It was during the Tang era that appointments to all administrative positions began to be made in accordance with competitive selection based on exams passed by applicants for a particular position. Those who successfully passed the examination of a special commission received the first degree, and then could try to pass the exam for the second and, if successful, for the third. From among the holders of the third degree, officials of the administrative apparatus were appointed, starting with district chiefs.
Thus, in China, unlike Western Europe, the main qualities of an administrator were not his military training and military exploits, but his education and managerial talent. Moreover, the new manager could be a representative of any social stratum: his business qualities and loyalty to the interests of the empire were much more important than his social origin.
To pass the exam, one had to have a good knowledge of the works of ancient sages, primarily the classical Confucian canons, be able to creatively interpret stories from history, abstractly reason on the topics of philosophical treatises and have literary taste, and be able to write poetry.
During the Tang Dynasty, the number of cities increased significantly and their wealth grew. This happened primarily due to Buddhist temples. Officials, aristocrats, monks, servants of noble people, representatives of rich rural clans, artisans and merchants, actors, doctors and fortune tellers lived in the cities. Order in the cities was monitored by special officials and the city guard subordinate to them. They were also responsible for keeping the stone-paved streets clean and for the water supply. Rich houses had baths and swimming pools; paid city baths were built for the rest of the population.
The emperors of the Tang dynasty sought to extend their power to neighboring states. Chinese troops finally subjugated North Vietnam, the Turkic Khaganate and invaded Central Asia, but in 751 they were defeated by the Arabs in the battle on the river. Talas. Material from the site
Foreign policy activity required considerable expenses, which led to increased discontent among broad sections of the population. In 874, a grandiose peasant war broke out in China under the leadership of Huang Chao, who in 881 occupied the capital and proclaimed himself emperor. But Huang Chao was unable to propose any program for the reconstruction of Chinese society. He only replaced the Tang officials with his supporters. Therefore, by 884 the forces of the old aristocracy were able to restore their power. However, the power of the later emperors of the Tang dynasty was extremely fragile. In 907, the last Tang emperor was overthrown, after which a half-century period of internecine wars began. Only in the 60s. X century Representatives of the Song Dynasty managed to reunite China under their rule.
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Introduction
The history of each country is largely determined by geographical factors. Before turning our attention to the origins of Chinese civilization, it is necessary to make a brief description of the lands where this autochthonous culture arose, as well as the geographical background that determined its development and expansion. Before Chinese culture established itself on the plains of Manchuria in very recent times, the northern limit of historical China was the mountain range forming the southern tip of the great Mongolian steppes, along which the Great Wall was built. China's southern borders have never been clearly defined. They moved south gradually, along with the slow expansion of the Chinese cultural area. Although on modern maps the country called China has clearly defined borders, it never represented a static geographical unity. At times, Turkestan and Annam (Vietnam) were included in the Chinese empire, but these territories were never actually Chinese. The boundaries of political education have changed over the centuries, but the zone of influence of Chinese civilization has steadily increased. Not one of the territories, having once been completely subjugated by this civilization, was completely lost, and not one of the lands that temporarily became part of the Chinese area was able to resist the penetration of Chinese culture. This process of absorption was sometimes slow, but always complete and final. This variability of borders is explained by the fact that the Chinese are not a single nation, but rather an alloy of different peoples united by a common cultural space. Much of Chinese history is a record of a process of expanding cultural influence rather than a history of conquest and empire-building.
The history of the formation of the Tang Dynasty in China, the structure of the state
Tang Dynasty (June 18, 618 - June 4, 907, Chinese “‚’©, Tangchao) - Chinese imperial dynasty founded by Li Yuan. His son, Emperor Li Shimin, after the final suppression of peasant uprisings and separatist feudal forces, began to pursue progressive policies. It is the era of the Tang Dynasty that is traditionally considered in China to be the period of the country’s greatest power, when it was ahead of all countries in the world in its development.
Peace and order in the country made it possible to concentrate all the forces of the people for the benefit of China. Agriculture, handicrafts and trade flourished. New advances have been made in the technologies of weaving, dyeing, pottery, metallurgy, and shipbuilding. The entire country was covered with a network of land and waterways. China established broad economic and cultural ties with Japan, Korea, India, Persia, Arabia, and many other states under Taizong. The tradition of tea drinking spread throughout the country. A special relationship with tea is being formed: the art of tea, thanks to which the former medicine/culinary product has become a key element of Chinese culture in the broadest sense of the word.
The Tang era (618-906) saw the highest flowering of Chinese imperial statehood, which reached the peak of its power in the 6th-8th centuries, and national spirituality. Nevertheless, already in the middle of the 8th century. Destructive tendencies have emerged in the socio-political life of Chinese society.
Science and technology are developing: in 725 AD, masters Yi Xing and Liang Lingzan designed the first mechanical watch with an anchor mechanism. Gunpowder weapons spread: first in the form of devices for fireworks, rockets and “fire kites” in the navy, then in the form of real guns for firing projectiles.
The Tang period was the heyday of medieval China. The unification of the country under the rule of the Tang house was largely facilitated by the policies of Li Yuan, who managed to achieve the support of various groups of the population. He abolished tax arrears for previous years and limited the terms of state corvee, freeing peasants sold into slavery. The new authorities announced assistance to the hungry and fought
consequences of floods. Political opponents were promised pardon if they submitted. The state patronized merchants and trade.
The prosperity of Tang China was not least associated with the statesmanship of its rulers. The first Tang emperors, consciously following the course of their Sui predecessors, also took into account their sad experience of missed opportunities. Taizong was especially successful in this - a powerful and intelligent ruler who had an enviable political sense and tact. It is no coincidence that in his activities it was he who embodied the doctrine of “the harmonization of the world (state) for the benefit of the people” (jing ji), aimed at achieving social harmony (as a continuation of cosmic harmony) and suppressing rebellion and chaos. The author of this teaching, which proposed a real path to the embodiment of the ideals of our ancestors in modern conditions, was Wang Tong (584-617), who, in imitation of the Longyu, created the “Exposition on the Middle” (Zhong Shuo). His socio-political project of achieving the “Great Balance”, presented back in Sui times, was then rejected by the emperor, but Wang Tong’s teachings were implemented by his followers - major Tang dignitaries.
All inhabitants of the Celestial Empire were considered subjects of the state, personified in the person of the emperor. At the same time, each layer of society adhered to certain rules of behavior and etiquette, had its own economic security, its own type of clothing, jewelry and housing.
The growth of China's foreign relations in the 7th-8th centuries. expanded foreign trade and cultural relations with foreign countries. Embassies of the Byzantine emperor came to China, and envoys of the Arab caliphs also arrived several times. Lively trade relations were maintained with the Middle East not only through the Great Silk Road, but also by sea. One of these routes stretches from Guangzhou to Baghdad. Together with the Arab merchants, Islam also penetrated into China, and Christian preachers of the Nestorian persuasion also appeared. Such a significant expansion of connections with the outside world was explained by the rise in culture and economy not only of China, but also of many Eastern countries.
The power of the Tang Empire is most clearly manifested in the expansion of its territorial possessions and the growth of foreign policy authority. In the first half of the 7th century. (629-657) several campaigns were undertaken in Central Asia, during which the Chinese armies defeated the Eastern and Western Kaganate and reached almost to Bukhara. In the 60s VII century The Korean states of Goguryeo and Baekje were conquered in the northeast, and the northern part of the then existing Vietnamese state in the south. In parallel, the borders of the empire finally included most of the previously neighboring extreme southeastern and southern lands - the territories of the modern provinces of Guangdong and Yunnan.
The reign of Taizong is associated with the first attempt in Chinese history to create a synthetic culture that unites Chinese civilization with the steppe nomads. The million-strong population of the east of the Great Steppe became the main social base for the reforms of Li Shimin, who considered himself equally both the emperor of the Chinese and the kagan of the steppes. Taizong's closest circle of advisers consisted of Chinese (Taoist and Confucian) sages, including Wei Zheng, Fan Xuanling and Wang Gui, as well as steppe people selected by the criterion of personal devotion (including the one-armed Uyghur military leader Kibi Heli and the Turkic prince from the family Ashina Sheni). Taizong's policy, which preserved the national identity of the peoples of the steppe, gave rise to interest in everything Turkic in China; A Chinese-Turkic dictionary was published, even in the capital of the empire, Chang'an, yurts modeled on the steppe ones appeared. Later, the nationalist party in the ruling circles of the country will consider the Tang dynasty of the time of Taizong as “Tabgach”.
Monumental painting from the Tang Dynasty
Foreign trade relations stimulated the rapid growth of cities and craft industries, which entailed the development of a full-fledged urban culture, which gave rise to (or accelerated their formation) its inherent artistic traditions: theatrical art in the form of street farcical shows, popular poetic and prose genres of literature. Thanks to urban culture and the independence of the class of merchants and artisans, a tendency is emerging towards the democratization of all national creative activity, which previously focused primarily on the spiritual needs and aesthetic attitudes of the socio-intellectual elite.
