Beijing, 5 May (ZXS) -- Question: What is the aesthetic connotation of the tradition of flower appreciation in Chinese culture?
——Interview with Meng Hui, deputy director of the Xiang Culture Special Committee of the China Arts and Crafts Society and a scholar of the history of traditional Chinese material culture
Written by Wen Longjie Xu Huangguan
"The death of the peach, the burning of its brilliance." It's blossom viewing season. "Flower viewing" is a common phenomenon after the development of human civilization to a certain height, but from the perspective of cultural tradition, it is a unique custom developed in the social and historical environment of East Asia, and China is the most - the flower appreciation is associated with personality, culture and social customs. It is said that contemporary Western blossom viewing is more like exchanges and exhibitions, while Chinese blossom viewing is a tradition and custom.
When did the tradition of flower appreciation in Chinese culture originate, what kind of aesthetic, literary and philosophical connotations do it have, and what are its characteristics and influences? Focusing on "flower appreciation", China News Agency's "East-West Question" recently interviewed Meng Hui, deputy director of the China Arts and Crafts Society's Incense Culture Committee.
The following is a summary of the interview:
China News Agency: Nowadays, the culture of flower viewing is favored by more and more Chinese people, what kind of cultural tradition does it originate?
Meng Hui: As a culture, flower appreciation has gradually developed over the years, not static, but constantly enriched and changed with the overall progress of Chinese civilization.
Most of China has four distinct seasons, with autumn leaves falling and winter snowfall, and after three or four months of vegetation, the return of spring is very beautiful. China's natural conditions have to be created, the mountains and waters are beautiful, the vegetation is abundant, and the flowers are in full bloom in turn. Therefore, since the late Qin era, there has been a custom of people spontaneously going to the mountains and waters in spring to enjoy flowers.
Guangxi Nanning City Qingxiu Mountain View Area Taohuawu scenic spot. Photo by Yu Xiangquan
In addition, China has developed agriculture since ancient times, and in the process of long-term development of agriculture, the ancients developed a strong and delicate feeling for plant cultivation, especially appreciating the beauty of flowers and trees. The climatic characteristics of the four distinct seasons and the way of life of farming culture in accordance with the order of time also made the ancients particularly sensitive to the rotation of time, and the blossoming and falling of flowers reflected the passage of time with a beautiful scene, so the ancients saw the operation law of the cycle of heaven and earth in the bloom and fall of flowers, and also felt the fragile and strong characteristics of life. The ancients' appreciation of flowers is to take flowers as a microcosm of the world, the so-called one flower and one world, when people appreciate flowers, love flowers, cherish flowers, and worry about falling flowers, they are pinning their emotions on the whole world. It can be said that when Chinese see the blooming flowers, what surges is tenderness for the creation of nature and all things in the universe.
In fact, the ancients did not only enjoy flowers in spring, but after the Song Dynasty, with the high development of artificial cultivation of flowers and trees, there were "flower events" throughout the year. Among them, the most representative flowers are lotus flowers in summer, osmanthus flowers in autumn, and plum blossoms, plum and narcissus in winter. "Stepping on the snow to find plum", since the Southern Song Dynasty, has been the most elegant rhyme of the scholars, they will break off the plum branches, hang them in the sleeping tent, and fall asleep in the company of the fragrance of plum blossoms.
Tourists enjoy flowers at Haitang Road, Hutubi County, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang. Photo by Tao Weiming
China News Agency: What are the aesthetic pursuits of the flower appreciation tradition in Chinese culture, and what unique cultural connotations do they contain?
Meng Hui: The evolution of Chinese flower appreciation methods has been accompanied by the development of floriculture, cities, artificial gardens and other fields.
From the pre-Qin Dynasty to the early Tang Dynasty, people have always collectively gone to the countryside to admire flowers, taking naturally grown flowers and trees as the object of appreciation. Such blossom viewing is actually a grand travel event, regardless of men, women and children, to play in the mountains and rivers together. Especially in the pre-Qin era, young men and women would pick flowers while looking for their sweethearts, and those they liked would give each other hand-picked fragrant flowers and beautiful grass, and love would bloom under the witness of spring flowers.
