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Compared with the cultures before the Qin Dynasty, the culture of Western Han
Dynasty had highly developed and entered a glittering new era.
From the founding of Western Han Dynasty to the end of
Northern & Southern dynasties, the culture of Zhejiang had experienced the
colorful period of 800 years. Wang Chong, a Shangyu
philosopher of Eastern Han dynasty deeply influenced generations of ancient
Chinese ideologists with his native materialism explanations to the relationship
of spirit and material things in his book The Discourses Weighed in the Balance.
In Wei, Jin and Northern & Southern dynasties, there were lots of famous
Zhejiang scholars who made their efforts to put forth the observations of
mathematics, historiography and philosophy. The most outstanding achievement of
this period is the observation fruits of historiography: there were historians
like Yu Yu, Shen Yue, Xie Shen, Xie Linyun, and the noted monk Hui Jiao, history
works like History of Jin, Late History Of Han, Liang Wu Epoch, History of Song;
and annals in different forms such as records, chronicles scripture, biography,
rhyme prose. As for philosophy, Ji Kang was the most famous metaphysics
ideologist of the time. Wang
Xizhi
There were also a lot of scholars on literature and arts like Xie Lingyun,
Xie Huilian, Shen Yue and Wujun whose poems and prose contributed a lot to the
development of Zhejiang culture. Xie Lingyun was considered the founder of
landscape poems whose poems mainly delineated the natural sceneries; the poet
from Wukang, Shen Yue is the creator of the four-rhythms and the representative
of Yongming Style poems. Together with Xie Tiao, he made the first try of the
new type poems, which were the origin of classical poems with settled rules and
forms. The famous calligrapher of Eastern Jin Dynasty, Wang Xizhi was famous for
his powerful and various styles. The calligraphers of all generations consider
him the Saint Calligrapher and compare his works to the floating clouds and
flying dragons. After the Six Dynasties (a collective
name for the six dynasties all taking Nanjing as their capital), the economy and
industrial arts of Zhejiang benefited from the comparatively stable social
conditions and grew quickly. The increasing demands of artworks accelerated the
porcelain processing industry after the Three Kingdoms Period. The appearance of
celadon is the evidence of the prosperous economy and culture then.
During this period, the Zhejiang celadon could be divided
into four systems according to the location, namely, Yue kiln, Wu Kiln, Wuzhou
Kiln and Deqing Kiln among which the Yue Kiln located in Shangyu County was the
most famous for its large quantity and high quality and ranked in the world
famous kilns. The appearances of Zhejiang celadon and the development of the
so-called celadon culture, become the landmark of the development of Zhejiang
economic and cultural history of the period.
Preface To The Orchid Pavilion
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