It is generally accepted that the first half of the Tang era is the time of the highest flowering of Chinese-Buddhist cult fine art, which had a noticeable impact on secular artistic creativity. Progressive processes were supported by the growing political authority of the Buddhist teachings and the church, which were under the patronage of the supreme authorities. The high status of Buddhism gave rise to some researchers to say that it became the dominant force in the spiritual life of Tang society, subordinating secular art to its influence. But such statements are far from reality. Firstly, unlike Christianity in medieval Europe, Buddhism in no way supplanted the spiritual foundations of the Tang Empire. Moreover, Confucianism and Taoism enjoyed almost the same patronage from the ruling house. Secondly, an analysis of the general history of the development of Chinese-Buddhist fine art shows that under the Tang, on the contrary, a tendency towards its secularization began to mature, a gradual erosion of iconographic canons and a rapprochement with secular art occurred.
For funerary art, the changes that interest us affected primarily the state of funerary sculptures and murals.
The most large-scale and artistically representative funerary monuments are the imperial tombs and the accompanying aristocratic burials, concentrated in the vicinity of Chang'an. There are a total of 18 imperial tombs, the best preserved of which are Zhaoling - the burial complex of Li Shimin (Tang Taizong), located 75 km northwest of modern Xi'an; Qianling (90 km northwest of Xi'an) burial complex of the third Tang monarch - Gao-tsung (650-684) and his wife - Wu Zetian (Wu-hou, 624-705), who far outlived her husband, for some time time usurping the supreme power and Shunling (40 km north of Xi'an) - the burial complex of Wu Zetian's mother, posthumously deified by order of her daughter, the empress. The tombs of Taizong and Gaozong with Wu Zetian are located on the slopes of natural rock masses. The above-ground parts of both burial ensembles consisted of walls surrounding the burial part itself, stone gates and many separate buildings. In Zhaoling alone there were 378 of them, including special shrines. In addition, as in the Early Han, imperial funerary complexes include an impressive number (167 for Zhaoling alone) of associated burials, 10 of which were uncovered during the 50s-70s. last century. The most notable of them were the tombs of the dignitary Li Shou, who died in 668, Princess Yuntai,86 and the princes Yide and Zhanghuai, which allow us to establish the state and evolution of Tang funerary art during the second half of the 7th - early 8th centuries. A series of Tang aristocratic burials were discovered and opened (70-80s of the XX century) in the vicinity of Luoyang and in other regions of China. Among them were the tombs of Prince Li Hong, the first-born son of Wu Zetian, who died in 675, and the concubine of Emperor Ruizong (710-712).
During the first half of the Tang era, the tradition of funerary murals seemed to repeat its evolutionary path. Its earliest example is a single painting - in the artistic design of the entire burial - made in one of the accompanying tombs of the Zhaoling complex, which dates back to 658. Having the dimensions of a monumental panel (166 x 72 cm), it reproduces a single character - a dancer spinning in a dance. The dancer's figure is made with black contour lines applied to a natural background, the details of her attire are drawn with red-brown paint with green splashes (green ribbon wrapping around the shoulders).
The best examples of Tang monumental painting are recognized as paintings from the tomb of Princess Yuntai, in which they cover the walls of the corridor (height 198 cm), the burial chamber and the adjacent rooms. In just a few decades, mural painting techniques have changed. As in the Han era, the designs were drawn with red contour lines and then outlined with black paint. The palette of colors has increased immeasurably compared to the murals from the tomb of Li Shou and began to include, in addition to red, blue, green and brown colors in their various shades. Based on the manner of execution, the paintings are clearly divided into two artistic series. The murals decorating the burial chamber and the adjacent rooms are distinguished by deliberate decorativeness and some pomp: lines of court ladies, dressed in bright robes, froze in anticipation of their mistress. The characters' poses are static, and their appearance conveys a certain conventional type. The murals located in the passages form independent compositional fragments, each of which reproduces a lively and vital scene: ladies of the court watching a bird on a flowering bush or playing with a dog. All images are made in a natural and free manner, coinciding with the style of the actual paintings of that time on courtly and everyday themes (thematic variety of the zhenwu genre). The murals from the tomb of Princess Yuntai are similar to easel painting in many compositional and artistic nuances. For example, in the paintings of the burial chamber, as in the murals from Li Shou's tomb, images of architectural and interior details were introduced. But now they have turned into a compositionally significant element, becoming a kind of frame for individual pictorial segments, through which they are combined into the semblance of a complete artistic canvas. In plot scenes, like secular paintings, there are landscape details - plants, flowers. And finally, in a number of cases, the artist’s desire to convey the psychological state of the characters is noticeable (for example, the carefree fun of young beauties having fun with a dog).
In parallel with the trend towards democratization of artistic creativity, the tradition of official art with its characteristic desire for the majesty and solemnity of works was gaining strength. It is best revealed through the material of architecture and monumental sculpture.
The spirit of Hellenism was present in one way or another in all areas of the art of the Tang and the Six Dynasties period preceding it, but although many examples of its influence on Tang ceramics have survived, it was still refracted through Buddhist art. And sculpture became his kind of confidant during the formation of Buddhism in China. Painting that served the needs of religion always had worldly, that is, non-Buddhist sources of inspiration, whether Confucian or Taoist. Fitzgerald C. P. China: a brief history of culture. - 1938.
Islam was never able to penetrate Chinese culture as firmly as Buddhism did in its time. Nevertheless, the influence of Arab-Muslim art can be traced in the artistic heritage not only of the Tang era, but also of subsequent centuries.
Artistic and technological borrowings, in turn, led to the enrichment of the repertoire of Chinese ornamental means and technological techniques, and to profound, truly tectonic shifts in many types of local decorative and applied art. In addition to various products - fabrics, dishes, luxury items, jewelry, works of art - foreign ambassadors and trade missions presented the court with “living wonders” as gifts and offerings. These were also people - dwarfs, giants, representatives of exotic, especially for the Mongoloid population, nationalities, even the Negroid race, or specialists in the field of rational knowledge especially valued in China (alchemists, astrologers, healers) and creative professions (musicians, dancers) , and even animals: rhinoceroses, elephants, lions, cheetahs were brought from South and Central Asia - in a word, all the animals that were associated with the supreme power. Hunting and decorative breeds of animals - birds of prey, hunting and lap dogs - were received with no less cordiality.
Tang Dynasty Easel Painting
The first half of the Tang era was marked, firstly, by the growing popularity and authority of easel painting as such. Secondly, the further evolution of its genre trends, which emerged in the era of the Six Dynasties. And thirdly, the dominance of figurative painting, defined in the original terminology as “people and objects” (zhenwu). In fact, this is a combination of several completely different, if we approach them from the point of view of European art, genres. In Chinese genre classifications, zhenwu is also divided into 5 genre varieties: ceremonial portrait; genre painting itself, which, we would add, is divided into courtly-descriptive (scenes from the life of the court and nobility) and everyday-descriptive (scenes from urban and rural life); painting on historical, legendary and mythological themes, i.e. portraits of historical, legendary and mythological characters and works on the themes of episodes from stories about them; painting on religious themes - portraits of characters from the Taoist and Buddhist pantheons, which, naturally, is closely related to cult fine art; and animalistic genre. The existence of these genre movements and sub-directions is fully confirmed by the pictorial heritage of the Tang era, although the vast majority of works have still come to us in copies, and the work of a number of leading painters of that time turned out to be completely lost.
The defining feature of the artistic life of the first half of the Tang era is the establishment of official painting as a priority tradition in China. Almost all known for the 7th-8th centuries. artists lived in the capital and worked as court craftsmen.
Artist Yan Liben(ill. 1).
Yan Liben (600-673) is called a large-scale figure of Tang painting and at the same time the founder of the tradition of official portraiture. He was a hereditary artist: his father and brother worked at the court of the second and third emperors of the Tang dynasty (Taizong and Gao-tsung) - and also equally mastered the art of monumental and easel painting. The heyday of his creative activity occurred during the reign of Gaozong, i.e. in the 50-60s. VII century Two of his large-scale paintings have been preserved (in copies) - “Presenting Tribute” (“Bunyan Tu”, 38.5 x 129 cm, Gugun) and “Lords of Ancient Dynasties” (“Lidai Di Wang Tu”, 51.3 x 531 cm, Boston Museum of Fine Arts).
In addition to his extraordinary talent as a portrait painter, Yan Liben also had an equally brilliant talent as an animal painter. It was according to his sketches, according to legend, that the famous bas-relief images of Emperor Taizong’s favorite horses, which were part of the artistic ensemble of the latter’s tomb, were made.
Artist Li Sixiun(ill. 2).
According to Chinese tradition, Li Sixun is the creator of a special genre in Chinese painting - the so-called “blue-green landscape” (the style is so dubbed due to the predominance of blue and green tones), and the creator of the so-called “northern school of landscape”, the characteristic features of which were clear graphic design and careful attention to detail. This outstanding artist and administrator belonged to the Tang imperial house, which ruled China from 618 to 907.
