Arts And Cultural Activities Of Ming And Qing Jiangnan Ru Providers

Confucian merchants have become an important social and cultural phenomenon in economic and cultural fields nowadays. However, the emergence and rise of Confucian merchants in large-scale can be traced back to Ming and Qing Dynasties. In Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the progress of the level of social productive forces and the changes of the concept of"scholars, farmers, workers and merchants", commodity economy got an unprecedented development under the influence of mercantilist thought, and the Confucian merchants also developed into a derivatives group.With the rapid development of commodity economy, it smashed the traditional emphasis on commercial agriculture suppression threshold values, business had become the most popular thing for people in JiangNan. The prosperous economy and the utterly unique JiangNan poetic asthetic brought a great number of Confucian merchants in JiangNan regions. The Confucian merchants paid equal attention to Confucian and business,"Though they were merchants, theirs remarks and behavior were all just like the Confucian scholars". Confucian merchants in JiangNan were edified deeply by the JiangNan poetic aesthetic spirits, they took part in the colorful cultural and artistic activities as well as cultural and recreational activities consciously and actively, and in this process, they showed the most obvious and unique features, such as the self-participation in poetic aesthetic consciousness and the integration of aesthetic and commercial elite as well. Those cultural and artistic activities as well as cultural recreational activities promoted economic and cultural development and prosperity in JiangNan regions, in the meanwhile, sped up the formation and development of the city'artistic features in JiangNan regions. This paper is divided into three parts:The first chapter, thoroughly describe the long histories of China business in Ming and Qing Dynasties, outline the concept of JiangNan Confucian merchants and the formation factors in social and historical and cultural causes. The second chapter, mostly focuse on JiangNan Confucian merchants'cultural and artistic activities as well as cultural and recreational activities, and discuss JiangNan Confucian merchants'unique features in cultural and artistic fields. The third chapter, mainly conclude the unique features of JiangNan Confucian merchants'cultural and artistic activities as well as cultural and recreational activities, find out the important impacts of those cultural activities in the developments of cultural and artistic in JiangNan regions.