Blue and White Porcelain in Yuan Dynasty and Drama in Yuan Dynasty

The characters and stories on the blue-and-white porcelain in Yuan Dynasty were mainly drawn from the popular operas, especially the Zaju.

In passing on and unearthed Yuan Qing Hua porcelain, in addition to a number of paintings of birds, animals, flowers and lotus pond, such as a well-structured, neat pen, and a considerable volume of products are exquisite, another kind of painting characters story map of the same beautiful utensils.According to the examination, this kind of character story map on the Yuan Dynasty porcelain mainly shows a drama in the Yuan Dynasty Zaju, with this kind of decoration the number of vessels passed on far less than the first class, mostly scattered around the world.

Yuan Qing Hua can (ZhaoJun out) Japan Deguang Art Museum Collection

Yuan Qing Hua (Wei Chi Gong single whip savior) Guangxi Hengxian Museum

Yuan Qing Hua Mei Ping (Xiao He Yue chasing Han Xin) Nanjing Museum

Yuan Qing Hua can (Zhou Ya-fu Xi Liu Ying), Songgang Art Museum, Japan

Canisters of New Year’s Blossoms (Three Curtains) Collected by the Pegasus Foundation of England

YUAN-QING Hua can (WU Chi-kung single whip saviour), Boston Museum of Art, United States

In passing on and unearthed Yuan Qing Hua porcelain, in addition to a number of paintings of birds, animals, flowers and lotus pond, such as a well-structured, neat pen, and a considerable volume of products are exquisite, another kind of painting characters story map of the same beautiful utensils.According to the examination, this kind of character story map on the Yuan Dynasty porcelain mainly shows a drama in the Yuan Dynasty Zaju, with this kind of decoration the number of utensils passed on far less than the first class, has been published more than 10 works, except for some domestic collections, mostly scattered around the world.

The Yuan Dynasty was a national minority regime established after forty years of war against the Southern Song Dynasty in which the Mongols had engulfed the Western Xia and Jin.Despite the intense class and ethnic contradictions of the Yuan and the First Dynasties, the economic development of the Central Plains in the decades after the war was devastated by the political, economic, cultural and other measures taken by Kublai Khan, the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, and later the rulers. Social stability, and then appeared “from the middle of the United States to the present five or six years, foreign aggression and internal rebellion in succession, but can make officials away from the debt burden, civil security and labor service, thick storehouse, granary first fixed, the beginning of the law of money, the state with thick feet, officials reverse, the renewal of political affairs” the situation.It is worth mentioning that since the Mongolian and Yuan governments were foreign and had to take into account many aspects after entering the Central Plains region, the Yuan Dynasty not only failed to gain strong control over the ritual and music system like other dynasties, but on the contrary created an ideal one suitable for the prosperity and growth of opera. Relatively liberal cultural conditions.In addition to the abolition of imperial examinations in the decades after the founding of the Yuan Dynasty, a large number of literati have devoted themselves to the creation of opera, and in a short period of several decades a large number of writers and works have been produced, thus opening up the prosperity of the creation of Chinese opera.According to the records of the books such as” Recording Ghost Book “,” Continuing Ghost Book “in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties, and” Taihe Zhengyin Spectrum “in Hongwu of Ming Dynasty, there were nearly a hundred writers in the Yuan Dynasty, and there were nearly a thousand works.Unfortunately, most of it is just the title of the play, but not the full script.

The characters and stories on the blue-and-white porcelain in Yuan Dynasty are mainly based on the popular operas, especially the miscellaneous operas. From the works that can be collected at present, the story content is mainly as follows:

1. Xiao He’s following Han Xin Tu in the following month. The plum vase unearthed in the 25 years of Mu Ying’s tomb at Guanyin Mountain, Dongshan Bridge, Jiangning County, Jiangsu Province in 1950 has this picture on it. The bottle is 44.1 cm tall, 5.1 cm in diameter and 13 cm in diameter. It is collected in Nanjing Museum.A picture of Xiao He’s chasing Han Xin at the end of the month.The story of Xiao He-yue’s pursuit of Han Xin is based on Shi Ji · Huai Yin Hou Liao Zhuan and Han Shu · Han Xin Zhuan, which narrates that Han Xin had gone to Xiang Liang, Xiang Yu and even Liu Bang during the Chu and Han Dynasties.Xiao He heard this news, good night to return to Han Xin, persuaded Liu Bang to reuse him, the final achievement of the emperor’s career story.Xiao He, Han Xin’s original form of the story began to appear in the Tang and Song languages, Yuan Dynasty Quanxiang Pinghua “Han Shu” although there are “Han Wang south of the trek Road, in Paozhou Xiao He three arrows of the merit of Xiao He, a letter of one’s virtue” sentence, but no specific description.The “Xiao He Yue Night Pursuit of Han Xin”, which was written by Yuan Jin Renjie, has this plot. The second part of the drama mainly performs Xiao He’s pursuit of Han Xin, and the two of them board the boat and leave together.Xiao He, Han Xin and Shui Gong, who painted on porcelain and plum bottles, are the three characters who follow Han Xin’s story in the play.The same is, in addition to the blue-and-white plum bottles there is Xiao He night chasing Han Xin map, Yuan Cizhou kiln five color porcelain pillow also has the same theme of the design, two products of Xiao He, Han Xin image is basically the same, but the latter products Han Xin riding on the horse. The patterns on both vessels were clearly drawn from the drama.

