Judging from the overall situation of Qin and Han dynasties in history, its social system, material wealth and spiritual pursuit tend to be vigorous. In 22 1 BC, the king of Qin defeated the six countries and established the first unified multi-ethnic centralized feudal country in the history of China. By 206 BC, the Qin Dynasty had perished, and its ruling time was only ten years. However, due to the unification of the country, the concentration of manpower, material resources and financial resources, and the improvement of social productivity, the rulers have enormous material wealth and extremely high rights. In order to publicize the great cause of reunification, show the supremacy of kingship, serve political purposes and pursue luxurious life enjoyment, and hope to be as rich and noble as before, the ruling class attaches great importance to plastic arts. The bad habit of "living without raising the pole and dying without it" makes mural tombs, stone tombs and brick tombs widely popular. So a large-scale construction was carried out, and private palaces and tombs were built at the expense of money and labor. These buildings have become an important occasion to reflect the artistic development of this period. The institutionalized operation of this centralized politics is reflected in art, showing its unity and greatness. Similarly, the breadth and depth of art reflecting real life have also been significantly enhanced.
After Qin's death, Liu Bang established the Western Han regime. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the rulers learned the lesson of Qin's rapid demise and adopted measures to ease class contradictions, such as tax relief to appease the people, which changed the policy of Qin rulers' ideological imprisonment and revived the "hundred schools of thought" since the Warring States Period. Moreover, the Taoist thought of "governing by doing nothing" was defined as the ruling thought in the early Han Dynasty, which played a role in recuperation, recovery and development of social production. By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he advocated strengthening the rule of Confucianism and adopted Dong Zhongshu's political thought of "ousting a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone". With its strong national strength, it repelled the Xiongnu, opened up the "Western Corridor", promoted the great integration of all ethnic groups, and the cultural and economic exchanges between China and foreign countries became increasingly close. Its ideology has undergone tremendous changes. Under the direct control of feudal nobles, artistic creation is to constantly satisfy political and life enjoyment. During the period of Liang Wudi, Zhao Di and Xuan Di, art was regarded as an effective way to commend meritorious people, and large-scale memorial sculptures and palace murals made great achievements. All kinds of artistic products are more exquisite and gorgeous, and the technical level is also improving day by day. During this period, the central and local governments also set up special institutions to manage handicraft production, and with the improvement of production technology, arts and crafts have achieved all-round development on the basis of the previous generation, and some have made outstanding achievements. During this period, art not only played a positive role in traditional art forms, but also in the development of ancient social life and people's spiritual life.
First, the development and performance of calligraphy seal cutting
Characters originate from the actual needs of real life, from the imitation and abstract reproduction of natural phenomena. It has gone through several stages of evolution, such as Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronze inscription, seal script, official script and regular script. Early characters can be described as "font painting", just like "(mountain)" (water) "(sun)" (moon) and so on, which formed the outstanding feature of "gesturing with shapes", which is what we call hieroglyphics. The most dramatic change of China characters was in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and China's calligraphy as an art was mainly established in this period. After simplification, the big seal script created the small seal script, the official script developed to maturity, the cursive script developed to Cao Zhang, and the regular script and running script were also in the embryonic stage. People have regarded calligraphy as an "artistic activity", and calligraphers whose names are recorded in history books appeared at the earliest, such as Li Si (organizer of Xiao Zhuan), Zhao Gao, Hu Wujing and Cheng Miao. The calligraphy ink of Qin and Han dynasties can be seen now, including silk books, bamboo slips and murals, inscriptions on pottery bottles, inscriptions on metal utensils, book marks on lacquerware, brick carvings and stone carvings, among which the number of stone carvings is the most abundant. The so-called "vibrating leaves to seek roots" is the theory that calligraphy and painting are homologous. As far as seal script is concerned, it includes pre-Qin seal script, post-Qin unified seal script and the maturity of Han Li. It can be said that the writing art in Qin and Han Dynasties laid the foundation for the development of China's later painting and calligraphy art.