After the death of Emperor Taizong in 649, his son, the weak-willed Gaozong (649-683), came to power, who, succumbing to tricks and captivated by the beauty of his father’s former concubine, took her as his wife. She was an intelligent and prudent woman who sought to bring her clan to power. After the death of her husband-emperor (683), she openly took power into her own hands, declared herself Empress Wu Zetian, and persecuted the reigning Tang house. Aristocrat and artist Li Sixun, in order to save his life, was forced to hide for several years, until Empress Wu Zetian abdicated the throne in 704. monumental easel painting Chinese
When the ruling Li clan regained power, which almost floated out of his hands, and Li Sixun gained influence and the status of a highly respected official of the Tang court. The rise of the Li family's political power led to Li Sixun's artistic style becoming dominant in court art. Theorist and critic of the 9th century. Zhang Yanyuan in his essay “Notes on Illustrious Masters of Different Epochs” testifies that in addition to his son Li Zhaodao, three more representatives of the Li family - Li Sixun's younger brother - Sihui, Sihui's son - Linfu, and Linfu's nephew - Tsou, were artists whose works were highly valued in that era. Moreover, Li Linfu, who continued the family tradition of "blue-green landscape", became the head of the cabinet in the government of Emperor Xuanzong (712-756), and from 736 until his death in 752 he was a virtual dictator.
After Wu Zetian's abdication in 704, Li Sixun was almost immediately appointed head of the Imperial Family Affairs Department (Zongzhen Qing). Further positions and titles poured in as if from a cornucopia; he was the head of Yizhou Prefecture, a general of the Imperial Guard, etc. In art history he appears as “General Li.”
No authentic works by Li Sixun have survived. The only scroll that is attributed to him today with some certainty is “Floating Boats and a Palace on the River Bank.” The painting has obvious similarities with “Autumn Walk” (a work whose attribution seemed to be “hung up” between Li Sixun and Zhan Ziqian), it is a rare and remarkable example of an early blue-green landscape.
The artist was also involved in monumental paintings; Historical sources report that by order of Emperor Xuanzong, Li Sixun painted the walls of Datong Palace. The Emperor spoke enthusiastically about his work, calling the master “the deity of painting.” Some modern researchers of Tang art believe that Li Sixun could have been involved in the creation of the frescoes discovered in the tomb of Prince Yide (682-701), who was killed by Empress Wu Zetian for speaking unflatteringly about her grandmother. After Wu Zetian's death in 705, the prince's remains were exhumed and placed in a newly created mausoleum, the construction of which Li Sixun, as an artist and head of the Department of Imperial Family Affairs, probably oversaw. It is unlikely that the painter had a hand in the frescoes, but they at least convey the authentic style of the blue-green landscape of that era. Landscapes 26 meters long occupy two walls along an inclined corridor, with ceremonial processions depicted in their background. The upper part of the landscapes is damaged, but the surviving fragments show exceptional style. It is characterized by a clear pattern - hard, wire-like lines outline the edges of the mountains with crystal clarity, and the color plays with shades of brown and bright malachite green paint.
During his lifetime, Li Sixun was also known as a wonderful master of depicting animals, but he remained in history as the inventor of a special type of landscape. The blue-green landscape created by “General Lee” outlived its creator for many centuries. It became a canon, the appeal to which for Chinese artists throughout the centuries symbolized familiarization with the geniuses of antiquity and the golden age of Chinese culture - the Tang era.
Late Tang Artist - Wang Wei(ill. 3).
Approximately from the middle of the 8th century, i.e. immediately following the aggravation of crisis trends in the socio-political life of Tang society, there was a rapid emergence of painting beyond the boundaries of official artistic activity, where it entered the stage of creative searches and experiments carried out by artists -amateurs - intellectual officials, monastics, hermits. Based on the descriptions of these searches and experiments given in written sources, it is clear that they were aimed at inventing new visual means and painting techniques, sometimes taking frankly eccentric forms. Unfortunately, none of the examples of such painting have survived. And many pictorial innovations in the subsequent theory of painting began to be associated with the work of one person - the above-mentioned painter and thinker Wang Wei. He also has an extremely important place in the history of Chinese literature as the creator of landscape lyric poetry, which was fundamentally new in comparison with previous poetry.
Wang Wei is not only one of the most striking, but also the most romantically mysterious creative figures of the Tang era. The exact years of his life are unknown. According to some sources, he was born in 701 and died in 761, according to others - in 699 and 759.
From literary sources it is known that Wang Wei worked with equal success in monumental (temple murals) and easel painting and in a variety of genres, including portraiture, but mainly of a historical, legendary and religious nature. It is known that he created a whole series of portraits of the Buddhist ascetic Vimalakirti: at least 4 paintings from this series were kept (judging by its catalog) in the collection of the Song emperor Hui-tsung, but then they disappeared without a trace. We can judge the peculiarities of Wang Wei's creative style as a portrait painter from the portrait of the ancient Confucian scholar Fu Sheng, famous for the fact that he, risking his life, saved some Confucian books from destruction under Qin Shi Huang Di. This is a small vertical scroll (Abe Museum, Osaka), which depicts a half-turned figure of an old man, dressed in shabby clothes, sitting on a straw mat in front of a low table and holding a book scroll in his hand. Despite the very serious damage to the scroll, the perfection of the lines of the design and the mastery of the execution of the human figure, especially the face, are amazing. The painting was made in pastel colors using light tints and is, in the opinion of many art critics, one of the best examples of Tang portraiture.
And yet, Wang Wei entered the history of Chinese painting, first of all, as a landscape artist, the founder of a truly new landscape-painting direction for the national fine arts.
The main innovation of Wang Wei's work is the rejection of the polychrome technique and the transition to monochrome, in which he used graphic lines and various washes. The need to work exclusively in ink in landscape painting is also justified by him in his theoretical work “The Secrets of Painting,” which opens with the phrase: “Among the ways of a painter, simple ink is superior to all.” At the same time, Wang Wei changes the aesthetic principles of depicting nature, replacing the fantastic accumulation of peaks and rocks with a landscape that is soft in silhouette, combining mountains, water and air space. An indicative example is the horizontal scroll “Gaps after a snowfall in the mountains near a river” (copy, Ogawa Collection, Kyoto): the entire foreground of the painting is occupied by an image of the surface of a river frozen and darkened by the cold. Along the farthest (from the viewer) shore there are rocks, interspersed with islands and turning, in the background, into a mountain range, the outlines of which are smoothed by snow cover. The whiteness of the snow is emphasized by unevenly located, but moving in a certain rhythmic sequence, groups of fir trees and naked trees, which are painted with the finest strokes of ink. On the right side of the bank, the outlines of huts frozen between the river and a distant mountain peak are barely visible.
If in previous painting the landscape acted as an arena of human activity, then in the work of Wang Wei for the first time it acquires artistic and meaningful independence, while having a distinct religious and philosophical meaning, originating from Taoist-Buddhist worldview concepts and behavioral attitudes. In this aspect, landscape painting becomes a direct semantic analogue of landscape poetry, which is most clearly seen in the example of the creative activity of Wang Wei himself. “His paintings are like poems, and his poems are like paintings,” - one of the most remarkable cultural figures, Song Su Shi, gave such an aphoristic and very correct assessment of painting and poetry.
Conclusion
So, the creative life of the Tang era was equally subject to both the general laws of national artistic culture (the revitalization of official art and the unification of regional artistic traditions during the establishment of centralized statehood) and the historical, political and cultural realities of that time. At the same time, it was marked by the further development of all types of subject-based creative activity, the further improvement of visual methods and means and the development of new stylistic options, in which the creative achievements of previous eras found a logical continuation.
The Tang and Sung periods, marked by a number of important inventions of world significance - the compass, gunpowder, movable type - also left a very large number of monuments of literature and art. This was the stage of the highest flowering of the culture of feudal China, as well as one of the most significant stages in the development of medieval art in general.
The significance of Chinese art of the 7th -12th centuries. lies not only in the fact that numerous new types, genres and forms of art have formed and developed. The most important thing was that in the art of China of this time the historically progressive tendencies of medieval art, its appeal to the spiritual world of man, and its humanistic basis found a vivid expression. Chinese architecture, sculpture and painting, closely associated with the general high rise of culture, are flourishing. The breadth and sophistication of this culture led to a much greater secularism of all art. It was this time that was characterized by a flourishing of secular easel painting, unprecedented for the medieval era, which took the main, leading position among other types of art already in the 7th-10th centuries, and especially in the 11th-13th centuries. At the same time, an increasing shift in emphasis from cult to secular forms of art marked the end of the 7th-8th centuries in China. transition from early to developed medieval culture.
List of used literature
1. General history of art. T. 2, book two // Under the general editorship of B.V. Weimarn and Yu.D. Kolpinsky - Moscow: Art, 1961.
2. Kravtsova M.E. History of Chinese art. - St. Petersburg: Lan, 2004.
3. Shapiro Yu.G. Culture and art of China. - L.: Hermitage Publishing House, 1959.
4. Fitzgerald C. P. China: a brief history of culture. - 1938.
5. Kuzishchina V.I. History of the Ancient East. - M.: Higher School, 2003.
6. Ganiev R.T. Eastern Turkic state in the VI - VIII centuries. -- Ekaterinburg: Ural University Publishing House, 2006.
Application
1. Yan Liben. Thirteen Emperors (Image of Emperor Sui Yan-di, fragment). 643 g, 51.3×531 cm USA, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.
