China is a jade-producing country in the world, which not only has a long mining history, but also has a wide geographical distribution and abundant reserves. According to Shan Hai Jing, there are more than 200 jade producing areas in China. After thousands of years of development and utilization, some jade mines have dried up, but some famous jade mines are still being mined in large quantities, which provides a steady stream of raw materials for the development of jade carving art in China. For example, Mount Yiwulu in the northeast described in Shan Hai Jing. After thousands of years, this place name remains unchanged. Now Yingkou, Liaoning Province produces talc. The most famous jade producing area in China is Hotan, Xinjiang. Hetian jade is the most abundant, the most colorful, the best quality and the highest price. It is an important source of raw materials for ancient jade in China. All previous dynasties royal families loved to use Hetian jade grinder. The ancient Silk Road was originally a jade road, and later it extended westward. Besides Hetian jade, Jiuquan jade in Gansu, lantian jade in Shaanxi, dushan jade and Mixian jade in Nanyang, Henan, and xiuyan jade in Liaoning are also commonly used raw materials for Chinese jade.
Jade is unique in the eyes of China people, which has gone beyond the category of simple taxonomy and become the spiritual sustenance of the Chinese nation.
As early as nearly ten thousand years ago in the late Paleolithic period, the ancestors of China people discovered and began to use jade. It is generally believed that ancient people discovered jade when they made and used stone tools. It is harder than ordinary stone, so people use it to process other stone products. It also has a distinctive color, crystal clear and lovely, so people slowly regard it as an ornament, so at first there was a saying that "beautiful stones are jade". In the long-term life practice, people gradually realize that some "beautiful stones" have special properties, so they are separated from "stones" and called "jade". Jade carving also has unique properties. Before the invention of metal seiko, jade was carved by indirect grinding, that is, jade sand was driven by utensils to grind jade. With the development of productivity, due to the small number of jade articles, it is difficult to process them. Only the leading figures of ethnic minorities, such as clan leaders and priests, are qualified to wear and use such labor-consuming articles, which will gradually evolve into ritual vessels, sacrificial vessels or totems. It is in this long and slow evolution process that jade has changed from a stone with special properties to a symbol representing power, status, wealth and theocracy.
Compared with Liangzhu jade, square jade in Hongshan Culture is rare, but it is characterized by animal-shaped jade and round jade. Typical vessels are jade dragon, jade animal-shaped ornaments and jade ring vessels. The biggest feature of Hongshan Culture's jade carving skills is that jade carving craftsmen can skillfully use jade materials with only a few knives, grasp the modeling characteristics of objects, and portray the image of objects vividly. "Spirit likeness" is the biggest feature of Hongshan ancient jade. Hongshan ancient jade, not big, but exquisite.
From the analysis of Liangzhu and Hongshan ancient jade mostly from large and medium-sized tombs, it is found that Neolithic jade not only has several uses such as offering sacrifices to heaven and earth, but also can ward off evil spirits and symbolize power, wealth and dignity. From the beginning, China's jade has a mysterious color.
The legendary Xia Dynasty was the first class society in China. With the continuous accumulation of archaeological data, legends have gradually become a reality, and Xia culture has been constantly revealed. The style of jade articles in Xia Dynasty should be the transitional form from Liangzhu culture to Longshan culture and from Hongshan Culture to Yin Shang jade articles, which can be seen from the jade articles unearthed from Erlitou site in Yanshi, Henan. The seven-hole jade knife unearthed in Erlitou originated from the porous stone knife in the late Neolithic period, and the carving pattern has the origin of the double-line outline of Shang Dynasty jade, which should be Xia Dynasty jade.
Shang Dynasty was the first written slavery country discovered in China. Shang civilization is famous not only for its solemn bronzes, but also for its numerous jade articles.