Of course, the art of writing has also led to the emergence and development of other arts. For example, seal cutting is an ancient and unique traditional art in China, which shows people's understanding of nature, their inner feelings and some thoughts. Its appearance and development, until its completion, are closely related to the art of calligraphy, with a history of more than 3,000 years. In Qin and Han dynasties, in order to strengthen centralization, seals were widely used in political, economic and cultural fields due to complex social exchanges. Measures have been taken to promote unification in all aspects. In terms of laws and regulations, Qin Shihuang changed the traditional practice of using ding as a symbol of kingship in Shang and Zhou dynasties, and replaced it with making seals. When formulating laws and regulations, the name, material, shape and button style of the seal. , has been strictly standardized in the hierarchical sequence. Qin Shihuang stipulated that the emperor's seal was called "Xi" and the common people's seal was called "Xi". Later emperors continued to use this rule. The official seal of Han Dynasty is called "seal" or "seal", and the private seal is called "seal" or "letter seal". This is where the common word "seal" comes from. As far as the content of printed text is concerned, besides official seal and private seal, there are also printed idioms, which created a precedent for later generations to print casually. Under the influence of official script, a new font of seal script was formed in Han dynasty, which was called "dense seal script". Its font structure is simple, the strokes are straight, regular and gorgeous, and the thickness is changeable, showing a new era style. In addition to fake seals, there are decorative bird and insect seals, which are different from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and emphasize the significance of calligraphy. The bird and insect seals in the Western Han Dynasty are more concrete, while those in the Eastern Han Dynasty are mostly single-line winding seals. The printing material of Han Dynasty is copper, which can be cast and chiseled. Most of the seals in the Western Han Dynasty are cast seals, but the seals are the most exquisite, and the Zhuang seals are heavy and generous. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was famous for cutting and printing, which was suitable for urgent needs, and the printing was not fake. These two different basic styles have greatly influenced the later seal cutting and the aesthetic consciousness of Hou Hong and Boda. With the development and gradual improvement of feudal official system, the change of aesthetic standards and the rise of aesthetic taste, seal cutting has achieved unprecedented development, and its manifestations are diverse, whether it is used as a book credit seal or a seal. Therefore, the Qin and Han Dynasties was the first peak of seal cutting development, which also laid the foundation for the later "Qin and Han seal".
Second, the outstanding representative and performance of painting
The painting art in Qin and Han dynasties generally includes palace and temple murals, tomb murals, silk paintings and decorative arts and crafts. In the Qin and Han dynasties, there were relief bricks similar to relief stones, which were rich and distinctive artistic materials in the Qin and Han dynasties. The artist used a knife instead of a pen to create many beautiful pictures on hard bricks and stones, which have the characteristics of painting and sculpture. The portrait bricks in Qin dynasty were made by two methods: die printing and carving, and their shapes were divided into two types: large hollow bricks and solid flat bricks. Qin bricks are often decorated with patterns such as diamonds, squares, palindromes, cirrus clouds, triangular clouds, ropes and coarse cloth. The technique is floral pattern printing. On the other hand, the Qin tiles are mainly cirrus clouds, and the tiles have developed from semicircle to circle. Han bricks are best produced in Henan and Sichuan. The rectangular hollow bricks produced by the former are printed with various geometric patterns and animal, figure and architectural patterns. The latter produces a large number of square bricks, often decorated with various patterns to express a certain theme, mostly for productive labor, cycling, social customs, myths and legends, garden architecture and so on. Such as shooting bricks, salt well bricks, garden bricks, etc. , are representative. Palace rooms in the Qin and Han dynasties generally painted murals, or showed the majesty of the ruling class with exquisite patterns and spacious pictures; Or borrow things to send feelings, flaunting the "Qingming" of official management; Or draw on historical allusions as a reference for success or failure; Or draw a portrait of a dynasty hero as an inspiration for officials. The works of art in the Han Dynasty can be divided into five categories: murals, stone reliefs and brick reliefs, lacquer paintings, copper-plated decorations, stone carvings and clay sculptures. Represented by the murals of Han tombs in Wang Du and some relief stones and bricks in Sichuan. In addition, the stone reliefs in the Han Dynasty are characterized by figures, animals and plants, which are simple and vivid, vigorous and generous. Most of its methods are relief method of picking up ground bumps, and some are in the form of line carving. These stone reliefs were unearthed in Shandong and Henan. In addition, the production skills of jade carving have also been greatly improved, and processing methods such as through carving, engraving and relief have been developed, and the carved items are exquisite. Glass, wood, lacquerware and weaving also have their own characteristics.