2. Li Sixun (attributed). Floating boats and a palace on the river bank. Gugong, Taipei. VIII century
3. Wang Wei. River under the snow, fragment.
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Tang Dynasty
618–907
The Tang Dynasty, which lasted for almost three centuries, marks one of the most brilliant periods in Chinese history. Both in terms of political power and cultural achievements, China was then undoubtedly the world's greatest empire.
The various Central Asian, Indian, and other foreign elements that entered China in the turbulent years preceding this period were assimilated and incorporated into the previously established Chinese culture. If during the Han Dynasty the structure of the Chinese state acquired its complete form, then the culture received its final stable appearance precisely during the Tang Dynasty.
The Tang capital Chang'an (modern Xi'an) was a bustling city, one of the largest political and cultural centers in Asia, and other large and small Chinese cities tried to follow the models of the metropolis in everything. Chan'an covered an area of about thirty square miles. The vast territory of the imperial palace with its countless chambers, halls, towers, pavilions and gardens for entertainment was located in the central part of the city. Around it there was a labyrinth of streets with several famous temples that could be easily navigated. The population was a motley crowd with a distinctly cosmopolitan character. Buddhist monks from India clashed with Nestorian priests and Taoist magicians, merchants from Samarkand faced silk traders from Suzhou. Ambitious people from all corners of the Empire flocked to the metropolis: young scholars hoping to pass the triennial exams for the degree of art, quarrelsome muscular men hoping to find a suitable occupation, poets and artists dreaming of a wealthy philanthropist, masters of political intrigue eager to gain influential patron. The city had to cater to this motley, pleasure-seeking crowd. Liquor shops and brothels prospered like never before, and morale was generally low.
Young scientists set the tone in this atmosphere of sensual pleasures. They studied the Confucian classics to pass exams, but of course they did not follow Confucian teachings themselves. It was a rule that every candidate who passed the exams had a party in Pinkanli, a brothel district also known as the Bailey (Northern Quarter) located just outside the southeast corner of the imperial palace. Those who failed in exams often preferred to remain in the pleasant atmosphere of the capital, rather than return to their hometown and listen to the angry reproaches of their parents and relatives. The literature of that time paints a colorful picture of this riotous world, where there are types well known in the West: the eternal student, the money lender, the freeloader, the rich village booby, the thug, the pimp and the owner of the brothel.
The girls of the “Northern Quarter” were of different categories: from illiterate prostitutes to sophisticated courtesans, versed in music and dance, and mastering the basics of the literary language. Most of them were acquired under contract from poor parents, some were simply kidnapped, while others voluntarily chose this vile profession. Once there, the girls were required to register (ru ji) and found themselves in one of the countless walled complexes into which the quarter was divided according to the categories of its inhabitants. They received rigorous training in the various techniques of their profession, and their “foster mothers” (jiamu, also known by the crude nickname bao mu - “bitches”) did not spare them the whip. Its inhabitants could leave the quarter only if they were hired to entertain guests at some official festival, or on designated days to participate in religious services at Baotansi, a nearby Buddhist temple. Famous courtesans dressed in their best clothes and went there, accompanied by their “mothers” and maids. On these days, the city’s “golden youth” also gathered there to admire the crowd in colorful clothes and make acquaintances.
In such a sophisticated environment, knowledge of the fine arts and literature, as well as good manners, were valued above all else. It was possible to gain a reputation with the help of an intricate rhyme, and an incorrectly read hieroglyph could ruin a career. Since every courtesan and prostitute dreamed of being bought by some worthy guest and taken as his wife or concubine, these girls sought to meet the high demands put forward by young scientists. It is said that many courtesans were skilled in composing poetry, and many of their poems have survived. However, each of the so-called poetesses only has one or two poems signed with their name, and one suspects that their contribution was most often limited to the invention of one ingenious line or an original thought, which an enthusiastic admirer then put into a poem. Only a few of their poems appear to be authentic. Although they are not distinguished by high artistic merit, they allow us to look at this sparkling life, alternately filled with joys and sorrows, from a different perspective. Let me quote a poem sent by one courtesan, along with a lock of hair, to her lover who left her:
Since you left me, my beauty has faded,
I half love you, half hate you.
If you want to know what my hair looked like,
Take a look for me at these strands of rare fragrance.
"Quan Tang Shi", part 2, ch. 10, p. 54a
A poem by Zhao Luan-luan, a famous courtesan from the Pinkanli quarter, has been preserved:
The clouds of my curls have not yet completely faded,
The shiny strands at the temples are blacker than a raven's wing.
I stick a gold pin into them on the side,
And having done my hair, I look back with a smile at my beloved.
There, p. 60b
From time to time there are magnificent lines, as, for example, in the poem left to us by the courtesan Hsu Yue-ying (Fig. 5)
Tears on my pillow
and the rain knocking on the steps,
Separated only by a window frame.
They drip all night long.
"Quan Tang Shi", part 2, ch. 10, p. 61b
Tang courtesan Xu Yue-ying (“Wu Yu ru huabao,” an album of drawings by Wu Yu, a 19th-century artist)
Only two courtesans left behind an impressive poetic legacy. One of them, Yu Xuan-ji, was from the capital, the other, Xue Tao, lived in Chengdu, the main city of Sichuan province. The Tang Dynasty was a golden time for poetry, and famous poets created countless poems that expressed sentiments on behalf of women. However, all such poems are tediously monotonous, they express sorrowful lamentations in traditional terms, and most often they do not seem convincing. But in the case of Yu Xuanji and Xue Tao, we are dealing with talented poetesses who themselves could express their feelings. Although in previous centuries some women composed poetry, only one or two poems from each of them have reached us. About fifty poems have survived from these same two courtesans, the style and content of which indicate how different, and at the same time sincere, they were. Since their life careers and literary works serve as a good illustration of the position of women and the relationships of the sexes of their time, we will tell a little more about these two courtesans.
Yu Xuanji (c. 844–871) was born in the capital Chang'an into a poor family." She was pretty, had a natural flair for dancing and singing, had a taste for fun, and early began to associate with young students hungry for fun. Thanks to communication with them, Yu Xuan-ji became familiar with literature and began to compose poetry herself. She soon became so popular that she could live solely off her fans without being officially registered as a prostitute. At a young age, she became the concubine of a young scholar named Li Yi, who, after passing the exams for the position, took her to his hometown. However, his wife did not like her husband’s new passion, and a turbulent period began with alternating quarrels and reconciliations, separations and reunions. From the poems that must be from this period, one gets the impression that Yu Xuanji was a passionate woman with a strong character who did not easily agree to give up the man she loved. Her poetry is distinguished by strength and originality; she did not recognize the clichés established at that time for love lyrics. Here's one poem she sent to Lee during another separation:
The mountain road is steep
rocky paths are dangerous
But it’s not the road that oppresses me, but my love for you.
When I hear the ice cracking
Snow on distant peaks
reminds me of your face.
Don't listen to rude songs
and do not drink spring wine.
Don't invite careless guests
for long night games of chess.
Remember that we swore love fidelity,
which must last forever,
Even if our life together
cannot be restored.
Although this lonely path on an endless winter day oppresses me,
I hope to meet you again one day,
when the full moon shines in the sky.
When you're not near me
What can I offer you?
Is it just a poem?
watered with my pure tears.
"Quan Tang Shi", part 11, ch. 10, p. 75b
But Li Yi got tired of his overly demanding lover, and their relationship finally ended. Yu Xuanji became interested in Taoism and went to the capital Taoist monastery of Xianyiguan. At that time, many Taoist and Buddhist monasteries had a very dubious reputation. They were a welcome haven not only for pious girls, but also for widows and divorced women who had no parents to return to, as well as for dissolute women who wanted to lead a free life without being officially registered as prostitutes. With the tacit consent of the religious authorities, who received considerable income from the wine and food offered to the guests, cheerful parties and riotous feasts took place there. In the Xianyiguan Monastery, Yu Xuanji met a then famous young poet named Wen Ting-yun (the heyday of his work was in the mid-9th century), famous for his magnificent poems and riotous lifestyle. Xuan-ji fell in love with him and for some time was his inseparable companion during Ting-yun's wanderings around the country. However, she was unable to keep this wandering poet with her for too long, and he left her. Below is the first half of the poem addressed to Wen Ting-yun:
With bitterness I search for the right words,
when I write these lines under a silver lamp.
I can't sleep for long nights,
I'm scared under these homeless covers.
And there outside, in the garden, you can hear
the sad sound of falling autumn leaves.
The moonlight flows sadly
through openwork window partitions.
"Quan Tang Shi", part 11, ch. 10, p. 76b
Yu Xuanji recalls the dissolute life in Xianyiguang, when her home was open to all the elegant young scholars and officials and when she had many love affairs. But over the years, her popularity faded, and she began to lose her influential patrons one after another. She ran into financial difficulties and was harassed by petty police officials. And to top it all off, Yu Xuanji was accused (probably unfairly) of beating her maid to death, for which she was convicted and executed.
