and green waters, the trees are lush; The shops, courtyards, and pavilions on the streets of the city are neatly arranged and luxurious, and the magnificent buildings of hundreds of years ago are on the "screen". At that time, skilled craftsmen gathered in the Jiangnan area, private gardens were dotted, and its economic strength and craftsmanship level were unparalleled for a while. The silk weaving industry is famous in the south of the Yangtze River, forming the grand occasion of "the sunrise is ten thousand silks, the clothes are all over the world", and the developed silk weaving industry makes the garden owner gradually use the pattern and design of the brocade for architectural decoration, which also provides fertile soil for the breeding of architectural paintings in the south of the Yangtze River. Qiu Ying is known as one of the four great painters of the Wumen School of Painting in the Ming Dynasty, we can not only see the green and green official color paintings in southern Jiangsu during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty in his work "Spring Dawn of the Han Palace", but also see the folk brocade color paintings in the "Palace Silkworm Scroll". According to the postscript in Zhang Chao's "Yu Chu Xinzhi Dai Jin Biography" in the Ming Dynasty, Qiu Ying was born in a poor family, "at the beginning he was a lacquer worker, and he also painted Dongyu for people, and then migrated to paint". It can be seen that Qiu Ying was born as a color painter.
The interest of nature and the residence of auspiciousness are an important embodiment of Chinese cultural thought. Planting flowers and trees all over the garden and raising rare birds and beasts have become the fashion of the times and garden elements. The so-called "planting willows along the embankment, planting plums around the house", "raising deer can swim, planting fish can be caught", animal and plant ornaments are widely used in architectural paintings. Auspicious animals include animals that are endowed with sacred meanings in imagination, such as dragons and phoenixes, as well as animals that are endowed with auspicious meanings in reality, such as cranes and bats. In traditional architectural paintings, plants are given specific meanings to express the pursuit of noble sentiments by the ancients. For example, the sea pomegranate flower introduced from ancient Persia, the treasure flower containing the decorative characteristics of the Tang Dynasty, the lotus flower that is not stained out of the mud, and the peony that symbolizes wealth and prosperity. Wrapping brocade painting, is a kind of architectural decoration that imitates the brocade to wrap the beams and columns with color painting (founded in the late Southern Song Dynasty), which is a good idea for Jiangnan color painting to replace textiles with color painting, representing the wisdom of the craftsmen at that time, these little-known artists make the original monotonous interior full of vitality and vitality, looking up, is the painting.
Exquisite craftsmanship, inheritance and development.
The second part of the exhibition is "Colorful Craftsmen", in this part, the most eye-catching is the exhibition hall ** 1 1 replica of part of the painted architectural structure in the Caiyi Hall in the main hall of the Weng Tong Gong Memorial Hall.
The southern Jiangsu area is the concentration of Jiangnan color paintings in the Ming and Qing dynasties, mainly distributed in Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou and other places around the Taihu Lake Basin, especially the Suzhou color paintings, which account for more than half of the entire southern Jiangsu color paintings, among which the color clothes hall of the Weng Tongyi Memorial Hall in Changshu in Suzhou is the most. As an important relic of Soviet-style architecture and painting in the Ming Dynasty, Caiyitang is a typical example of the shape and characteristics of the mansions of famous families in the south of the Yangtze River, with a history of nearly 400 years. Its color painting integrates the characteristics of the north and south color paintings, both the splendid style, and the light and elegant taste, with wood carving, plane painting, hanging plastic three forms combined, the color is equally important, the brocade is the main, the girder burden brocade adopts a large number of gold paste technology, and the green and red three colors match, so that the color painting appears more magnificent, and the quiet courtyard environment complements each other, breathtaking.
Caiyitang looks up, Xuanming, purse beam, flowers, auspicious clouds, and paintings.
The tools and materials used in traditional architectural painting are different from those used in general painting. From measuring building components to finally completing the drawing, more than 20 processes use a variety of tools and materials, including paper, pens, brushes, rulers, large white powder, talcum powder, etc. Traditional architectural painting involves a variety of different processes, each of which follows traditional regulations and is completed through a combination of technology and art. Due to the different categories of color paintings, the way of painting is also different, and the process mainly involves five categories: preparation of pigments, making scores, leaching, brushing, and gilding, of which there are nearly 40 kinds of main techniques.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial court selected officials from the Jiangnan craftsmen on a large scale, and the craftsmen also brought the Jiangnan architectural style into the northern court buildings, from palaces, gardens to mausoleums, from hot samples to actual construction, from wood painting to raw material technology, all traces of Jiangnan can be found. Over the past few hundred years, the Ming-style Jiangnan architectural paintings have gradually radiated to the north, which not only affects the formation and evolution of the Soviet-style paintings of the imperial garden architecture, but also becomes a sufficient example of the integration of northern and southern cultures and the mutual learning between the east and the west in ancient China. At the scene, you can see the development process of the famous craftsman gang "Xiangshan Gang", the engineering pattern of the royal building complex designed by "Style Lei" in the north, and you can also see the tools of various types of work such as lacquer and stone work, as well as colorful color painting mineral pigments.
The style of Jiangnan architectural color painting is delicate and far-reaching, integrating the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of ancient China. In today's innovative transformation and creative development of traditional culture, as Yang Hong, deputy director of the Department of Ancient Architecture of the Palace Museum, said: "We must not only protect this precious historical relic, but also study, display and inherit this culture and skills, so as to bring the architectural paintings of Jiangnan to life." "In 2002, the Chinese National Committee of ICOMOS formulated the Guidelines for the Protection of Cultural Relics and Monuments in China and recommended by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of the People's Republic of China, marking a major transformation in the restoration of painted paintings from the protection of cultural relics and buildings to the protection of cultural heritage. It makes the protection and restoration measures of color paintings more standardized and strict.
In recent years, the scientific development of traditional color painting technology in China has very important practical significance, but it is far less important than the protection of color painting inheritors. Even if all the processes are scientific, it is still not feasible to rely on book records alone without the oral teaching of old painters with unique skills. For example, the ratio of pigments needs to be flexibly adopted according to the origin, density, and season, and the appropriate ratio of pigments and glues should be adopted. The old painter also said: "There is a talent in three years, but there is no painter in ten years." At present, the skills of Jiangnan color painting are facing a situation where no one continues them. In the past, the son inherited the father's business, but the traditional skills were hard to operate, requiring years or even decades of practice and understanding, and young people who were eager to achieve it regarded it as a daunting path, so the inheritance was almost interrupted, and training inheritors was a top priority.
Brocade wooden clothes can shelter from wind and rain, show regulations, and pray for vision. The works and skills of skilled craftsmen are only sporadic here, but their extraordinary artistic and cultural value is enough to shock our hearts. Wandering through it, we marvel at the gorgeous colors and exquisite skills of the architectural paintings, and hope that this magnificent brocade can be cherished and inherited forever. (Original title: Color Painting: Thousands of Brocades of Ancient Buildings) (End).
Author: Zhang Yumei, Xu Xinyi.