There are many decorations and murals in the interior and eaves of buildings in Han Dynasty. Although there are not many tomb murals found now, and the content and quantity are not as rich as those of stone and brick, it has special significance, because it is a real painting with a large scale, which directly represents the fact that murals in the Han Dynasty are popular. Stone reliefs and brick reliefs are the most important materials in the art history of Han Dynasty, which are rich in quantity and content. In particular, the emphasis on people in the Han Dynasty is a special concept mixed with Confucian "Confucian classics" and "taboo superstition". Under the influence of Confucian orthodoxy, the description of characters in silk paintings pays attention to typology and the painting level achieved. China's figure painting precedes landscape painting and flower-and-bird painting, and has the functions of "remonstrating the Ming Dynasty, trying to rise and sink" and "being good after remonstrating", which has attracted the attention of the ruling class and developed rapidly. From a large number of murals of Han tombs discovered by archaeology and many paintings of Qin and Han dynasties recorded in literature, we can know that paintings won at that time. At the same time, Ming Jing, a silk painting unearthed from Mawangdui 1 tomb in Changsha, Hunan Province in 1976, can better show the outstanding level of painting in this period. It is the most well preserved, beautifully painted and of high artistic level. As can be seen from the contents of the picture, its theme is to pray for the soul of the deceased to ascend to heaven, carefully depict the dignified appearance and solemn and rich expression of the tomb owner, and show the prominent position of the deceased. The modeling is realistic and exaggerated, vigorous and powerful, with even and thin lines, calm and elegant colors and strong decorative meaning. In terms of artistic conception and expression, it shows a higher artistic level than the silk paintings of Chu tombs in the Warring States period. However, painting activities really entered the active and prosperous period in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. Tianzhu-style Buddhism was introduced into China in large quantities, during which Cao Bubu, the first great painter in China, and other painters and painters were born. Although the painting technology in Han Dynasty was in the early stage of development, with the maximum performance efficiency and low modeling ability, it showed rich contents. When expressing the theme, it is good at using the artistic characteristics of painting. In some paintings of the Han Dynasty, we can see some efforts and explorations to express the theme, and constantly repeat and change in repetition, thus clearly expressing the theme. In the dynamic performance, anthropomorphic movements and dances, turbulent and elegant clouds and flying animals also greatly play the decorative characteristics of painting. His artistic creation pays attention to the significance of subject matter, the expression of ideas and people's expression and treatment of natural phenomena and their own characteristics.
3. Magnificent architecture and sculpture art
In terms of architecture, Epang Palace in Qin Dynasty, Weiyang Palace in Han Dynasty, official tombs, official offices, private houses and other large-scale buildings will all go down in history, and grand sculptures and decorations will emerge as the times require. There are few sculptures in large palaces, temples and tombs in Qin and Han Dynasties. 1974 The Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shihuang Mausoleum in Lintong, Shaanxi Province, with its huge size and superb modeling skills, show that the pottery-making technology and sculpture art in Qin Dynasty have made unprecedented achievements. More than 6,000 terracotta warriors and horses, bigger than real horses, have a rigorous layout, and the terracotta warriors and horses face the east. Magnificent and magnificent military array scenes reappear the grand style of Qin Jun's million chariots storming, cleaning up the military capacity and fighting bravely, and become a symbol of the epoch-making achievements of plastic arts in Qin Dynasty. Advocating realism and rigorous techniques; Distinctive personality and vivid image; In the overall layout, it is the main artistic feature of Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses to create an unstoppable momentum and give people an unforgettable sense of awe by using the repetition of many upright static bodies.