The personality and career of the courtesan Xue Tao (768–831) (Fig. 6) was quite different. She came from a wealthy family in the capital. Her father was an official and made sure that his daughter received a good education. At the age of eight, Xue Tao began writing poetry. According to tradition, her father once told her to write a poem about a tree, and she composed the following lines: “The branches greet the birds flying from the north and south, the leaves move with every gust of wind.” The father was greatly upset, because in these lines he felt the voluptuous nature of his daughter. When he was sent to serve in Sichuan Province, he took her with him, but died untimely there, leaving his daughter without a livelihood. Because she was a beautiful girl with unusual tastes, she registered as a prostitute in Chengdu and soon gained fame for her intelligence and beauty. Many famous poets of that time, finding themselves in Sichuan, visited her. Among them were Bo Juyi (779–846) and his friend Yuan Zhen (779–831). Her relationship with the latter was especially close, and they continued to correspond long after the separation. Xue Tao became the favorite of the great Tang general Wei Gao (745–805), for many years the military ruler of Sichuan, and acted as his more or less official concubine. Apparently he took good care of her. After his death, Xue Tao retired to a villa in Huanhuasi near Chengdu and devoted herself entirely to literary and artistic pursuits, gaining fame for inventing a new type of writing paper, which to this day bears her name. Xue Tao died at an old age; towards the end of her life she was considered a recognized trendsetter in Chengdu.
Tang courtesan Xue Tao (“Wu Yu zhu huabao”, album of drawings by Wu Yu, a 19th century artist)
Xue Tao is an example of a courtesan who has succeeded in life. She undoubtedly knew how to arrange love affairs and did not allow passion to conflict with practical interests. After insulting Yuan Zhen when he was drunk, she wrote ten sentimental poems to show how sad and unhappy she was, thereby regaining his favor. Her poetry is more elegant than that of Yu Xuanji, it is replete with literary allusions that were fashionable at that time, but for all that, her writings are superficial, they lack the originality and strength that the Taoist nun possessed.
Below is a poem composed by Xue Tao while visiting Wushan Temple. She connects this picturesque place with the mountain mentioned in the poetic work of Song Yu (see p. 53).
We visited Gaotang -
gibbons screamed furiously in the forest.
The road was blocked by purple fog:
the fragrance of trees and herbs.
But a beautiful mountain landscape
still sad for the poet Song Yu,
And the babbling brooks,
Apparently they are crying for King Xiang.
Every morning and every evening
his magical love descends on the Jan terrace,
Because because of the "rain" and "clouds"
he lost his kingdom.
Sad and lost
several willows stand alone in front of the house,
In the spring their leaves try in vain
compete with arched eyebrows.
"Quan Tang Shi", part 11, ch. 10, p. 63b
The houses of courtesans turned into social institutions and became an integral part of refined life both in the capital and in the provinces. It began to be considered a rule of good manners that every prosperous official or writer, along with his wives and concubines, always have one or more dancers. While his wives and concubines remained at home, he took these girls with him everywhere, so that they would enliven the parties with dances and songs, serve wine and carry on conversation. The famous poet Li Tai-po had two girlfriends, and Bo Jui-i had several girls at different periods of his life, and even the strict Confucian scholar Han Yu (768–824) kept a dancer who was his constant companion. Countless poems have survived in which the scientist describes parties with friends under titles such as, for example, “Composed on the occasion of a trip to X., where he went, taking with him courtesans (shiji).”
These girls had the amazing ability to drink a lot of wine without getting drunk, which is why their company was considered desirable. It should be noted that during the Tang Dynasty and in previous eras, intemperance in drinking wine was a universal weakness and the attitude towards it was very tolerant. During feasts, both men and women commonly indulged in excessive drinking, and even at court and in the presence of the emperor, general intoxication was common, and drunken brawls were often seen in the streets. In this regard, the Chinese way of life changed dramatically during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Alcohol consumption dropped significantly, and appearing drunk on the street was considered a disgrace. Foreigners who found themselves in China in the 19th century were pleasantly surprised that they did not see drunks on the streets anywhere, even in port cities. However, during the Tang Dynasty the situation was completely different.
The institution of courtesans was based on social factors, which determined its long-term prosperity in subsequent centuries. In ch. 2 we said that this institution arose back in the Zhou era, when the princes kept with them troupes of nyuyue, girls trained in dance and music, and subsequently the presence of such troupes was considered a certain indicator of the social status of their owner. Further in ch. 3 we showed how the changed situation in society led to the fact that only the ruling families could afford to have private troupes, although brothels provided professional “entertainers” to anyone who could pay for it.
Although the role of courtesans varied over time, there is no doubt that it was primarily social, with sexual aspects being of secondary importance. In the literature of the Tang period, courtesans are mentioned mainly as pleasant confidantes of representatives of the “golden youth” in the capital and other large cities, who tried to copy the capital’s lifestyle. At the same time, courtesans played an important, if less visible, role in the daily life of the middle and upper classes. Social relations between officials, intellectuals, artists and merchants mainly developed outside the walls of the home: in restaurants, temples, brothels or public places of entertainment. Such gatherings not only allowed friends to relax, but were also an integral part of official and business communication. Any official who sought to maintain or improve his position had to constantly entertain his closest colleagues, and often also his immediate superiors and subordinates. Any successful merchant, before preparing or concluding an important transaction, was obliged to celebrate his commercial successes. During the Tang dynasty, with some restrictions, female family members could still take part in such gatherings, but a truly relaxed atmosphere arose only when the only women present were professional performers. An official could achieve a promotion if he introduced his boss or an influential politician to an elegant courtesan, and a merchant could receive a desired loan or an important order in the same way. Obviously, female household members were not suitable for such important tasks. There is hardly any need to develop this topic, since, mutatis mutandis, there are clear parallels with our modern Western society. When from the XIII century. Neo-Confucian teaching, combined with psychological factors introduced by the Mongol invaders, began to more insistently demand a strict separation of the sexes, the need for outside girls to entertain guests during private and public revels became even more pressing than before.
Prostitution among high-class courtesans was well organized. Brothel owners were members of special associations and paid government taxes. For this, they received the same protection from the authorities as commercial enterprises. If, for example, a girl violated her contract, the authorities could bring a case against her, although, as a rule, brothel owners and their thugs knew how to successfully settle such matters themselves. At the same time, girls could denounce their cruel or unjust masters, which they usually did through the intermediaries of some influential admirer. Although among the courtesans there were also “dilettantes”, like Yu Xuan-ji described above, who was not officially listed as a prostitute and arranged her affairs independently, but this was an exception. The authorities disapproved of non-professional prostitutes because they were not subject to their control and did not pay taxes. Perhaps Yu Xuanji's sentence would not have been so harsh if she had been a properly registered prostitute.
Courtesans occupied a prestigious position in society; their profession was considered completely legitimate and did not cause any negative associations. Unlike low-class whores, they were not subject to any discrimination. - In chap. 8 we will see how, during the Song Dynasty, they, among other things, regularly took part in wedding ceremonies. Of course, every courtesan dreamed of eventually being bought by the man who loved her; those who could not find a husband themselves, as a rule, looked for one. When they were no longer able to entertain guests due to age, they continued to stay in the brothel, earning a living by giving dance and music lessons to younger people.
In the gay neighborhoods, girls were separated according to their abilities. Those who could rely solely on their physical merits usually fell into the lowest category. They were forced to live together in the same room and were closely monitored. Those with skills in music and dance and those with literary talents constituted the highest category. Most of them had their own bedroom and living room, and although they were forced to obey the owner of the establishment, they enjoyed greater freedom of movement and could look for and choose clients themselves. In turn, brothel owners were interested in gaining the favor of popular girls, since this increased their reputation and fame, which ensured higher incomes if they attended parties. In addition, as soon as a courtesan became popular, the chances increased that she would be bought out by a rich patron, and this was beneficial to both herself and her master.
The purchase of famous courtesans (even leaving aside the emotional circumstances involved) was an expensive undertaking, and such a procedure almost always turned out to be a wise investment of capital on the part of the buyer. Smart girls who did not miss anything during parties and knew how to show interest in the conversations that took place there, possessed a wealth of unofficial information about affairs in the bureaucratic and business world. If they liked the person who bought them, they could always help him with valuable advice. The one who ransomed a girl who had previously had a relationship with some high-ranking person, often acquired the favor of this person along with the courtesan. The former patron usually showed paternal guardianship, defending the interests of the girl with whom he had previously been close, and willingly provided assistance to her new master. In this case, success also brought some flattery, when, for example, the new patron said among other things that despite all his efforts to please the girl, she seemed unable to forget her former affection... Similar situations from Chinese novels are well known to us.
Of course, in addition to social factors, the satisfaction of carnal desires also contributed to the continuous flourishing of the courtesan craft, but there are serious reasons to believe that this circumstance was secondary. First of all, those who could afford to associate with courtesans must have belonged to at least the upper middle class, and therefore already had several women at home. Since, as we have already seen above, they were obliged to fully provide sexual satisfaction to their wives and concubines, one can hardly expect a normal person to be driven to communicate with strangers by sexual dissatisfaction. Of course, they had a desire for variety and a thirst for new experience, but this can only explain sporadic antics, and not almost daily communication with professional courtesans. If we turn to the literature on this issue, we will see that along with the need to comply with established social norms, men often sought communication with courtesans in order to free themselves from physical love, find relief from the sometimes unbearable atmosphere of women’s chambers, and establish friendly relations with women which do not involve sexual obligations. If a man got tired of such a relationship, he could break it off as easily as he started it. It goes without saying that in this world of “wind and flowers” sometimes violent passions also raged, which often led to tragedies, but such disturbances were rather exceptions.