2. The picture of Wei Chigong’s single whip saviour and the picture of Yuanqing flower pot unearthed in 1980 on the west side of the main building of Hengxian Agricultural Institute of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the Yuanqing flower pot in Boston Art Museum of the United States. The former is 30 cm tall and 22 cm in diameter. The foot is 19.5 cm in diameter and 27.8 cm in height.The picture of two jars both seized single male letter kill Tang, want to catch up with Qin Wang Shimin, Wei Chigong single whip savior to leave the theme painting, but the two jars figure posture and auxiliary pattern are different.For instance, in the pot pattern of Hengxian County in Guangxi, Tang Taizong did a left look back with a pair of phoenix leading the way, Wei Chi-kung was followed by two soldiers and two armed soldiers fighting on horseback on one side.U. S. Boston cans in the design of the Wei Chi Gong, followed by Tang Taizong after a whip, Wei Chi Gong after a two-armed soldier bearing the “Tang Taizong” three-character flag, less two soldiers armed.”Old Tang Book” in the volume of sixty-eight because Li Shimin from hunting in the nest, when Wang Shicong led the ride tens of thousands of to battle, Shichong single hero letter led to ride toward the Taizong, Jingdeyue horse, Xiongxin fall horse, thief slightly, Jingde wing Tai Zong out of the ruffian encirclement, In addition, the cavalry and the world together, its mass collapse, capture will Chen Zhili, the ranks of 6000 soldiers recorded.The story of the Song and Yuan Dynasties was compiled as a drama, and there are different writers to write stories with different emphasis on the script, at present there are at least three in the catalog, one for “Yu Chi-gong flogging single-male letter”, included in the “Yuan-Ming Zaju”, the author’s name, the existing book;Second is” Wei Chi Gong three capture Shuo “, is included in” Yuan Dynasty ancient and modern drama 30 kinds”, is made for Shang Zhongxian, the existing book;Three for the “Wei Chi Gong single whip to capture the Shuo”, this play is more complex, each book “record ghost book” lost this item, but “Yuan Qu Selected”, “Qu Lu” and so on “Wei Chi Gong three win the Shuo” mixed into a play, today there is Guan Han Qing, Shang Zhongxian, and other people wrote the script.When writing the stories of the same subject matter, the writers of Zaju usually modify the plot based on the historical facts. The content of the stories is the same as each other, and the name of the drama changes a little.”Wei Chigong flogged the single male letter” the main thread of the drama is based on historical facts, the specific plot has been changed, the expression of the early Tang Dynasty, the opposition to the king to stand up for the emperor, fighting each other, Tang Taizong led the army to come to Kevroyang Rebel Wang Shichong, With military division xu maogong two private reward luoyang, happen to encounter single letter, by its pursue kill, critical moment, wei chi gong receives letter to come to rescue, single whip hit single letter, rescued tang taizong.The scene of Wei Chi-kung’s single-whip savior on the porcelain pot is similar to the plot, but when Lee Shi-min was rescued in the above-mentioned drama, no other general appeared except for Wei Chi-kung’s battle with Shan Xiong-xin, and Tang Taizong returned to camp first, and Wei Chi-kung defeated Shan-xiong-xin and then returned, With the above two porcelain pots on the two generals at war, wei chi-gong followed tang taizong back to camp after the scene is different, and the picture of the two pots and a certain difference, indicating that the two pot patterns should be based on the content of similar different script plot painting.

