Flower Arrangement Of Ming Dynasty Scholars

The literati's flower arrangement is an important part of classical Chinese flower arrangement and it mainly made up by flower arrangement in vases.In other words,the flower arrangement in vases is almost equal to literati's flower arrangement.In the history of flower arrangement in vases,the Ming Dynasty's is the most representative and mature.There are still many materials about the Ming Dynasty's flower arrangement,which include the selection of flora apparatus,the choice of flora flowers,the summary of flora skills and the appreciation theories.These documents contain a complete system of flower arrangement and the most two famous treatises among them are Yuan Hongdao's History of Vases and Zhang Chou's Manual on Vases and Flowers.The former treatise is written five years later than the latter,so it made new achievements on the basis of the latter and is more perfect in the theories of flower arrangement.This paper takes Yuan Hongdao's History of Vases as the core,combines the history of flower arrangement,the special flower arrangement environment,the relationship between flower arrangement and painting and literature to discuss the flower arrangement in Ming Dynasty.Based on all of that,the paper then analyzed the characteristics of flower arrangement in Ming Dynasty scholars so to read out the ideal that the literati pursued in it,the paradoxes in the process of ideal pursuit and the relationship between these paradoxes.The objective about all of these is to restore the real picture of scholars' aspiration to flower arrangement in Ming Dynasty.First,the paper gave a brief introduction to flower arrangement and the History of Vases.And then,there was a simple summary of the existing research on ancient Chinese flower arrangement.Next,the significance of flower arrangement research was discussed.After that,the paper discussed the flower arrangement of Ming Dynasty scholars from the following four aspects:The first part is the flower arrangement and floral environment in Ming Dynasty,it first summarized the flower arrangement from its development history,and then analyzed the development environment of Ming Dynasty and the relationship between flower arrangement and other arts on the basis of clear conception of flower arrangement,it deeply established the foundation of flower arrangement.The second part is the sober men's art,it pointed out that the bottle flora art is an art about sober men not only from its composition elements but also from its appreciation way which the Ming Dynasty's scholars most respected and it established the nature of flower arrangement.The third part is the ideal in flower arrangement,it pointed out that the flower arrangement is an art which takes the personification as the basis and the care of statement as the expression technique,what the ultimate goal of these two skills is to reach the state called a pure ambit.The forth part is the paradoxical bottle flower arrangement,it pointed out there are two unavoidable paradoxes in the process of scholars 'pursuit on flower arrangement.They are the pursuit of nature and the importunity of flowers' life,the pure ambit and the stumbles from the world.In summary,this paper is devoted to explore the formal and spiritual pursuit of Ming Dynasty scholars' in the flower arrangement through the special social environment,the relationship between flower arrangement and other artistic forms.The intention of all of these is to restore the real and elegant picture of flower arrangement in Ming Dynasty scholars.