The detachment that many men maintained in their relationships with courtesan acquaintances explains to us why in the lives of famous girls such attention is paid to their success in society. As a rule, their ability to sing, dance and conduct a humorous conversation is emphasized first, and only secondarily their physical advantages are mentioned. Many famous courtesans were not even particularly beautiful. In Chinese poetry and prose, the relationships of authors with courtesans are described with extreme sentimentality; one gets the impression that their relationships were often purely platonic in nature.
This explains the lengthy and complicated courtship that courtesan fans were inclined to indulge in. Obviously, their task was not to have sexual intercourse with the object of their worship (usually failure in this regard was not perceived by the admirer as something discouraging and was not considered a disgrace in the eyes of others), but simply to have fun, to experience pleasure, which at the same time allowed him to gain a reputation as a secular person.
Confirming my point of view that physical intimacy played a secondary role in the relationships between men and courtesans are also the economic factors of the existence of high-class prostitutes. During her career, the girl could receive a substantial monetary reward twice. The first time this happened after she, having entered a brothel and mastered various arts, lost her virginity. The guest who had the honor of becoming her first man was obliged to pay a large sum and arrange a gala banquet for the entire establishment. The second time this happened was when she was being bought out. However, a constant source of income for brothels was the feasts held there (due to the wine and snacks offered at these banquets), as well as the gifts that courtesans received for participating in these feasts or outside the establishments. The amount paid to spend the night with a girl (called chanipou) was only a small part of the brothel's total income. In essence, there were no obstacles for visitors interested only in sexual contact with girls. However, while it was easy to copulate with a low-ranking courtesan, doing the same with a high-ranking courtesan required a lot of effort. Preliminary courtship with the presentation of gifts was considered mandatory, and it was necessary to obtain the consent of both the owners of the establishment and the girl herself. At the same time, picky suitors in all cases first sought to make sure whether the girl they were interested in had a connection with some influential patron: whoever came into contact with her could not be sure that one fine moment she would not tell her patron everything, and although some could be appeased by flattery, others could feel insulted. It seems that neither the hosts nor the girls tended to seek direct sexual contact, since the profit from this was less than from participating in parties, but there was a danger that the girl might get sick or become pregnant.
Venereal diseases will be discussed in Chapter. 10, which says that until the 16th century. syphilis was unknown in China. However, medical writings of the time note that during the Tang Dynasty and earlier, less dangerous forms of venereal diseases existed, in particular various forms of gonorrhea. We have descriptions of chronic genital ulcers in men and women, spasms in the urethra, and symptoms resembling gonoarthritis. Although at that time it was not known that these diseases were transmitted through coitus, Tang doctors were aware that promiscuous love affairs contributed to the spread of infectious diseases.
In cases of pregnancy of courtesans, midwives most often resorted to very cruel methods of abortion, and if the child was still born, then the owner of the establishment usually took care of him, although the murder of infants was also common.
All these factors, taken together, suggest the circumstances under which relations between courtesans and guests were reduced to a minimum.
Above we discussed only the courtesans of the highest class. Probably, during the Tang Dynasty and earlier, there were also cheap brothels that satisfied the needs of the common population. However, since such institutions lay outside the sphere of interests of writers and historians of that time, we have practically no information about them. As we will see in Chap. 8, such establishments are mentioned only in texts from the Song and Ming periods, and then very rarely.
It is possible that such low-grade brothels grew out of or were in some way connected to government-controlled brothels. In this case, they were replenished mainly by women of three categories: 1) criminals sentenced to serve in state brothels; 2) relatives of criminals whose sentence included the concept of jimo (that is, all close relatives became slaves); 3) women captured during hostilities. Such women belonged to the lower class, forming a special group whose status was determined by law and whose members were deprived of many civil rights, for example, they were forbidden to marry a person who did not belong to their caste. The social status of such prostitutes was completely different from that of courtesans, who were constrained not so much by legal norms as by commercial relations and who, after they were ransomed or if they paid the remaining debt to their previous owner, became free again. Low-class prostitutes were reserved for soldiers and sailors, as well as the lowest categories of government officials. Of course, the fate of these women was terrible. They could only get rid of their sad fate if the government proclaimed a general amnesty or if some high-ranking official showed special interest in one of them and accepted her into his family. As we will see in Chap. 8, During the Song Dynasty, officials could buy or borrow such women from the government.
However, it appears that the boundaries between private and public prostitution were not always clearly defined and fluctuated considerably at different times and places. The history of prostitution in China has so far been little studied. In Japan back in the 18th century. Several impressive and well-documented histories of Japanese prostitution appeared, and the excessive modesty of the Qing literati prevented them from carrying out similar historical analyzes of prostitution in China. All their efforts were limited to sporadic essays describing the lives of famous courtesans of past and contemporary times. One can only hope that one of the current scientists will devote special research to this complex issue.
Such a study should reflect an analysis of the relationship between private and state prostitution, as well as the principles of selection of women for the imperial palace. Typically, surviving texts only use the standard expression bei xuan ru gong, "after she was chosen, she entered the palace." One might get the impression that all the ladies of the court were exclusively girls presented as tribute: either from the provinces or from foreign and dependent countries; they could be daughters from influential families, hoping to gain the emperor's favor in this way, or women acquired by palace agents. These agents scoured the entire empire in search of beautiful and talented girls and apparently took those they liked, even from public and private brothels. When there were quite a lot of such women, eunuchs and matrons carried out the selection. The best ended up in the imperial harem, those who were good at the arts went into the jiaofang, and the rest were sent to the palace to carry out various assignments. I would like to emphasize that these considerations reflect only my personal impressions drawn from Chinese literature. In this case, they are presented with the hope that one day a special study on this issue will appear.
The way of life changed dramatically at this time. Thanks to Central Asian influence, folding chairs began to be widely used, although they also sat on low benches made of carved and varnished wood. If during the Han and Liuchao periods such furniture was only slightly raised above the floor, representing something like mats placed on a stand, now these were real benches or sofas about a meter high, on which one could sit and recline. In addition, a variety of low tables and wooden cabinets appeared. The floors were covered with reed mats and carpets, and it was customary to remove shoes at the entrance to the house. At home they wore socks with thick soles, probably reminiscent of Japanese tabi. The walls and ceilings were decorated with drawings, and on movable screens one could see examples of painting and calligraphy.
From paintings and funerary figurines of that time, we can roughly reconstruct how people dressed during the Tang Dynasty. For both men and women, the outer dress was basically the same as in previous centuries: simple in summer, lined in winter. Underneath, both men and women wore pants.
Women's dresses are similar to the kimonos of Japanese ladies, which, in essence, were created according to the Tang model. In addition, Tang women also wore something like an apron, tied to the belt with a silk ribbon. This apron was not widespread in Japan, but in Korea to this day it is an integral part of the women's toilet.
Of interest in this regard is a scroll attributed to the Tang artist Zhou Fang (the flowering of his creativity occurred around 800), who became especially famous for his portraits of women. The painting shows a lady sitting with her left leg crossed over her right to support a seven-string lute (qin) that she is tuning. With her right hand she tightens the screw on the pegs, and with her left hand she touches the strings. A maid stands nearby holding a tray. The lady is presented in home attire: she is wearing something like the aforementioned apron, obviously made of some rough material. Her hair is styled in a very primitive chignon. The maid wears a belt, wrapped several times around her waist and tied in front. This belt is the prototype of the Japanese obi. Japanese women tie it gracefully at the back, but old-fashioned geisha costumes retain the old style and tie it at the front, as was the custom in Tang China.
The same scroll shows the ladies of the court having fun. One of them is teasing a little dog with a fly chaser with a long handle. The lady is wearing a house dress made of embroidered silk; over the dress is an apron made of simple red silk, which is attached to the belt with a narrow silk ribbon. Bare shoulders are visible through a flowing overdress made of transparent brown fabric, and a brocade scarf completes the costume. For ladies in ceremonial attire, as they appear in the paintings of the Tang and early Sung times in Dunhuang, we often see very long scarves that wrap around their shoulders and often hang down to the floor. Apparently, such long scarves formed an integral part of the ceremonial attire of court ladies. Their hair is pulled up into a high chignon, secured at the top with a large flower-shaped clip, and decorated with dangling beads at the front. The hairpins are very simple, and you can even see their carved tips sticking out of the hair. We also note the impressive neckline and wide, cobalt-drawn artificial eyebrows.
Lips were painted with lipstick, and large bright spots were painted on the cheeks, right from the eyes. Red and black spots were placed on the forehead, chin and cheeks. According to one Tang author, flies were originally intended to hide traces of burns: he claims that wives, out of jealousy or as punishment for some offense, often branded the faces of concubines. Women often painted a yellow crescent-shaped tache de beaute on their foreheads. This place was called huang xing yang, “yellow star fly,” or meijian huang, “yellow place between the eyebrows.” This custom continued into the Ming Dynasty. Women in the paintings of the famous Ming artist Tang Yin (1470–1523) almost always have this spot on their forehead. However, probably during the Qing dynasty, this custom was forgotten. Ladies wore earrings, bracelets and rings as jewelry.