3. General Mengtian diagram,1956 Changde City, Hunan Province, Taoyuan County unearthed on the jade pot spring bottle this picture, bottle height 29.5 cm, diameter 8.4 cm, full diameter 9 cm, now stored in the Hunan Museum.On the belly of the bottle, General Meng Tian wore a crown of plumes, a coat of armour, boots, an armchair with his left hand, and his right hand stretched forward as if he were interrogating a captured official.Behind him, a soldier hung his sword in armour, and held a pole in both handsThe four-character flag of “general meng tian”.A bow-wielding warrior in front of Montaigne seemed to report to the army.Behind the samurai, a soldier in a short coat and leggings was pressing on the officer who was kneeling on his knees.In the Biography of History, there is a record of “Qin had gone to the whole world, so that Meng Tian would send 300,000 people north to Rongdi and collect them from Henan Province. To build the Great Wall, because of its topography, it was blocked with danger, and Lintao was set up, to Liaodong and Yanwan more than ten thousand li”. The story of this story is written in the book “QuanXiangPing Hua Qin and Six Kingdoms” published by Yu’s family in the Yuan Dynasty. At present, there are no copies of the miscellaneous plays on this subject, but some researchers have made use of the costumes of the characters in the bottle, especially the ringed crowns on their heads. It is pointed out that “the bottle story is based on a plot in” Qin and the Six Kingdoms”, and the characters are dressed in the opera costumes of the day “, such as the crown of Meng Tian’s intercalation,” the image description of the Wu general of Yuan Zaju “.According to this, we can think that the pattern on the jade pot spring vase should be drawn according to the popular patterns related to opera at that time.

4. ZhaoJun out of the map, Japan Deguang Art Museum collection pot and Gansu Wuwei Liangzhou District Nanjie 131 military sub-district of the high-foot cup unearthed in this picture, the former is 28.4 cm high, the latter is 8.9 cm high, diameter 7.7 cm, foot diameter 4 cm.The Yuan Dynasty has more performance Zhaojun drama, unfortunately, many plays have not been handed down, such as Guan Hanqing’s” Emperor of Han Yuan Crying Zhaojun “has not been handed down;Wu Changling “night month go Zhaojun” did not have a copy, Zhang Shi from “Zhaojun out” also did not have a copy, there is a copy only see Ma Zhiyuan’s” broken dream alone wild goose Han Qiu Gong “.. ..blue-and-white cans from the Deguang Museum in Japan.”Zhaojun out of the picture wide, with the stone, pine, plantain, willow and other three groups of people will be divided into one: three women riding on a horse for a group, one of the high bun, dressed in Han clothes, carrying pipa woman is Wang Zhaojun, A woman dressed in rags;The six men were divided into two groups, namely the emissaries of the Huns who welcomed their relatives and the people who sent their relatives to the Han Dynasty.The tall foot cup can’t express the scene in the form of scroll painting like the pot, but it adopts the local portrait technique, and takes Zhaojun to ride away from his hometown with a lute in his arms. The sad expression of “the thousand-year-old lute makes a nonsense” is drawn with green materials.

5. Zhou Ya-fu, Japan’s Matsuoka Museum of Art collection of the Yuan Qinghua pot painted this picture, according to the book disclosed that a Japanese has also collected a Zhou Ya-Liu Yinghua pot, this pot was destroyed in the Second World War.The former is 27.2 cm tall and the latter 22.1 cm tall.Zhou Yafu’s strict spirit of enforcing the law is respected by later generations, and his deeds are widely circulated in opera, especially in the Yuan DynastyZhou Ya-fu’s Miscellaneous Drama of Xiliu Camp.However, at present, there are mainly recorded in Zheng Guangzu’s” Zhou Yafu Xiliu Camp “and Wang Tingxiu’s” Zhou Yafun Xiliu Camp”.However, the two cans of the picture can fill the script missing regret, the two cans of the theme of the same content, both show Emperor Han Wen himself to go to the small Liu Laojun can not enter, can only press the bridle to the camp scene, but the specific painting of the two cans of people are different, Han Wendi’s clothes, which were destroyed in the World War II pot, were embroidered and accompanied by his fellow soldiers, Zhou Yafu, who sat in his tent and had an image of majesty.On the other jar, there was no embroidery on his clothes. An official followed him to the left. Zhou Yafu’s uniform was in the book.Some of the characters on the two jars are the same as the characters in the plum vase of “Xiao He night and month after Han Xin” and the spring vase of “General Meng Tian”, apparently based on the popular costumes and paintings of the theatrical performances at that time.

