What do jewelries represent in Chinese culture?

“丽人绮阁情飘飖，头上鸳钗双翠翘。低鬟曳袖回春雪，聚黛一声愁碧霄”. (唐·《长安道》韦应物)

“The beauty is beautiful and elegant, and her head is covered with double-chui. The low-lying sleeves return to spring snow and gather together and sing and sing.” (Tang “Chang’an Road” Wei Yingwu)

This is a popular poem by Tang Dynasty poet Wei Ying Wu who praised Tang Shiv’s fine jewelry.  From this poem, we can find that jewelry, as a kind of emotional aesthetic carrier, embodies the self-confidence perspective of traditional Chinese culture in the style of surface decoration and text depth. In general, the carrier of culture is most directly embodied in the material, artifacts, emotions. Jewelry is a rare material evidence that records the aesthetic process of the Chinese nation and women’s pursuit of spiritual cultivation, and is an important carrier for the continuation and inheritance of ancient Chinese civilization history.

How do jewelries change with the development of Chinese culture?

Jewelry, as its name implies, is a decoration that is worn on the head or other parts of the body and exhibits a certain aesthetic appeal. It evolved with the development of clothing culture. Compared with other decorations, jewelry is more spiritual and decorative. Chinese culture has a history of civilization spreading for more than 5,000 years. In the daily hunting activities of the primitive society, they have repeatedly confronted history and kept their own cultures with the concept of nationalities around to make a society for jewelry art. Academic development provides a new social perspective and theoretical space.

QIN DYNASTY:

In the late Qin period, with the generation of classes, the self-emotional satisfaction of the slave society has entered the traditional order. “The rite is not only an important symbol reflecting the early civilization of the Chinese nation (such as various ritual instruments), but also with the ancient Chinese political civilization. (such as rituals and music, etiquette, etc.), and the development of spiritual civilization (such as etiquette, folk etiquette, etc.). During this period, the jewelry art has been given the connotation of religion and class, and the national culture has been taken into account in the ethical integration of nature and human nature. It embodied in the death or survival logic.

CHUN QIU

Chun Qiu was the first wave of Chinese dress reform. Whether it was in the style, materials, or structure of clothing, a large area of ​​inheritance and reforms were gradually introduced. At the same time, the image structure of costumes gradually became more prominent in traditional art. In addition to using precious materials and wonderful decorative forms, jewelry is also accompanied by ethical expressions of Confucius and the connotation of social status. In this period, the shapes and forms were more refined and implied, and the functional distinction was stronger with more species, carved above the dragon, phoenix, python pattern decoration.

HAN DYNASTY AND TANG DYNASTY

Looking at the jewelry arts of the Han Dynasties, from the perspective of philosophical vocabulary and aesthetics, it is precisely a humanistic mentality that has evolved from a single Confucian idea to a pluralistic one. Due to the different claims of costume culture by various schools of culture, there is a big regional difference in costumes. At the same time, the jewelry aesthetics is presented to the world in the precious, authentic, and symbolic aspects of the material, telling and deepening the characteristics of a common carrier. The crafts and forms contain rich historical spirit evolution, becoming increasingly complicated, and gradually shifting from practicality to the important decorations of aristocratic women such as “image shaping”, “beautifying hair style”, “showing wealth”, and “differentiating identity”. In fact, the clothing of the Tang Dynasty was developed along with women’s “high-groom” and “false hair bin”. Correspondingly, the jewelry grade decoration was also inextricably linked with the Western culture, making it more extremely gorgeous and beautiful.

SONG AND MING DYNASTY

Sociology of the Song and Ming Dynasties both in terms of sociology and arts, which cannot be separated from the localization of the localization of the body to explore the creation of the effort, the quaint shaping of the image and display of the popular conception of the atmosphere will be reproduced in the jewelry. And elegance and beauty were the most important characteristics of the jewelry at this period.

Hairpin bun

Collar

Longevity rope

HOW IS CHINESE CULTURE COMMUNICATED THROUGH JEWELRY (CONFUCIAN PHILOSOPHY AND RITUAL)?

1. From the perspective of social perspective, it is well known that Chinese classical jewelry art is an important expression and spiritual connotation of Chinese cultural aesthetics. Jewelry is an extension of the connotation view of traditional ethical and moral culture. It is the view of “heaven and humans” of the inner meaning of social life. The visualized material manifestation. The aesthetic meaning of Chinese traditional jewelry is influenced by the philosopher’s ethical ritual though, then “Exalted ritual” and “advocating aesthetic implication” run through the humanistic ideology under the whole concept of jewelry and puts the external aesthetic in culture and society and try to emphasize “courtesy and moral”. In the classical jewelry art selection, wood, gold, jade, copper, stone that embody the taste of the ruler, which also emphasize “morality, equality and shame”.
2. One of the most important features of Chinese classical jewelry is its rich ornamentation and auspicious cultural context, which use vivid ornamentation to reflect the psychological and emotional world that the broad masses of people need. In ancient times, influenced by the thoughts of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and other philosophies, jewelry decoration began to interact with the secular real context of aesthetics and cultural psychology. Such as the common decorative motifs include birds, opera stories, myths and legends, folklore messages, auspicious meanings, Buddhist odes, etc. For example, in the Qing Dynasty, the fish and lotus silver ring was carved out of silver material. There are two types of fish and lotus decoration on it. Gold fish and lotus are harmonic sound in Qing dynasty means “金玉 “ and “年”，which mean wealth and longevity.