Female Aesthetics in Different Dynasties

What is the standard of beauty in ancient China? Before the Han Dynasty in China, people only paid attention to women's facial images, and it was not until the Wei and Jin Dynasties that they began to pay attention to decoration. Wei Wendi likes concubines with gorgeous clothes and curly hair. The Tang Dynasty was an open society, allowing bare chests and bare arms. The physical beauty of women is broad forehead, round face and fat body. Matriarchal society period: stout and powerful In ancient matriarchal society, the standard of reproduction and production is the standard of beauty. The modeling characteristics of the Neolithic goddess statue show that it is strong and solid. Xia, Shang, Zhou, Spring and Autumn and Warring States: feminine and delicate people pay attention to women's facial images, men advocate the beautiful concept of "softness and suppleness", and literati prevail the aesthetic consciousness of "exquisiteness and delicacy". From the Han Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasties: During this period, people paid more attention to decoration, and aesthetics was metaphysical, which reached a particularly unattainable philosophical height so far, such as Cao Zhi's Ode to Luoshen. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, China's concept of beauty completed a cycle, from advocating health and nature to morbid carving. During the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, the beauty of women has not yet achieved independent value. Although people appreciate the beauty of women, they pay more attention to morality and show a tendency to suppress beauty with morality. Perhaps it is limited by material conditions, women's clothing in this period is relatively simple, and there is not much difference between clothes and shoes and men. There are no ornaments such as towels and belts on my body, just a simple bun on my head, without any decoration. But women in this period have known that a white color can cover up all ugliness, and began to use makeup powder. There are two kinds of flour in ancient times: rice flour and lead powder. Rice flour is made by grinding rice grains and adding spices. Lead powder is pasty facial fat. After the Han dynasty, lead powder was drained and made into powder or solid, which has been used by future generations. During the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties, the clothing system under the coat, white clothes and thin figure laid the basic style of female beauty in ancient China. Sui and Tang Dynasties: Graceful, healthy and natural, graceful and graceful, and health naturally becomes the dominant standard of beauty. The beauty of a woman's body is that her forehead is wide, her face is round and her body is fat. Health is a kind of female beauty that people appreciated at that time. During this period, women's clothes were quite exposed, and in modern western countries, they tended to be "sexy". From the Wei and Jin Dynasties, female beauty began to gain independent value and was appreciated and cherished. Xun can once said that "women's virtue is insufficient, and sex is the main thing." Encouraged by this declaration of virtue independence, women began to consciously pursue beauty. Most women in this period wore long-sleeved and short-sleeved dresses. The waist is tied tightly with a "waist hug" and decorated with a belt. At that time, it was also popular to wear flower pins and "walk" on the head, which made the clothes flutter and the rings jingle, further emphasizing the gentleness and charm of women. In makeup, the most popular thing is to point a red or yellow "flower" on the forehead as a decoration. "Flowers" have different shapes, mainly leaves or flowers. When Mulan returned from the army, "the window decorations are clouded and the mirrors are painted yellow" is the embodiment of this decoration. The Sui and Tang Dynasties were the heyday of China's feudal society, with strong national strength, prosperous culture, opening to the outside world, relaxed domestic conditions and relatively few constraints on women, so the beauty of women also showed a scene of elegance and luxury. In the Tang Dynasty, women's plump figure is the beauty, with towering bun and fluttering satin, which is gorgeous and generous, fully embodying the "prosperous weather of Tang Dynasty" in female beauty. Their clothes are the boldest and sexiest among women in China. This point can be confirmed in the famous painting of the Tang Dynasty, The Picture of Zanhua Ladies. The woman in the painting has fluffy clouds, huge broken flowers, hairpins, a thin tulle coat and tulle-painted silk. Her underwear was half exposed, with a lot of dizzy flowers on her head and bare arms. This sexy dress is unprecedented in ancient China. The idea of "harmony between man and nature" is the essence of ancient culture in China, a philosophical view recognized and adopted by both Confucianism and Taoism, and the deepest source of traditional culture in China. This concept has produced a unique design concept, that is, all kinds of artworks are regarded as the products of the whole nature, and the design of handicrafts is viewed from a comprehensive and holistic perspective, and clothing is no exception. This design concept has been recorded in China's earliest craft work "Flower King Gong Ji", which says: "Sometimes, the weather is full, the materials are exquisite and the work is skillful. If you combine these four things, then you can be good. " As early as 2000 years ago, artisans in China realized that any technical design was not the behavior of isolated people, but the result of the comprehensive action of various conditions in the big system of nature. Weather is a seasonal climatic condition, local atmosphere refers to geographical conditions, beautiful materials are the performance conditions of process materials, and skillful work refers to production process conditions. As far as clothing is concerned, it refers to the dressing season, the dressing environment, and the texture and cutting techniques of the material. Only when these four things are harmonious and unified can there be exquisite design. The Book of Changes affirms the unity and blending of man and nature, that is, man is not only a product of nature, but all human activities, from moral cultivation to utilitarian practice, must follow the revelation of nature and be restricted by natural laws, and there are also human factors in nature. Nature itself often has the enlightenment significance of social morality. There is often no absolute separation gap between man and nature here. The two influence each other and penetrate each other. Man and nature follow the unified law. Heaven and earth naturally have human social attributes, but also contain ethics related to personnel, which is biased in aesthetic feeling. In the eyes of ancient philosophers in China, man is the unity of form and spirit, that is, the unity of form and spirit, which is an inseparable whole. Therefore, both Taoism and Confucianism advocate the integration of spirit and flesh and the combination of beauty and goodness, while clothing embodies the aesthetic harmony between people and things and the externalization of natural expression. This aesthetic emotional consciousness tends to be exposed in clothing, which is also in line with the "natural" way. ("Ti" language), during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the seven sages of bamboo forest were bohemian and paid attention to God and reason, so they were often informal in their clothes, no matter how they looked, their clothes were often casual. "Ren Xinyu's Birthday" contains: "Liu Ling tasted naked and rode a deer cart, drinking dissolutely".