6. This picture is shown on a three-dimensional picture of the boston art gallery’s bottle with a lid and on a yuanhua jar collected by the peggers foundation in the uk, the former being 38.6 cm tall and the latter 27.6 cm high.There were also many plays of Zhuge Liang’s stories in the Yuan Dynasty, such as” Zhuge Liang Qiu Feng Wuzhang Yuan “,” Zhuge Liang Juntun Wuzhang Yuan “,” Zhuge Liang Zhijiang Douzhi “,” Zhuge Liang Bo Wang Chaotun “,” Zhuge Liang hanging gas Zhang Fei “,” Zhuge Liang Shi Fa Lu Xun “, and so on, some of which have the spread of the book, some of only the repertoire, There is only one biography of the above-mentioned historical records. The “Wolongang” written for Wang Ye has only the name of the play, but it has not been handed down.The painting on the porcelain was very wonderful. Zhuge Liang sat in the vase and read a book. The boy in a bun swept the yard. On the other side, Liu Bei bowed his head, Guan Yu bowed his hands, and Zhang Fei followed him. The picture composition is similar to the illustrations in “Three Kingdoms Pinghua”, but the characters are not the same, especially the fan-shaped beard of Guan Yu in the bottle picture is the fake beard that he wore at the time of stage performance. It’s obviously different from the illustration.The painting in the pot was exquisite. Zhuge Liang sat on the rocks and listened to the family boy’s news. He stood beside him a book boy with two hands holding a book. Outside the fence, Liu Bei, dressed in embroidered robes, bowed and paid homage to him. Guan Yu looked back to stop Zhang Fei from shouting. With “Three Kingdoms Pinghua” in the “Mr and close straight into the Taoist courtyard, to Maolu before the Shi Li, Zhuge greedily look after his book, Zhang Fei angry:” My lord is the 17 th Han Dynasty Zhongshan Jing Wang Liu Sheng, now fold waist Maoan before, so slow my master “. Yunchang Zhenwei drink” the plot is the same.But the figure’s dress line is elegant, the expression portrays is vivid and lifelike, far is in the plain language the illustration is exquisite, obviously does not take the plain language’s illustration as the powder foundation, but should relate with the popular miscellaneous drama book at that time.

7. Tears of Sima Qing’s shirt in Jiangzhou, the plum bottles of Yuan Qing Hua collected by Victoria and Alphabet Museum in Britain, and the jar of Yuan Qing Hua collected by Tokugawa Museum in Japan, which is now a collection of Yuan Qing Hua in Songgang Art Museum, Japan, show different scenes of the play respectively.The plum bottle is 35.6 cm tall and 5.5 cm in diameter.The tank is 26.7 cm high.For a long time in the past, the picture painted on the jar was often seen as the scene of Cui Yingying’s mother torturing the bride in “The Western Chamber”, but some researchers believe that she could not stand in front of her face as if she were a maid and an old woman. And it should be like the illustration in the Ming Dynasty woodcut”Torture Red” like that, Hongniang always kneel to Cui Mu’s defense, so the painting on the bottle of Mei must not be “Western Chamber Story”, but may be the Yuan Dynasty written by Ma Zhiyuan, “Jiangzhou Sima Qing Shirt tears” in the scene of the second fold.