In Shengtang, an important way of constructing public space matured - various official institutions or civil forces took the initiative to cultivate themed flowers and trees in beautiful places inside and outside the city, and build pavilions and pavilions to form a semi-artificial scenic area for all people to enjoy the flowers together in spring. Famous ones include Qujiang River in the Tang Dynasty, Hangzhou West Lake from the Song Dynasty to the present, Yangzhou Slender West Lake in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Jiaxing South Lake and so on.
Citizens enjoy flowers in the Beixin Flower Sea in Tengzhou City, Shandong Province. Photo by Li Li
China has had unique public spaces since ancient times, one of which is semi-artificial large-scale scenic areas. Every year, when it comes time to enjoy the flowers, there are official or social forces to repair and arrange these scenic areas. For example, in the Ming Dynasty, the children of rich families would hang a round lantern for each peach blossom tree in West Lake, so that people could continue to play and feast under the flowers after night.
Therefore, cherry blossom viewing used to be a unique carnival in Chinese, where people would picnic, sing and play music, play horse running, kite flying and other games. At the same time, vendors gather and opera artists perform in the open air, which not only provides business opportunities, but also makes tourists more fun.
From the late Tang period, with the maturity of private gardens, a custom with a strong sense of public morality appeared. When the flowers bloom in spring, all private gardens are open to the public, and the public is free to come and go and enjoy the fun of the garden.
In the Song Dynasty, the city became increasingly developed, and there were many private gardens in big cities such as Bianjing and Lin'an, and going to the gardens to see the flowers in spring became an important part of urban life. People go to the countryside to enjoy the spring light, and throughout the spring, they will visit the famous gardens in and outside the city. In the process of visiting the garden and seeing flowers, the beautiful garden scenery gives people artistic cultivation, and the aesthetic charm of architecture, landscaping and so on allows ordinary people to subtly improve their cultivation.
In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the owners of private gardens also generally displayed their own collection of cultural relics and antiques, calligraphy inscriptions, ancient books, etc. in the Xuan Hall in the garden, and hung Tibetan paintings, which was equivalent to holding a small cultural exhibition for visitors to enjoy. At this point, visiting the garden to see flowers has become a cultural exchange occasion, and people who want to see flowers can appreciate artworks, observe cultural relics, increase knowledge and improve taste.
Located on the west bank of West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Guo Manor Forest offers tourists to enjoy flowers and lanterns and moon viewing. Photo by Zhou Fangling
The private garden is so laborious and laborious, it is purely public welfare, and the owner will not charge for it. Correspondingly, a very humane atmosphere has been formed in society, that is, people who visit the garden will give the gardener a little tip, called "sweeping money", which means that the gardener is troubled to sweep the flowers every day, chat to express gratitude, in fact, thank the gardener for serving flowers and trees all year round, so that everyone can enjoy the spring light. The ancients were so poetic that even tips could come up with such beautiful names.
China News Agency: Do the Chinese character cultural circles and the West have similar cultural traditions of flower appreciation? What are the similarities and differences between Eastern and Western blossom viewing cultures?
Meng Hui: As we all know, Japan has a tradition of cherry blossom viewing, and having a meal, singing and dancing under the flowers is very close to the way of viewing flowers in Chinese history, which is obviously influenced by Chinese culture.
As far as I know, in the history of the Persian cultural circle, there was a tradition of going to the countryside in spring to enjoy the flowers, and people spontaneously went to the beautiful places to set up feasts and gatherings, competing to chant and compose poems, or play and sing famous poems and songs, enjoying the beauty of poetry while enjoying the flowers.
As for Western culture, it is far from forming such a rich form, such grand momentum, such elegant humanistic content as the Chinese flower appreciation tradition, and there is no traditional Chinese soft and lingering deep affection for the famous flowers of the four seasons.
Children enjoy the cherry blossom gallery in Xinghuo Agriculture and Forestry Science and Technology Park, Yichun City, Jiangxi Province. Photo by Deng Longhua
China News Agency: How to appreciate the unique aesthetics and poetry of Chinese culture from flower viewing?
Meng Hui: The ancients did not simply look at the flowers, but stacked the exceptionally rich form and content, which well reflected the romantic temperament of Chinese culture, which was born from amazing imagination and creativity.
