"Song Yun" is a cultural aesthetic concept defined in the Song Dynasty, which is intended to summarize the essence of the history of the two Song Dynasties and distinguish it from other ancient times such as the Tang Dynasty.
"Rhyme" is one of the most imaginary keywords in Chinese art and aesthetics. It is not easy to define it accurately, and it is often regarded as a daunting path by academic circles.
Usually, the interpretation paths of the concept of "Song Yun" mainly include historical description and philosophical tracing, and some are defined by aesthetics. At present, it seems that they are not satisfactory.
We try to integrate the three paths of history, philosophy and art, and focus on revealing some of the outstanding features and qualities of "Song Yun" that are different from other cultural eras, and the basic point lies in aesthetics.
"Rhyme" is related to almost all ancient art categories or quasi-categories such as music, calligraphy, painting, utensils and garden architecture, and is used to express the concept of aesthetic judgment that focuses more on the form of connotation.
In the Six Dynasties period, "rhyme" was even deeply extended from music to judging the appearance and taste of characters.
It has a strong personalization connotation, which is its outstanding feature.
The core of "rhyme" is the rhythm and its changes. It extends from hearing to vision. It originates from nature and extends from nature. It is humanized rather than artificial, so as to obtain a classic character.
In this sense, "rhyme" is the refined nature (qi).
Therefore, "rhyme" is an aesthetic standard about art and personality. It is virtual, and a real "Song" is added in front of it as a historical boundary, so the virtual and real are combined, and the concept of "rhyme" was stylized by the Song Dynasty. , is no longer an isolated artistic aesthetic experience and evaluation, but "Song Yun" has acquired a macro and historical character.
The author believes that "Song Yun" is an aesthetic ideal about the culture of the Song Dynasty. It is close to life, softer than history, and deeper than science. It is shown as a lively and fragrant cultural subject, and has become a distinctive civilization and innovation in ancient Chinese history. , the sign of the historical stage of the turning point, the beginning of the so-called "modern" history.
It may not be an exaggeration to say that it has achieved another aesthetic breakthrough based on a specific historical era after the breakthrough of Wei and Jin aesthetics.
The emergence of Song Yun aesthetics is based on the following historical, economic, cultural and artistic conditions.
A strong sense of modernity.
The concept of "modern times" comes from the classic analysis of the social differences between the Tang and Song Dynasties in ancient China by Naito Hunan, a representative of the Kyoto School in Japan.
He said: "This kind of aristocratic politics died down during the transitional period of the late Tang and Five Dynasties, and was replaced by monarchy. The family privileges were obtained, and the appointment was based solely on the power of the emperor.” In the Song Dynasty, not only did the monarch face the people directly, but the selection of bureaucrats also had the characteristics of equal opportunities due to the popularity of the imperial examination system.
The monarchs and officials of the Song Dynasty were closer to the people at the bottom than the previous aristocratic system. Therefore, the entire state organization and social structure reflected more fairness, and promoted and led the people to pursue a good life and the accompanying cultural creativity. .
Enlightened monarchs, mercantile economy, currency circulation, civic life, megacities, etc., all demonstrate the great transition of Chinese society to the "modern world".
Not the great country rhythm of the Tang Dynasty.
If a large number of frontier poems of Tang Dynasty poets showed the great power of the Chinese nation and the blending of multi-ethnic cultures, then Song Dynasty art inevitably lowered the pitch, and highlighted it with relatively pure Chinese character, which can be graceful and graceful The style of Song Ci and the classic color sky blue Song porcelain are represented.
If it is said that the Tang people win with qi, then the Song people win with rhythm.
Qi is more natural, while rhyme is more human.
It can be said that the culture of the Song Dynasty was finally reborn, forming a new core of Chinese civilization and tradition. It has certain restrained and beautiful characters, and these characters have the characteristics of extreme inward search.
It seems that the acquisition of a sense of modernity does not require historical continuity, which makes it unnecessary and impetus to go back to history.
Qualitatively speaking, a creative transformation of culture took place between the Tang and Song Dynasties. In a fundamental sense, we say that its great country rhythm is "non-Tang" to some extent.
Dehistoricizing the narrative.
When we watch some Song Dynasty art, we occasionally reflect that the production and display of those works of art are separate and pure, and they do not need to be placed in any historical narrative, just as Buddhism and Taoism teach us , only to develop meditation or insight on it, that is, intuition.