The next question that needs to be understood is that it is impossible to put the plot of different plays into your head and draw them in silence when they are painted on blue-and-white porcelain by the porcelain craftsmen of the Yuan Dynasty. It is the same as the official kiln made by Fuliang Porcelain Bureau in Yuan Dynasty.The powder edition of the float beam porcelain bureau is provided by the painting bureau of the institute of the view has been discussed by the researchers, and most of the researchers approved, then the character story of the powder book is provided by who?At first, the author thought that it should be based on the illustrations of a novel of the “Three Sections of New Publications” (1294) published by Li’s family in Yuan and Yuan Dynasty (1321-1323) published by Yuan and Yuan Dynasty (1321-1323). However, after careful comparison, it is found that although the illustrations of “five kinds of plain words” are more delicate than” three points of events” and the characters are more vivid than the figures, they are still less vivid than the figures of porcelain, and the lines of the figure’s drapes are not as smooth as the porcelain’s.It can be proved that the figures on porcelain are related to the drama, so Jingdezhen porcelain craftsmen should also be used as drawings with the drama.In 1980, in the cover of a book called Tongzhi, the Chinese Bookstore found that the Yuan Dynasty (also believed to be the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty) published a book called “New Compilation and Correction of the Western Chamber Story”.The same is in the collation and publication 1908 to 1909 by the Russian Cozlov expedition from Inner Mongolia Ejina Banner Heshui City looted about 5,000 pieces of Xixia-Yuan period inscriptions and about 2,000 ancient paintings, sculptures, weaving embroidery, Artifacts and other artifacts found a number of Jinyuan opera-related materials, one is the Yuan engraving, for the unstained hemp paper, ink light, because of the age, hemp paper has been damaged, but vaguely can observe the pattern of the carved lines complex and smooth, indicating that the Yuan Dynasty has a fairly fine print.The second is” Liu Zhiyuan’s Diaogong “, which is influenced by it, which indicates that there exists a copy of the opera before the Yuan Zaju.Third, “The Sui Dynasty Miaotiao shows the beauty of the country” and “Guan Gong Tu”. If the first two discoveries can indicate that the Yuan Dynasty has carved the story of the characters of opera into print examples, then the latter two woodcut prints found, It can be an important basis for exploring whether or not the characters and stories on the Yuan-Qing-Hua porcelain have powder-based and powder-based materials.Samasuc, a Russian scholar, made a deep study of this in his paper “Han Tibetan Buddhist Painting in Black Water City from the 12th to the 14th century”. “No or no literary work is written in four people at the same time,” according to the map of the Sui Dynasty (which is called the “four-beautiful-picture”). A series of features of this print suggest that it must be a representation of a literary archetype that needs to be found in the works of opera.At the same time, she took the Ming Dynasty drama “Si Yan Yan Ji” as an example, that “four beautiful women’s fate of the drama works, have been written in a script… The four-act play, called” Si Yan Yan Ji “, has been missing the script, but also we speculate that the source of this print.”For the printmaking era, some scholars regarded it as the work of the Jin Dynasty, but Samasuc did not hold that the Jin Dynasty said that “said this” Si Mei Tu” is a later era _ Yuan Dynasty is also appropriate, because it is the thirteenth to fourteenth century, is considered the golden age of Chinese opera. “Samashuk’s view is more consistent with the development of Chinese opera and printmaking.Another picture of “King Yiyong Wu ‘an” (which is called “Guan Gong’s Image” in the article), including characters’ form, dress, expression, and the surrounding books with the characters of “Guan”, such as flags and pine needles, pine branches, etc., is exactly consistent with the painting style of the blue and white porcelain ware, especially Guan Yu, Three beautiful whiskers, thick eyebrows and big ears, long sleeves, pillows, boots, fists and fists were clenched, their feet tilted, and they sat majestically on the chair, in a pose that resembled the stage image of the opera.The style of this” Guan Gong Xiang “is similar to that of” Si Mei Tu “. The two works have the same era. The credibility of Yuan Dynasty works is very strong. Their appearance makes a semi-opera illustration found in the cover of” Tong Zhi “(one of which is” Sun Fei-hu Raises the Account”). The other half of the heading is no longer an exception.It is worth mentioning that the two pictures have the title, the upper part of the front side of the left side of the seal “Ping Yang Ji Jia Diao Yin”, the upper part of the left side of the “Ping Yang Fu Xu Jia Yin”, from Shanxi Pingyang engraving printing craftsman, just out of different craftsmen.According to the investigation, Pingyang was the most active region in ancient times, especially in the Yuan Dynasty, and it was also the center of the printing industry in the Yuan Dynasty. But it was the work that spread out from the production of Pingyang at that time.Because the size of these two prints is very large, its height is more than 70 cm, so some people analyze them should be a play when the publicity for posters, but others think that when the New Year is more appropriate, some simply said that it is a poster New Year, but whether it is posters or New Year paintings, Or else, it’s the same as the drama, and at the same time, from the level of engraving, these two engraving prints are far higher than the Yuan Dynasty Jian ‘an Lee, Yu’s novel illustrations.The characters and stories on the blue-and-white porcelain of Jingdezhen in Yuan Dynasty should be based on the printed paintings made by Pingyang craftsmen specially for opera, which are similar to those unearthed in Heishui City.This kind of paper painting after printing is easy to carry, from the northern Pingyang spread to the southern Jingdezhen is very convenient.Jingdezhen porcelain craftsman in the engraving printing painting for powder, not only grasps the print to pay attention to the character expression attitude description characteristics, but also retains the printmaking on the stone cutting sharp style, so that the Yuan Dynasty porcelain appeared with other blue and white patterns of different styles of pictures.Thus, not only to fill the Yuan Dynasty, the number of typography, but also to some of the drama through the porcelain screen to preserve the story.The appearance of these exquisite works shows that the color painting technology of Jingdezhen kiln in Yuan Dynasty has reached an unprecedented new peak in the history of porcelain making.

The publication of this topic is abridged and the original is annotated. The full text is recorded in the “Qing Hua Century” published by Peking University PressThe History, Art and Archaeology of the Yuan and the Yuan Dynasties.