【EXPO】
Zhou Qian. The Lunar New Year of 2024 is just around the corner, which is the Year of the Dragon in our country's traditional zodiac calendar. In China's ancient astronomical calendar, the zodiac is used as the chronological system, and the dragon is one of them. The dragon is an animal in ancient Chinese mythology and one of the symbols of the Chinese nation. The earliest information about dragons in China is the stone pile plastic dragon unearthed from the Chahai site in Liaoning, which is about 8,000 years old. The ancients believed that the dragon could go to the sky and dive into the abyss, call the wind and rain, and be omnipotent, and was a divine beast that eliminated disasters and drove away evil spirits and welcomed auspiciousness. The ancients expressed their admiration and worship for the dragon through various dragon-related activities, in order to obtain a year of good weather and abundant grains. The dragon was also revered by ancient emperors. The Forbidden City during the Ming and Qing dynasties was the place where the emperor ruled and lived, and the image of the dragon was almost everywhere. For example, as the core building of the Forbidden City, the Taihe Hall has dragons of different shapes in its internal golden pillars, thrones, caissons, color paintings and other parts.
In the field of ancient architecture, the columns in the interior are generally called "golden pillars". On both sides of the throne of the Taihe Palace, there are 6 golden pillars. On each golden pillar, there is a huge dragon. The dragon is a dragon that lies dormant on the ground and is not **, and the shape is coiled and surrounded. The dragon's tail is down, the body is wrapped around the column, winding and coiling up, the dragon's head is up, looking upward, and the eyes are sharp. The tail of the dragon is decorated with the Fuhai pattern of Shoushan, and the dragon body is surrounded by floating auspicious clouds.
In the middle of the Taihe Palace, the throne with gold lacquer cloud dragon pattern is furnished. This is the throne with the most exquisite workmanship, the most luxurious decoration, the highest grade and the most exquisite carving in the Forbidden City. The throne was made during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, and the material was Nanmu. Each of the 13 golden dragons coiled around the back of the chair has different shapes. Among them, the head (the top of the chair) is a sitting dragon standing tall in the center, and each side is made into a dragon body. Each of the 4 cylindrical chair pillars has multiple dragons entwined to make a winding momentum. The throne is carved with dragon hair and gold. The "gold lacquer inlay ornament" of the throne of the Taihe Hall is a very high-grade lacquer decoration of the ancient court of our country.
There is a caisson above the throne in the Taihe Palace, and the full name is "the dragon and phoenix horn cicada cloud dragon with the petal fang set square octagonal golden dragon" caisson well. Among them, the horned cicada refers to a triangular or diamond-shaped area in a caisson. The main function of this caisson is to symbolize the majesty of imperial power and the legitimacy of the emperor. In the center of the top of the caisson, there is a dragon shape with a Xuanyuan mirror in the mouth, supplemented by Ruyi cloud ornamentation. The body of this dragon is coiled, the neck is bent, the chest is straight, the eyes are round, the tentacles are stretched horizontally, the momentum is magnificent, and it is about to come out, which is very majestic and awe-inspiring. From the perspective of carving techniques, the shape of the dragon adopts multi-layer carving, openwork, relief, Yin carving and other carving techniques. The technique is exquisite, the lines are delicate and smooth, reflecting the exquisite carving skills of ancient craftsmen in China.
The eaves in the Taihe Hall are painted in style, which is the golden dragon and the seal color painting. This type of painting was the highest-ranking type of painting in the Qing Dynasty and was mostly used in important buildings in the Forbidden City. The biggest feature of its composition is that the heart of the fang, the head of the algae and other parts are painted with dragon patterns. The heart of this color painting is depicted with a dragon. It shook its head and tail, its four paws paraded through the auspicious clouds, and its body snaked forward, as if chasing the fire beads in front of it. The part of the head of the algae is depicted with the pattern of the ascending dragon and the descending dragon. The golden dragon and seal color paintings of the Taihe Hall use the leaching powder and gilding process in a large area. The so-called "leaching powder and pasting gold", that is, first using a mixture of soil powder and glue, along the outline of the dragon and phoenix ornamentation, depicting the shape of the bulge, and then pasting it on the surface of the bulge with gold foil, so that the color painting pattern achieves the effect of splendor.
It is not difficult to find that the dragons in different architectural parts of the Taihe Hall are the essence of ancient Chinese artworks, and the craftsmanship is the crystallization of the wisdom of the ancients, highlighting the traditional Chinese culture.
Science and technology** The author is a research librarian of the Palace Museum) [Editor: Tian Boqun].