In the early Shang dynasty, there were few jade articles, and the cutting was generally rough. The jades in the late Shang Dynasty, represented by those unearthed from the Muhao Tomb in Yinxu, Anyang, produced a total of 755 jades, which can be divided into six categories according to their uses: ritual vessels, ritual vessels, tools, utensils, decorations and miscellaneous vessels. Jade craftsmen in Shang Dynasty used Hetian jade extensively. In the Shang dynasty, some practical utensils appeared, such as the reed and the sapphire reed, which imitated the Yi-Yi bronze ware. The jade articles of animals and figures are much more than geometric jade articles, such as jade dragon, jade phoenix and jade parrot, with different expressions and beautiful appearance. Jade people, or standing, or kneeling, or sitting, have different attitudes; It is difficult to tell whether it is a master, a slave or a prisoner. Jade Turtle, the earliest beautiful jade in China, appeared in Shang Dynasty. The most amazing and successful thing is that a large number of round carvings have appeared in the Shang Dynasty. In addition, jade artisans also use double parallel concave carving lines (commonly known as double hook lines) to consciously present a male pattern between the two buses, so that the male and bus lines play a powerful role at the same time, and the whole pattern changes perfectly. It not only eliminates the monotony of completely using negative lines, but also enhances the three-dimensional sense of pattern lines.
While inheriting the double-line sketch technique of Yin and Shang jade articles, the Western Zhou jade articles created the carving technique of carving jade with thick slope lines or thin yinxian lines, which shone brightly on bird-shaped jade knives and animal-faced jade ornaments. On the whole, however, the jade articles of the Western Zhou Dynasty are not as lively and diverse as those of the Shang Dynasty, but a little rigid and too formal. This is also related to the strict patriarchal clan system and etiquette system in the Western Zhou Dynasty.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, political princes competed for hegemony, academic schools contended, culture and art blossomed, and jade carving art was colorful, comparable to the Greek and Roman stone carving art in the Mediterranean basin at that time.
During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the royal family and various princes regarded jade as the embodiment of themselves (gentlemen) for their own interests. They wear jade ornaments and flaunt themselves as benevolent gentlemen with "virtue". "A gentleman never leaves his hand without a reason", which makes every scholar-bureaucrat have a series of jade ornaments from head to toe, especially the Yu Pei series at the waist. Therefore, Yu Pei was particularly developed at that time. A large number of Yu Pei with dragons, phoenixes and tigers can embody the spirit of the times, showing S-shape, full of dynamic beauty, with strong Chinese style and national characteristics. There are hidden valley lines in the pattern, hollowing out techniques, and applying single-yinxian hook lines or double-yinxian leaf lines on the ground, which is saturated and harmonious. The jade ornaments on the head of the snake and the arched head of the parrot reflect the level of jade carving and Yu Pei in the Spring and Autumn Period. Yu Pei unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Houyi in Hubei Province and Dahuangpei unearthed from Guwei Village in Huixian County, Henan Province, all made a complete Yu Pei with several pieces of jade, which was the most difficult craft in Yu Pei during the Warring States Period. Jade belt hook and jade sword ornament (jade sword) are new jade articles at this time.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Hetian jade was imported into the Central Plains in large quantities, and royal princes competed to choose Hetian jade. The hanging jade lamps collected in the Forbidden City are standard Hetian jade. At this time, Confucian scholars combined the study of etiquette with Hetian jade, and used Hetian jade to embody etiquette thought. In order to adapt to the rulers' love for Hetian jade, the traditional Confucian concepts of benevolence, wisdom, righteousness, propriety, joy, loyalty, faithfulness, heaven, earth and virtue are compared with the physical and chemical properties of Hetian jade, and then the theory that "a gentleman is better than jade" is produced. Jade has five virtues, nine virtues and eleven virtues. "Extract the attributes of jade, endow it with philosophical thoughts and conduct moral education; Arrange the shape of jade, endow it with yin and yang thoughts, and make it religious; Compared with the scale of jade, give it a rank and politicize it. " (Guo Baojun's New Interpretation of Ancient Jade) is a highly theoretical summary of the study of etiquette and jade at that time. This is the theoretical basis for the enduring jade carving art in China, and it is the spiritual pillar of China people's 7,000-year-old jade-loving fashion.
