Furniture design mainly develops with the changes of people's lifestyles and habits. From Shang Dynasty to Zhou Dynasty, kneeling was the main way of people's daily life, and accordingly rectangular furniture design was formed. Seats and beds (also known as couches) were the most important factors in indoor furnishings at that time. Until the Han Dynasty, beds, tables, desks, clothes hangers and other furniture were still relatively low, and screens were mostly placed on beds. By the Eastern Han Dynasty, the high-folding Hu bed (known as the top chair or plush chair after the Song Dynasty) was introduced into the Central Plains from the western regions. Since then, the habit of sitting with feet down has gradually increased. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Hu Chuang gradually became popular among the people, and other forms of high chairs appeared, such as armchairs, round stools and square stools. The number of beds and couches has also increased. Some of them have a bed surface at the top, a detachable low screen around them, and a pot door at the bottom. In addition to lying in bed, there are long semi-circular seats (also called curved seats) and hidden pockets for lying down and burying your waist.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the habit of sitting with feet down and sitting on the floor existed at the same time, resulting in the use of high and low furniture. The general trend is that the upper class forces people to transition to sitting with their feet down and high furniture. The high-type furniture in this period includes all kinds of tables, desks, stools, chairs and beds. The furniture types used in later generations are basically available. Furniture modeling is simple and practical, simple and generous, and the structure tends to be reasonable and simplified. Embedding and various decorative techniques are further applied to furniture. From the Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty, high-type furniture became increasingly stereotyped, and new furniture styles such as high-meter, Qin table and bed kang table were derived. Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the way of sitting with feet down has been completely popularized among the people in the Song Dynasty, and ordinary families have also used high-type furniture. The structure and modeling of furniture in Song Dynasty have been greatly improved. The beam-column frame structure of antique buildings replaced the popular box-type boiler door structure in Sui and Tang Dynasties, and a large number of decorative feet appeared. In addition, the application of decorative accessories such as tooth strips and the diversification of leg lines and sections of furniture made the appearance of furniture in Song Dynasty beautiful, elegant but not cumbersome, simple but not rough, and the practical function and appearance form reached a high degree of unity, which laid a good foundation for the development of furniture in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Ming Dynasty is a glorious period of furniture design. Due to the massive construction of palaces, houses, gardens and other buildings, the demand for furniture as the main indoor furnishings has also increased greatly. After Zheng He's voyage to the West, China became more closely connected with Southeast Asian countries, and a large number of tropical high-quality timber was continuously imported into China. At that time, woodworking tools were greatly improved, with a wide variety and convenient processing, and woodworking technology also developed to a high level, with the emergence of woodworking engineering and technical works such as Lu Ban Jing, Shi Lu, Zun Sheng Ba and Tri-color Pictures. All these factors promoted the continuous development of furniture design in Ming Dynasty and reached the peak of history. There are many kinds of furniture in Ming Dynasty, with exquisite materials, ingenious design and exquisite production, which have formed unique design characteristics and are called "Ming-style furniture". Ming-style furniture mainly includes six categories: chairs and stools, desks, cabinets, beds, tables and screen seats. Different building spaces are equipped with different furniture, including six categories, such as main hall and lying screen seat. Different building spaces are equipped with different furniture. Generally, there are several commonly used furniture configurations in halls, bedrooms and study rooms, and there are also complete sets of furniture designs. Ming-style furniture uses high-quality hardwoods such as rosewood, mahogany, rosewood, chicken wing wood, nanmu, Tielida, beech, ebony, boxwood and Fraxinus mandshurica. The design characteristics of Ming-style furniture: First, pay attention to the beauty of structure. Glue and nails are not used, and tenon-mortise structure is mainly used, and different tenons and mortises are used in different parts. The second is to pay attention to the beauty of materials. Make full use of the color and texture of the material itself, without covering, the color is deep and elegant, the wood grain is natural and beautiful, and the texture is tight and delicate. Third, pay attention to the beauty of modeling. The shape is rich and refined, steady and generous, with moderate proportion and smooth lines. Fourth, pay attention to decorative beauty. The decoration is simple and uncomplicated, and the decorative line feet are concise and meticulous, without affectation. In addition, the production is very exquisite, the first line and straight bend are not harsh, rigorous and accurate, which makes Ming-style furniture look particularly meaningful, simple, beautiful, comfortable, simple and generous, and realizes the perfect unity of form and function, which is praised as the pinnacle of furniture design history in China. Ming-style furniture is not only a model and representative of the national form of furniture in China, but also unique, self-contained and prominent in the history of furniture design in the world.
Qing dynasty furniture basically inherited the tradition of Ming-style furniture in terms of structure and modeling design, which became larger and heavier, and new furniture such as combined cabinets, foldable and detachable tables and chairs appeared. In terms of decoration design, the furniture used by the court and dignitaries abused various methods such as carving, inlaying, painting, removing rhinoceros, stacking paint and other materials, such as ivory, jade, ceramics, mother of pearl and so on. In order to pursue the gorgeous and luxurious effect, we often only pay attention to the skill and ignore the effect, and the pile-up is cumbersome, thus destroying the overall aesthetic feeling of furniture. Qing-style furniture, represented by Su Zuo, Guang Zuo and Jing, is known as the three masterpieces of qing dynasty furniture, and its modeling and decoration design have their own local characteristics, which have been maintained to this day.
Advocating nature, "obeying nature" and returning to nature is one of the principles followed by China's craft design. It is the core content of Laozi and Zhuangzi's philosophy to seek the natural essence of everything without any decoration, that is, simplicity and unpretentious. For example, Zhuangzi thought: "Simplicity and the world can't compete with it for beauty", and "Carve, return to simplicity". Comply with nature, let things develop and express completely according to their natural nature, and oppose all artificial processing and production. Although this non-artistic thought is not in line with human nature, from the aesthetic value, Zhuangzi's aesthetic ideal of advocating nature and simplicity is very profound. It cuts into the most sacred ideal place for art to grasp the world, that is, the natural holy land of "loud music", "elephant invisibility" and "great skill", and it is an aesthetic experience that originates from nature and transcends nature.
The phrase "the instrument is made without ornament" comes from the Custom Training of Huainan Ziqi by Liu An in the Western Han Dynasty: "The way to govern the country is not harsh, the officials are not tired of treating it, the soil is not fake, the work is not cunning, things are not disturbed, and the instrument is made without ornament." The "perfect vessel without decoration" here means not to do unnecessary and unnecessary decoration or decorate useless things. The purpose is to advocate simple folk customs. This paper probes into the relationship between "utensils" and "decoration" from the perspective of national governance strategy.
People are originally a part of the natural ecosystem and depend on the natural environment to reproduce. Therefore, in some creative activities of craft design, our ancestors emphasized the harmony between man and nature, and the harmony between design works and natural ecology. Since ancient times, design has a close relationship with nature.