The stone carvings in front of Huo Qubing's tomb in the Western Han Dynasty are the most important. The sculpture "Treading the Xiongnu" is a powerful summary of historical phenomena in the Han Dynasty, and it is also one of the representative works of a number of large stone carvings commemorating the Western Han Dynasty. By using the artistic technique of stone modeling, the author skillfully combines the techniques of round carving, relief carving and line carving, portrays the image in a proper way, which is enough to show the characteristics of the object, and never makes naturalistic over-carving, thus strengthening the sense of volume and strength of the work. The statue is ingenious, carving a heroic and majestic war horse into a Hun defeated soldier with a bow and arrow on his back. The description of the horse's manner is more vivid and lifelike, as if the battle-hardened war horse is always on high alert and decisive, which embodies Huo Qubing's firm will that the Huns are still alive and homeless. This romantic symbolic artistic technique reveals the profound theme and realizes the perfect unity of ideology and artistry. It can be called an outstanding representative of "Han stone carving, which is deep and powerful". The architectural system of "Han inherited Qin system" in Han Dynasty was further developed on the basis of inheriting the previous system. As a special building in front of ancient palaces, tombs and temples, the stone que in Han Dynasty often stands on both sides of the street in a symmetrical form. As artistic decoration works standing in front of buildings, these stone pavilions not only show the magnificent style of architectural art in Han Dynasty in detail structure and decoration, but also in overall modeling.
In addition to murals, stone reliefs and brick reliefs, architectural decoration and accessories in this period also have a very important tile art. As a unique circular or semi-circular decoration at the eaves of ancient buildings in China, tile is also a very typical architectural decorative handicraft with both practical and decorative effects. Ceramic tiles were used in architecture as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the decorative art of ceramic tiles reached its peak in the Qin and Han Dynasties, with rich patterns. Moire tiles, which evolved from moire and sunflower patterns in Qin and Han dynasties, were the most popular, and their compositions were more rigorous and diverse. Decorative patterns are mainly cirrus clouds, animals, four gods and figures, mostly auspicious, mostly round in shape and a few semi-circular. There are also plant patterns, insect patterns and animal patterns. Rolling clouds and auspicious words were the most popular in the Han Dynasty. From the end of the Western Han Dynasty to Xin Mang, the image of "Four Gods" (Qinglong, Baihu, Suzaku and Xuanwu) was the best. Its image was vigorous and lively, and the hemispherical pattern in the center of the tile became more and more prominent. Han people are good at turning ideographic Chinese characters into solemn and elegant decorative works of art, so in Huyangyang, Zhouzhi and other counties in Shaanxi Province, Western Han characters such as "Han Rong Tian Xia" and "Changle Weiyang" have been unearthed. In the heritage of Chang 'an Seoul, the word 12 tile ridge with the content of "prolong life, contend with the sky, and the sun and the moon shine together" was also found. The "Khan and Qin" tile unearthed in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, has distinct characteristics of the times and local characteristics. There were already full-time craftsmen in the court of the Han Dynasty. In arts and crafts, the decoration of bronze mirrors in the Han Dynasty, like tiles, occupies an important position in the decorative arts in the Han Dynasty, and a special research object has also been set up.
conclusion
The theme of Han art comes from all aspects of social real life. In artistic expression, the technique is Gu Zhuo and the style is distinct. Due to the limitation of painting form, although single-line sketch is the main form of painting in Han Dynasty, it has reached a high level in realistic ability. The theme of art decoration in Qin and Han dynasties is nothing more than human social life, fairy world and animal world. Among them, the human world is the center of expression, so painting tends to meet the basic spirit of the ruling class's strong subjective desire.
In the initial stage of complete independence of various art forms, we can see a common phenomenon. Just as the development of human culture is bound to have traces of social culture born out of it, in the historical stage when art began to be independent, art forms inevitably emphasized decoration more or less. Calligraphy, seal cutting, painting, architecture and sculpture show that the plastic arts in the Qin and Han dynasties showed a vast sense of the universe and embodied the spirit of combining romanticism with realism. Its deep and heroic spirit radiates dazzling brilliance in the history of China fine arts. In this historical period, the magnificent national spirit, extravagant artistic style and strong social foundation of national strength and material resources are all displayed in art. The boldness and grandeur revealed by works of art reflect the creator's rich imagination, superb skills and aesthetic realm of wandering between gods and things. It can be said that this magnificent feature, which was conveyed in the extensive culture and art in Qin and Han Dynasties, especially in the fine arts, had a far-reaching impact on the development of China's fine arts history, and its artistic value was immeasurable.