Depiction of a dancer of Thai women of the Tang period, made from a funerary figurine
It should be noted that the women’s neck remained open and often a significant part of the chest was exposed. First of all, this applies to dancers. Judging by the funeral figurines, they were dressed only in a thin dress with a neckline. It was secured with a ribbon under the bust and then fell down into a wide, pleated skirt. The sleeves were unusually long, and waving them played an important role during dancing, as there are numerous references to in prose and poetry. In Fig. 7 shows a dancer with her breasts half-naked. However, judging by other funerary figurines, girls often danced with their breasts completely exposed. During the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese were completely calm about women exposing their necks or breasts. But starting from the Song Dynasty, the chest and neck began to be hidden with the folds of the dress, and then under the high, tight-fitting collar of the lower jacket. The high collar remains a distinctive feature of Chinese women's attire to this day.
At home, men wore wide, baggy trousers, and on top - a dress with long sleeves. The dress was wrapped from right to left and tied at the waist with a silk belt. Thus, the clothes of both men and women were almost the same. When leaving the house, men wore a slightly smaller outer dress, as a result of which the collar of the lower dress and the ends of its sleeves were visible. Often the lower sleeves served as wide cuffs. Long hair, tied at the top of the head in a knot and fastened with a hairpin, was often tied with a strip of stiff black brocade, and fastened at the back of the head so that the long ends of the fabric hung down, or they were so starched that they stuck out like wings. In addition, men wore black brocade caps, but of different shapes and sizes. Hats were not removed indoors, and even in the bedroom, caps were put aside only after lying down on the bed. In some erotic pictures you can see men wearing caps at the moment of copulation, although this may simply be a humorous element.
Rice. 8.
Tang time judge on horseback
On special occasions, men wore a cape made of satin or embroidered silk over their outer dress with a wide collar reaching to the chin, and a leather belt inlaid with plates of jasper or horn. The shape of the hat, the pattern on the dress and the decorations on the belt, as well as the various plaques hanging from it, were symbols of rank. High-ranking officials had hats embroidered and decorated (a Japanese copy of the work “Fu sho shi van jing”) with gold, and a piece of jasper or a precious stone was inserted into them above the forehead.
In Fig. 8, a Japanese copy of a Tang scroll depicting the ten kings of Hell, we see a judge on horseback, accompanied by two assistants. On his head is a judge's hat with stiff wings. The upper dress is tightly wrapped, but at the neck you can also see the lower dress of a lighter color peeking out from under it. Judging by the images of officials in Dunhuang, the lighter underdress always shows through the slit of the upper formal dress. We especially note the wide trousers hanging over the stirrups. The assistant referees wear shorter jackets and straw sandals. One of them holds the scepter, and the other holds the judge's sword.
Noble men and women wore shoes with turned-up toes. At that time, the custom of binding women’s feet did not yet exist. The reader can find further information about women's and men's clothing at the end of the Tang period on p. 259 et seq., which describes the costume of the early Song era, which remained essentially the same as in the last years of the Tang dynasty.
Regarding the ideals of male and female beauty of that time, it can be noted that men preferred to look courageous, even militant. They loved to wear thick beards, sideburns and long mustaches and admired bodily strength. Both civilian and military officials improved their skills in archery, horse riding, sword fighting and fist fighting, and mastery of these arts was highly valued. From paintings of the time, such as the work of Zhou Fan, we can assume that such men liked well-built women with round, plump faces, ample breasts, thin waists, but heavy hips. Tastes were similar in ancient Japan - the scrolls of the Heian era depict women almost as buxom as those in the paintings of the Tang period. However, very soon this ideal changed dramatically. Already during the Northern Song Dynasty, preference began to be given to fragile women. The great poet Su Shi (better known as Su Tung-po), having seen the paintings by Zhou Fan, wrote:
The eyes of this old scientist saw many strange things,
But I still admire fatties
in the paintings of Zhou Fan.
In ch. 10 we will see how, by the end of the Ming dynasty, the ideals of male and female beauty were replaced by the exact opposite, which they remained throughout the subsequent Qing period. Thin and fragile women with chiseled oval faces began to be considered the embodiment of beauty. Once again, the Japanese adopted this fashion during the Tokugawa era, as evidenced by the frail women in later ukiyoe prints.
The lifestyle at the Tang imperial court was of unprecedented splendor. Court ritual prescribed an endless series of celebrations and banquets with music and dancing, during which huge quantities of alcoholic beverages were consumed. To prepare the countless dancers, musicians, actors and acrobats needed for such celebrations, there were special chambers at the palace. This part of the palace was called jiaofang ("place of learning"), and in addition to Chinese actors, hundreds of Central Asian, Indian, Korean and Indo-Chinese singers and dancers lived there.
Sometimes rulers patronized Taoism, in other cases Buddhism, but religious festivals were always celebrated with particular pomp and circumstance. Confucian classics were accepted by the government as the basis for government examinations for official positions, and Confucian scholars enjoyed great authority in government matters, but in the daily life of the court and the common people their teachings were largely ignored.
The emperor's sexual relations became even more regulated than before. Due to the ever-increasing number of women in the harem, it was necessary to keep scrupulous records: the date and hour of each successful sexual union, the days of menstruation for each of the women and the appearance of the first signs of pregnancy were carefully noted. Such measures were necessary to avoid later complications when determining the future status of the infant. Zhang Bi's Zhuang lou ji (Notes from the Dressing Room) (ca. 940) states that at the beginning of the Kaiyuan era (713–741), every woman with whom the emperor had sex was given a seal on her hand with the following text: “ The wind and the moon (i.e. sexual fun) remain forever new.” This seal was rubbed with cinnamon incense, after which it was impossible to remove it (serial “Long Wei Tsongshu”, p. 7a). Not one of the hundreds of palace ladies could claim to have received the favor of the emperor without presenting this seal. The same work gives many colorful expressions for menstruation, such as “red blood” (hong chao), “peach blossom fluid” (tao hua gui shui), or “entering the period” (ru yue). Sexual mores at court were completely relaxed: the emperor loved to swim naked with his ladies in the palace ponds.
Since the emperor was in particular danger of an attack on his life while playing with women, the strictest precautions were taken. All doors through which one could enter the inner chambers were bolted and carefully guarded. So that none of the women could attack her august partner, according to ancient palace custom, the one who was to share a bed with the emperor was stripped naked, wrapped in a blanket, after which a eunuch carried her on his back to the imperial chambers. Thus, she could not carry any weapons with her. Similar practices existed during the Ming and Qing eras, although they probably date back to earlier times.
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A commander from Shanxi, in 618. Considered the time of economic, political and cultural prosperity of China. During the Tang era, a socio-political system was formed in the country, which generally made it possible to maintain a balance between the interests of various social groups. A successful foreign policy ensured calm in the country, the growth of territory and the development of foreign trade relations.
After declaring himself emperor, Li Yuan and his son Li Shimin (Taizong) (626 - 649) had to fight for about ten more years to unify the country. The thanes asserted their power not only by military force. They carried out a number of measures aimed at alleviating the situation of the bulk of the population - the peasants. Taxes were reduced and labor payments introduced under the Sui were reduced. In the Tang Empire, state ownership of land continued to exist until the 8th century in the same forms as in previous periods. It was still characterized by the presence of a system of allotment land use. Later it began to develop in other forms. During the Tang period, even greater opportunities were created for the purchase and sale of allotment peasant lands than before. It is characteristic that, unlike many previous eras, taxes are collected in kind, which indicates the insufficient development of commodity-money relations.
To encourage internal trade, roadblocks were abolished. The monetary system was streamlined. Under Li Shimin, the formation of a bureaucratic apparatus based on a hierarchical ladder of ranks ended. Each rank corresponded to a certain size of land plot received by the official for use from the state. The state apparatus consisted of 3 chambers, 6 departments and a significant number of departments. A special chamber of inspectors checked the work of all institutions. The country was divided into ten large regions, and those, in turn, into districts and districts. In addition to the civil authorities, there were military governors in the province, who had a certain independence. There were 9 ranks and 30 classes of officials. To occupy any position, it was necessary to pass a state exam and then, based on the degree obtained, apply for the position.
The bureaucracy became one of the most influential forces in Tang society. It is officials who begin to play the most important public role, while the influence of large landowners grows enormously.
The center of the state gradually moved from the Yellow River basin to the Yangtze basin, where the population grew rapidly due to the success of rice growing and the bed farming system. Rice growing also moved north. Methods of cultivating and fertilizing the land were improved. Technical devices were used to irrigate the land. New crops became widespread: sugar cane and oak silkworm. Tea has been grown since the 8th century.
Craftsmen mastered the production of paper, which had been invented in ancient times but was not widely used. Valuable varieties of silk fabrics and metal products were produced, and with the invention of printing, printing production began to develop. Chinese shipbuilding has reached a high degree of development. Gunpowder was invented. There were also changes in military equipment caused by improved production technology. The quality of armor has increased, not only for warriors, but also for horses. Tower architecture developed rapidly.