China has a history of 7,000 years of jade use and 2,500 years of jade research, which has earned China the reputation of "Jade Country". The early history, long duration, wide distribution, numerous shapes, exquisite craftsmanship and deep influence of ancient jade articles in China are beyond the reach of any other country. In the long-term historical process, China people have formed a deep-rooted national psychology of worshipping and loving jade, and their deification, spiritual concept and special function view of jade are rooted here. As an important part of Chinese civilization, jade culture itself has an immeasurable and far-reaching influence in thousands of years of civilization history in China. The famous scholar Joseph Needham even said in the History of Science and Technology in China: "The love for jade can be said to be one of the cultural characteristics of China, which inspires sculptors, poets and painters."
Jade has a wide range of connotations in the study of China culture. Xu Shen said in Shuo Wen Jie Zi that jade and stone are beautiful and virtuous. The so-called five virtues refer to the five characteristics of jade. All beautiful stones with tough texture, crystal luster, bright colors, dense and transparent organization and far-reaching soothing sound are considered as jade. According to this standard, jade in the eyes of the ancients includes not only real jade (hornblende), but also colored stone jade such as serpentine, turquoise, malachite, agate, crystal, amber and ruby. Therefore, when appreciating ancient jade, we should not only use modern scientific knowledge to identify the pros and cons, but also have a historical perspective.
China has a wise saying that "stones from other mountains can attack jade", which tells the true meaning of cutting jade. In fact, the outstanding jade in nature is not carved, but is polished into a designed finished product with emery, timely, garnet and other "jade-solving sand" with hardness higher than that of jade, supplemented by water. Therefore, in jargon, making jade is not called carving jade, but treating jade, or cutting, grinding and grinding jade. The skill of cutting jade is superb, but the tools for processing jade are simple. Until modern times, China people have been using traditional tools, such as wire saws, disks made of steel and wrought iron, round wheels, drilling machines, semi-disks and wooden lathes to make jade articles. In the Neolithic Age and Bronze Age before the invention of iron, most tools were even made of wood and bamboo, bones and sandstone. It's a miracle that such primitive tools can make such exquisite jade articles.
Most of the ancient jade we saw in the early prehistoric period were jade knives, yufu, jade needles and other jade articles. Then there appeared jade ritual vessels (ritual vessels), such as jade cong and trident in Liangzhu culture, and some pictographic jade articles, such as Yulong and Jade Pig in Hongshan Culture, which should be made as national totems. Jade in this period is not entirely jade in the modern sense, but can be jade, or just a little more beautiful stone, such as tremolite ore coexisting with metamorphic marble ore. From the late Neolithic Age to the Bronze Age, it was difficult to see jade tools in the mainstream cultural areas of China, and instead, a large number of jade wares and accessories appeared, such as Yulong, Yufeng and Yu He unearthed in Muhaoping of Shang Dynasty. At this time, nephrite has been widely used to make utensils.
From Qin and Han Dynasties to the third generation of Sui and Tang Dynasties, jade has always been the exclusive ornament of emperors and nobles. In the Song Dynasty, the economy was developed and the business was prosperous. Due to the technical progress of handicraft industry, jade processing has become more convenient and fast, and the wind of playing with jade and enjoying jade is prevalent. At this time, a large number of beautifully made, exquisitely processed and wonderfully conceived jade articles and Yu Pei appeared.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the production and appreciation of jade reached its peak, and the varieties were more colorful, ranging from jade head needles and jade buckles to whole jade screens, jade mountains and jade boats. Princes and nobles often use jade to make daily utensils, such as jade bowls, cups and pots. Generally speaking, white jade (especially sheep fat white jade produced in Xinjiang) is the best, followed by topaz, sapphire and miscellaneous jade (such as Nanyu jade and Henan jade).
Jade was introduced into the Central Plains in the early Qing Dynasty, and its breathtaking green immediately won the hearts of Chinese people. Jade ornaments made of jade are very popular and have become a fashion that people are scrambling to chase. But in the eyes of traditional China people, jade ornaments made of jadeite are far less than those made of ancient jade. Today, if we pick up a piece of jade, we will only evaluate its color, texture and production. But when we see an ancient jade and appreciate its shape, dark color and material, we will feel a strong sense of national pride in our hearts. The reason is that ancient jade contains the precipitation of China's 5,000-year civilization and the national spirit of China people.