For example, in the face of the most classic azure color of official kiln porcelain, it is infinitely close to the true color of the sky, but it is non-desire, non-emotional or even non-ethical, and has a naturalistic sense of authority.
Here, a continuous art history as an interpretive context seems superfluous, and there is no need to associate it with the Tang Dynasty, let alone the early Zhouyi and Han and Wei thoughts.
We can imagine that lyricism and narrative as historical or epochal content began to be somewhat skeptical and deliberately ignored, and a new system of symbols was established.
This is true even in Song Confucianism's "Looking at things for knowledge".
Inquiry into knowledge and anti-lyricism.
There are two aspects to learning from things, one is to take a cognitive attitude similar to the close reading of texts to things or people, in order to copy nature and things, it requires close examination of the object, and presents its truth, which is rational.
The deepening of interrogation is "work". When interrogation tends to connect more objects, time returns to itself, and it seems to be heading towards something of ontology, which should be in line with the insight path of Neo-Confucianism.
What's more interesting is that the other side of the object, based on the philosophical standpoint, is naturally anti-lyric, and they are naturally combined like two sides of a coin, "Looking at things with things, sex is also. Seeing things with me, emotion is also. The public is bright, and the love is dark."
We might as well try to regard the azure color of official kiln porcelain as a product of the same public context as anti-lyric.
It is a calming solid color on the glaze, almost transparent. It is the same category as jade, which avoids the deep mystery of bronzes. It permeates the "reason" of Neo-Confucianism, which is based on the intuition of Zen and the insight of Tao. territory.
Stylization of worldly life.
The rise of the citizen class and the emergence of world-class metropolises have led to unprecedented prosperity of urban life, and its core value is an economic equivalent exchange system.
As a result, the people obtained a relatively more egalitarian social environment, and inevitably, all other values were reassessed.
In this social environment, architecture, furniture, porcelain, etc. have become prominent symbols of urban life. Zaju, storytelling, tea art, flower market, and incense dao, etc. reflect the organizational function of various group activities, driving traditional qin, chess, calligraphy and painting, with value Directed by fair public exchanges, aesthetic tastes are mass-produced and popular, and have acquired a new form of artistic stylization. Prosperous secular life is precisely advertised by this stylized aesthetic character.
Minimalism prevails.
The Song Dynasty utensils underwent a significant change between the Song Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. Historically, the functions of vessels from ritual to life, which were mainly carried by bronze wares, were shifted to porcelain wares.
The heavy sense of history and the dignified mysterious atmosphere of bronzes have been dispelled.
Porcelain became dominated by simple shapes and monochromatic tones.
An aesthetic fashion that has a great influence on later generations, it may be unexpected for people to be the first to develop a trend in practical utensils such as porcelain.
The minimalism in art has been completed in the Song Dynasty porcelain industry, and the academic circle has reached a consensus on this.
Minimalism is also reflected in the design and production of furniture in the Song Dynasty, and penetrated into traditional arts such as calligraphy and painting.
Therefore, it is not too much to say that minimalism was fashionable in the Song Dynasty.
It is worth paying attention to, how did minimalism take shape?
Some experts have noticed the influence of Neo-Confucianism, which may be because of "learning from objects".
However, the author thinks that it may be more important that minimalism does not allow the overflow of emotions, while Neo-Confucianism just suppresses emotions, and it seems that it has come together with minimalism in direction.
It is also worth noting that the real popularity of Zen interest was also in the Song Dynasty. Perhaps Zen Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism formed an intuitive confluence, which promoted minimalism.
Both elegant and popular.
The taste of the court, the taste of the scholar-bureaucrat and the taste of the common people have achieved differentiated coexistence and harmony on the platform of urban life. In other words, the ordinary citizens are influenced by the artistic taste of the court and the scholar-officer in the secular life of the city. Aesthetic interest in society.
For example, Wazili's storytelling is actually a complex game of intelligence and art appreciation, which greatly improves the knowledge and appreciation of ordinary people.
Aesthetic games such as these were deeply involved in the social fabric of the Song Dynasty, and even played the function of organizing society to a certain extent.
On the other hand, corresponding to the improvement of the taste of the citizens, the taste of the court and the scholar-officials are no longer unattainable.
(Author: Zhang Jiemo, professor of Zhejiang Yuexiu University of Foreign Languages)