The population grew, internal and external trade developed, the expansion of which was facilitated by the further improvement of the canal system that connected large rivers with each other and with the sea. However, monetary circulation was still poorly developed, and along with state mints there were also private mints. Banks are created on the basis of usurious offices, and a system of transferable checks is used. A very important measure in the social sense - the codification of law - was also carried out in the Tang era.
The Tang era was the time of the highest flowering of Chinese culture. Beautiful works of applied art, painting, and the greatest literary monuments were created, which are still considered classical in China.
In the 7th century, the Chinese Empire reached enormous proportions. The Eastern (630) and Western (657) Turkic Khaganates were defeated and the territories of modern Mongolia and Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan) were annexed. Many states to the west of the Tien Shan recognized themselves as vassals of China. Conquests were made in Indochina and Korea. Clashes with Japan ended in favor of the Tang troops. So, in 663, during the reign of Emperor Gao Zong (650 - 683), successor Li Shimin, the Chinese fleet inflicted a serious defeat on the Japanese. From the middle of the 7th century. Strong political and economic ties began to be established between China and Tibet. With the help of the Tibetans, Chinese troops made a victorious campaign along the Ganges. In the second half of the 7th century. The borders of the Tang Empire extended from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Tien Shan, from the headwaters of the river. Selenga to Indochina. The caravan route connected China with the states and peoples of Central Asia and the Middle East.
State lands, peasant plots and sources of water supply increasingly passed into the hands of individual feudal lords. Losing their arable fields, gardening and estate plots, the peasants went bankrupt and were unable to pay taxes. Treasury revenues declined catastrophically. The power of large feudal lords grew, they ceased to fulfill the duties of vassals and increasingly opposed the central government. In 755, one of them, An Lushan, ousted the emperor from the capital Chang'an. The Tans managed to suppress the rebellion of An Lushan, but internecine wars did not stop, and the centralized state weakened. From the mid-8th century, the Tang Empire began to lose its power. From the west it was pressed by the Arabs who had invaded Central Asia, the Khitans were advancing from the northeast, and the kingdoms of Nanzhao and Tufan strengthened in the southwest.
With the transfer of a significant part of the peasant plots into the ownership of the feudal lords, the state could no longer collect taxes from the peasants in the same volume and experienced serious financial difficulties. In 780, an imperial edict legitimized the reform project drawn up by the outstanding statesman Yang Yan. A new taxation system was established, according to which the previous land tax, fishing tax and other duties were replaced by a single property tax levied twice a year. The tax was calculated on all property, movable and immovable, including land. It was levied on landowners (including peasants), merchants and artisans. Yang Yan's reforms marked the final collapse of the “equalizing” allotment system of land tenure, which had actually already been undermined by large landowners from among the “powerful houses.” At the same time, these transformations legitimized the private land ownership of feudal lords. The peasants were given the opportunity to freely sell their land, which they did not fail to take advantage of in order to raise funds to pay debts and tax arrears. As a result, a significant part of the peasantry fell into bondage to large landowners. The situation of the peasants deteriorated significantly, and peasant uprisings began to flare up in the country.
Taking on an ever-increasing scope, they resulted in a peasant war that began in 874 and ultimately decided the fate of the Tang dynasty. The peasant detachments were led by Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao. Occupying one region of the country after another, the rebels killed the feudal lords, seizing their houses and lands. After the death of Wang Xianzhi, the rebels under the leadership of Huang Chao, who took the title “great commander who helps heaven,” made a grandiose campaign to the south. In 879 they occupied Canton, then, heading north, descended the river. Xiangjiang to the river Yangtze. In November 880, Huang Chao approached Luoyang from the east and occupied it. In December he entered the imperial capital Chang'an. The imperial court fled. The rebels executed members of the imperial family and high dignitaries. Food from state warehouses was distributed to the population. Huang Chao declared himself emperor. For two years the capital remained in the hands of the rebels. Meanwhile, supporters of the Tang dynasty assembled an impressive military force, hired the cavalry of the nomadic tribes, and with these combined troops dealt a decisive blow to the rebels. In 883 Huang Chao was forced to retreat from Chang'an to the east. In 884, the remnants of his troops were scattered, and he himself died in Shandong. Peasant uprisings continued until 901. The feudal lords, having dealt with the peasant insurgents and the usurper of the imperial throne, began to fight among themselves. The Tang dynasty, unable to retain power in the literally collapsing empire, fell in 907.
In the 10th century, separate kingdoms and independent fiefs arose in China. The Khitans invaded the country and created their vast Liao state on the territory from Manchuria to the Tien Shan. Agriculture and numerous cities suffered from continuous strife. The whole country needed protection from nomads.
The North again proved to be the restorer of China's state unity. In 581, the throne of the former Northern Wei state passed into the hands of the commander Yang Jian, who founded the Sui dynasty (581-618). Under the second and last emperor of the Sui dynasty, Yang Guang, the Great Canal was built, connecting the Yellow River and Yangtze basins, and the Great Wall of China was strengthened and reconstructed.
However, excessive luxury and extravagance at the court, and an aggressive foreign policy depleted the state's finances. Aggravated social contradictions led to the outbreak of popular uprisings and riots.
In 618, the warlord Li Yuan overthrew Yang Guang and declared himself emperor. The new dynasty was called Tang (618-906).
In 626, Li Yuan's second son ascended the throne under the name of Taizong (626-649). His twenty-three-year reign was the time when the new empire took on a complete form. Under Taizong, a comprehensive code of laws was formed. The regulations concerning the organization of bureaucracy reached completeness and precision, which were subsequently unsurpassed. The meticulously detailed system of bureaucratic supervision served as a model for subsequent dynasties and neighboring states. Peace and order came to China.
The second outstanding personality of the Tang era was Empress Wu-hou. And the third is Emperor Xuanzong. His long reign (713–756) brought another forty years of peace to the empire. The reign of Xuanzong was the time of the highest rise of the Tang Empire. It was a time of unprecedented splendor of court life, the heyday of the Tang capitals, and remarkable achievements in literature and art.
The Tang era is usually divided into two periods. The first one is from the 20s. VII century until about the middle of the 8th century. - was characterized by internal progress and the flourishing of the external power of the empire. The second - from the middle of the 8th century. until the collapse of the empire at the beginning of the 10th century. - was marked by gradual political decline, decentralization and constant pressure from nomads.
In the 7th and 8th centuries. China under the Tang emperors was probably the most powerful, civilized, and best governed country in the world. At this time, not only a high level of culture was achieved, but also a high level of well-being of the entire people.
The political system of Tang China retained the features of ancient Chinese despotism. The power of the emperor - the “Son of Heaven” - was unlimited. The Emperor was assisted by a council, which included some of the highest court dignitaries and ministers of six departments. In addition, there were special departments (orders).
The Tang Empire had three capitals: Chang'an, Luoyang and Taiyuan, each of which was ruled by a viceroy. The entire administration was located in Chang'an.
The country was divided into provinces, regions and districts. Each of these administrative units was headed by an official appointed by the emperor. Counties were divided into rural districts. The lowest unit was the rural community - the five-yard headed by the headman.
The social organization of the Tang Empire was built on the principle of class division. The main classes were considered: boguan (“service ranks”), which included the entire set of civil and military ranks, and liangming (“good people”) - peasants. In addition to these two classes, there was a “vile people” (jianming), which is what slaves were called then.
In the first period, especially in the 7th century, there was a rise in agriculture and crafts. Domestic and foreign trade expanded. The Tang era was a period of remarkable flowering of Chinese science and culture. Woodcut printing appeared - printing from engraved boards, gunpowder began to be used for military purposes, and historical writing developed widely. Tang poets raised the art of versification to an unprecedented height, which remained unattainable for all subsequent centuries. Confucian ethics becomes a way of life.
But gradually crisis phenomena are growing in the powerful Tang state. In the 8th century There is a weakening of the allotment system and centralization, and increasing political fragmentation of the country. China is losing its position in the west and north.
At the end of 755, the powerful governor of the northeastern outskirts of the empire, An Lu-shan, rebelled. His 160,000-strong army swept across the Yellow River plain like an avalanche. The capitals fell almost without a fight. An Lu-shan's rebellion caused irreparable damage to the empire. From that time on, she inevitably walked towards her death.
In the 60-70s. VIII century tax reform was gradually implemented. At the proposal of First Minister Yang Yan, all previous taxes and duties were replaced by a single property tax. The free purchase and sale of land was legalized. It marked the official recognition of the decline of the allotment system and the victory of private land ownership.
In the 9th century. The financial situation of the empire worsened. Rice has risen in price sharply. In 873, a terrible drought broke out between the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. Thousands of people were doomed to starvation. Driven to despair, villagers began to gather in detachments and launch attacks on district and regional centers, estates of landowners and monasteries.
The power of the dynasty was finally brought to naught by the second great uprising - the uprising of Huang Chao (881-884). The emperor became a puppet in the hands of warring warlords and provincial governors, who fought each other and divided the empire among themselves.
Northern China was captured by the Khitan nomads. Small states and principalities arose in the country, and their rulers, fighting with each other, laid claim to the throne of the Son of Heaven. From 906 to 960 in the north of China five dynasties succeed each other, three of which were founded by the Turks, and in the south ten independent kingdoms arise. In Chinese historiography, this time was called the “Era of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.”