Chapter 1819: The sky is round and the earth is round, Tao follows nature
Wang Mang's New Dynasty was a great era, but it was also the end of an era, the transition from the Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty.
However, many things from this period have been passed down to later generations.
Speaking of bronze mirrors, even in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, or even in the middle period, the most important and popular mirror style was still the regular pattern mirror that became popular in the late Western Han Dynasty and the Xinmang period.
It's just that the patterns in the Eastern Han Dynasty mirrors were more complex, and the pattern belts on the edges of the mirrors appeared in more styles.
In the regular mirror, there is a square column outside the button base, and there are regular rectangular signs such as "┐", "┬", and "└" outside the column.
In addition to regular lines, there are sometimes four or eight breasts.
Between the nipples, there are often fine convex patterns of birds, animals, figures, dragons, tigers or geometric patterns.
Portrait mirrors are the most distinctive new type of mirrors in the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty, and are mostly popular in the Yangtze River Basin.
For example, many portrait mirrors have been unearthed in Shaoxing, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The themes are mainly gods, humans, beasts, and historical stories.
These bronze mirrors are decorated with high relief techniques, and their decorative styles are similar to those of Han Dynasty portrait stones.
Portrait mirrors were still popular until the Three Kingdoms, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
The proportion of the bronze mirror knobs in the Eastern Han Dynasty increased significantly in the proportion of the whole mirror, and the ratio to the diameter of the mirror increased from 1:7 to 1:4, or even to 1:3.
The mirror buttons are no longer semi-circular like those in the Western Han Dynasty and the mid-Eastern Han Dynasty, but gradually become oblate.
The Han Dynasty can be said to be a historical period with very detailed records in the history books of our country.
Its royal family, officials, etiquette, clothing, culture, society, manufacturing, agriculture, business, military, war, funerals, etc. are all involved.
Bronze mirrors have already become commodities and are circulated in markets, and are loved by the people.
In order to ensure that the bronze mirror can have a real and clear effect, when the ancients cast the bronze mirror, the size and curvature of the mirror had a relatively strict ratio.
In smaller bronze mirrors, you can see a gentler arc.
A bronze mirror over 20 centimeters is basically a flat surface with no obvious curvature fluctuations.
When ancient bronze mirrors are buried, they will be wrapped in a piece of silk cloth and buried with them.
The bronze mirror has been corroded for thousands of years, and the silk cloth wrapping the bronze mirror will stick to the green rust.
Therefore, as long as you look sideways to see the rust color of an earthen bronze mirror, you can vaguely see some traces of silk threads, etc. This has become a rule of thumb.
In the Later Han Dynasty, another batch of classic bronze mirrors appeared, the typical representative of which was the plain-grained gilt beast-banded mirror from the Later Han Dynasty.
This bronze mirror is round in diameter and has a circle of inscriptions in the middle. It is simple and heavy.
Although much of the gilding has peeled off, the golden legacy is still faintly visible.
Needless to say, whenever there is gilding craftsmanship, this kind of thing must have come from the princes, or simply belong to the royal family.
It is precisely because of the clear historical records of the Han Dynasty and the prosperity of literary creation that we can understand today the epic social background and royal court life of the Han Dynasty.
At the same time, it also brings endless reverie and romantic interest to us when appreciating the antiquities of the Han Dynasty.
For example, the artistic conception expressed in "Han Palace Mirror" makes people sigh, especially the cruelty of war recorded in it.
Thin clouds float on the bright moon, reflected in the mirror; in the palace of jade rabbit and cinnamon, the beautiful shadow lingers alone.
The brocade clothes are soaked in the cold, and the black hair is lazily combed; the light in the mirror is shining brightly, and the jade face has pink cheeks.
The general marched thousands of miles and wrote home to Qilian. Liu Qing saddled his horse and stepped on the leaves without hooves.
Suddenly I heard your words, I was startled by my dream and looked into the mirror with sorrow; after the candles were burnt, my tears returned, and the sky turned white with my thoughts.
Among them, "Liu Qing saddled the horse and came without hooves to step on the leaves", which means that he went to war in the spring and did not return in the autumn.
Poems like this are usually difficult for ordinary people to come into contact with, but as long as they read them, they will be infected by the artistic conception, right?
Behind the Chinese mirrors with a round sky and a round sky, there is a small world with a square circle behind it.
The Han Dynasty gradually merged the local colors that had been divided since the Spring and Autumn Period into a unified culture.
And for the "metaphysical" material world and the "metaphysical" spiritual world, he leisurely established a complete philosophical system as the basis for the "Han people" to settle down and live their lives.
The formation of this "cosmology" appears as the close combination of "circle" and "square" in plastic arts.
The artworks before the Han Dynasty, especially those from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, are usually quite wonderful.
It seems that every artist is trying to express his or her differences from others;
However, by the Han Dynasty, artists seemed to be striving to express "what are the similarities between me and others".
Artists are trying to find the most common part in life or human nature.
Therefore, the "square" and "circle" are not the discoveries of any individual, but the basic principles and order of the universe.
This is a rule that everyone can abide by and an aesthetic that allows them to agree psychologically.
It can be said that the Han Dynasty is the comprehensive collection of various experimental results of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.
The Han Confucian interpretation of the scriptures is no longer exactly the same as that of Pre-Qin Confucianism.
The various theories mixed into it have made "Confucianism" inclusive of the strengths of various pre-Qin philosophers, from the universe to human affairs.
Just like in ancient times, the "eight tones" were used to summarize the way of thinking of "beauty", "the five elements are mutually reinforcing and restraining each other" is a way of refining the essence of the world in an easy-to-understand imagery technique.
The five factors of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth refer to five common states in various fields such as natural phenomena, human body clocks, social operations, and cultural aesthetics.
It is calm and collected (metal), born and dispersed (wood), cold and downward (water), flaming and upward (fire), and cultivated and neutral (earth).
The five states alternate and play a complementary role. Between opposites and complements, they promote a huge order from the operation of the universe to the harmony and balance of personnel.
It includes the five tones, the five colors, the five flavors, the five internal organs, and the five virtues of benevolence, justice, etiquette, wisdom, and trust.
Through the ingenious arrangement of this kind of musical notation, which generally has rhythm, rhythm and law, each of them can occupy their respective positions.
This concept, as simple and beautiful as a five-character poem, is the most basic framework that has influenced Chinese people's lives for two thousand years.
This conceptual world is reflected in the modeling characteristics of the bronze mirrors of the Han Dynasty.
The design path before the pre-Qin period was mostly the interaction of concepts, materials, and technology.
By the Han Dynasty, clear concepts were powerfully guiding specific shapes.
A large number of Han mirrors have been passed down from generation to generation. The basic shapes of the patterns on the back of the mirror are circles and squares, which represent the most basic combination of "rules" and "rectangles".
The shape of the bronze mirror of the Warring States Period was fixed by an inner "square" that eliminated the chaos and entanglement.
A kind of order and stability in the world was rediscovered.
Beyond this order and stability, there is a cyclical heaven.
This is the combination of Confucian ethics and Taoist destiny. It is "man follows the earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows Tao, and Tao follows nature."
"Gui" means compass, which means circumference; "Jiu" means straightedge, which means yardstick.
The characters in the "Fuxi and Nuwa Pictures" commonly seen in Han stone portraits also hold "rules" in one hand and "rules" in the other.
They are measuring people's hearts and the way of the world, delineating good and evil, good and evil, and correcting ethics and order.