The long history of agricultural society made the ancient Chinese attach great importance to plant cultivation technology, and the flower and tree cultivation industry developed. At the same time, the strong socio-economic level also provides a huge market demand for flower and tree cultivation. Therefore, since the Song Dynasty, whether it is a royal garden or a private garden, a variety of newly cultivated flowers have emerged one after another, thus forming the rule of cultivating different flowers in the garden, and the same garden, there will be a variety of flower appreciation areas, and build supporting buildings. Florists also use vine-like flowers that grow on climbing edges to set up tilly frames, wooden scented sheds, rose towers, rose screens, etc., to create small buildings full of dense flower branches, when the flowers are in full bloom, they are the charming highlight of the garden and the place where people set up feasts and parties.
Waves of flowers for viewing open one after another, thus forming the beautiful concept of "flower affairs". The so-called flower event means that different beautiful flowers bloom in turn, and people should appreciate them one by one and not live up to the flowers. Therefore, since the Song Dynasty, everyone has visited the garden to enjoy the flowers, from plum blossoms in early spring to roses in late spring, visiting famous gardens again and again.
Visitors take a group photo with hydrangeas in a park in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Photo by Xiao Jian
One of the most important social events for the literati is the "flower viewing party", which is a special exhibition for a themed flower. The main dramas are the Peony Festival, the Peony Society, and when begonias, lotuses, osmanthus and chrysanthemums are in full bloom, the upper class also holds elegant feasts. Those flower-viewing parties are elegant and interesting, which we can hardly imagine today, and it sounds like a dream.
For example, to hold a banquet of peonies, peonies, and chrysanthemums, from the court to the people, you must choose a palace or a pavilion in advance, ask the florists to nail the beams, columns, doors, windows, and walls inside and outside the palace the day before with small bamboo tubes, fill the tube with clean water, and then select various varieties of branches of the same flower, insert them into the bamboo tube one by one, forming a colorful pattern, so that the peony flower hall, peony flower hall, and chrysanthemum building are transformed overnight, and the curtain is also decorated with flowers, and then tied into a flower screen, a flower pagoda, and stacked layers of flower mountains. It is displayed inside and outside the flower hall or flower building. The most elegant way is to turn a painting boat full of chrysanthemums into a chrysanthemum boat, and then sail on the lake to enjoy the lake and mountains in the fragrance of chrysanthemums.
In such a grand flower appreciation party, the utensils, furniture and even the costumes of the banquet must adopt the pattern of flowers with the corresponding theme, and at the same time, the poems sung during the banquet must be famous poems praising that kind of flowers, and the talents will improvise the lyrics, and then the singers will sing on the spot, pushing the elegance to a climax.
In addition, different customs vary from place to place, and each has its own unique custom of enjoying flowers. For example, in the Qing Dynasty, Lanxi, Zhejiang was a flower township with a huge flower planting industry, and wonderful flower bathhouses appeared there. The flower bath consists of a number of independent baths, each bathroom is equipped with a white stone flower table, cultivate a precious flower, form a different characteristics of the "private room", guests can choose different themes according to their preferences, under the layers of flowers, undress into the bath or leisurely enjoy tea.
Cherry Garden in Zhuge Town, Lanxi City, Zhejiang Province. Photo by Hu Xiaofei
In fact, in the past, flower food was still popular, and a variety of flowers were made into delicacies, such as fried magnolia petals, fried lotus petals, chrysanthemum hot pot, and flowers were also used to make wine, smoked wine, and various fragrant flowers were distilled to make flower dew as a health drink, and all this is called "meal".
Thousands of years of labor practice have allowed generations of Chinese to be dexterous and sensitive to action, and concretely present the perception of beauty in their hearts for others to form resonance, thus forming a continuous exchange of beauty, and everyone goes hand in hand on the road of aesthetics. Therefore, Chinese aesthetics is never abstract, not Hegelian, not speculative, not reasoning about what beauty is in contemplation. Chinese tradition is to constantly renovate and enhance the figuration of beauty through both hands, creating a beautiful Qibao building, and then using the eyes, nose, mouth and other senses to experience it. The traditional flower appreciation culture is like this, through the interweaving of flowers and trees, gardens and humanities, so that everyone feels that the world is worthwhile, life is worthwhile, and people's efforts and nature's generosity echo each other, and live up to each other. Nature gives flowers, and man gives flowers through his heart and hands. (End)
Respondent Profile:
Meng Hui, Deputy Director of the Xiang Culture Committee of the China Arts and Crafts Society, and a scholar of the history of traditional Chinese material culture; He is the author of "China in Ancient Paintings", "Beauty Pictures", "Sixteen Voices Among Flowers" and other works.