Chapter 18 3. Man and Nature

Apart from Ji Shao, what Xie Kun admires the most is Wei Jie. It is a kind of jade article read as Jie.Wei Jie himself lived up to his name, as beautiful as jade.It is said that when he was a boy, he once drove around Luoyang City in a white sheep cart, and the streets were full of discussions: Whose jade-like child is this? From then on, Wei Jie was named "Bi Ren". It's a pity that Bi people don't look at it.When Wei Jie came to Jiankang when he was 27 years old, he died because of the crowds who came to watch from all directions surrounded him like a wall. Of course, Wei Jie is not the only one who is as beautiful as jade.Xia Houxuan and Yu Liang are Yushu, Li Feng and Ji Kang are Yushan, besides Pei Kai who is as famous as Wang Rong, Xia Houxuan's distant nephew Xiahou Zhan, and beautiful man Pan Yue are also called "jade men". Xiahou Zhan and Pan Yue are also known as "Lianbi".

From this point of view, it was the fashion at that time to compare people with jade. So, why did celebrities in the Wei and Jin Dynasties value jade so much? In other words, what is the quality of jade? Pure and noble. In fact, this is the pursuit of Wei and Jin demeanor, because the creators of this demeanor are the gentry.The concept of gentry often embarrasses historians of other nations and countries because there are no corresponding words for translation in their discourse systems.Out of desperation, they had to use the title "nobility". However, the gentry and the nobility cannot be equated.The fundamental difference is that nobles have hereditary titles, while gentry do not.They're not even like knights in medieval Europe, and there's a canonization ceremony where the monarch puts the sword on his right shoulder.Therefore, in order to realize mutual identity and distinguish them from other classes and ethnic groups, the gentry must rely not only on genealogy, but also on external demeanor and internal spirit.

So, what kind of spirit and demeanor can represent the gentry? Noble and pure.Nobility is to distinguish from the humble, and purity is to draw a clear line from the turbid.These two are indispensable, because the gentry is a class with a strong sense of superiority.Their intermarriage must be of the right family, and they cannot sit with someone who is not worthy, even if the latter is a relative of the emperor.One of the reasons why Mao was once called a reed leaning on Yushu was that he came from a poor family. Those born in a poor family must be shabby, and those who are shabby must have no bearing and taste. This is the concept of high-ranking gentry.Although this concept may not be correct and reasonable, it is insisted by famous families.As a result, the powerful Huan Wen proposed to marry Wang Tanzhi's daughter for his son, but was rejected by the old man Wang Shu; Xie An's family was also ridiculed as "newcomers" because they were not a first-class family before the Western Jin Dynasty.

However, the sense of superiority of the gentry is not only related to blood, but also cultural.Therefore, what they pay more attention to is not noble or humble, but voluminous.This is a concept that began to emerge at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The general understanding is roughly: honesty is pure, evil is turbid; Pure and noble, it is called pure and noble. Therefore, those scholar-bureaucrats who insist on their own integrity and taste and do not join forces with the powerful and upstarts are called Qingliu.Their reputation is called Qingwang, their character is called Qingbiao, their speech is called Qingyi, and even the dust they raise is called Qingchen.

This has to be otherworldly. Therefore, the objects, images and images loved by celebrities in the Wei and Jin Dynasties are either pure, bright, crystal clear, graceful, or charming, and almost all of them are used for appreciation of characters. and reviews.For example: Xuanxuan is like the morning glow, drooping like willows in the spring moon, bright like a hundred houses, rotten like a rock under electricity, and solemn like the wind under the pine. Yes, alone, the majesty is like the rising sun, the clear and fresh is like the green willows in spring, the open and clear is like a towering tower, and the eyes are as bright as lightning under the rock, what kind of demeanor and demeanor is that!

There is also Qingfenglangyue, who is almost the image spokesperson of Wei Jin demeanor. But more notable, is the pine. Pine was originally a symbol of morality.This is the meaning of the so-called "after the cold season, you will know that the pines and cypresses will wither".This kind of symbolic meaning also exists in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. A minister named He Qiao was commented as "the dense forest is like a thousand-foot pine", which means the pillar of the country.Therefore, his death is also known as "E'e Ruo Qianzhang Pine Collapse". It was Li Ying who received this kind of praise earlier than He Qiao.Li Ying was the leader of celebrities in the Eastern Han Dynasty, ranking first among the "Eight Talents" in the list of celebrities (please refer to the ninth volume of "History of China, Two Hans and Two Romes").He was evaluated as being like a strong breeze under a strong pine (Su Su Rujin pine under the wind).

This is a symbol of strength of character. Ji Kang also received similar comments.Shan Tao said that Ji Kang was like "the independence of a lonely pine" in normal times, and like "the collapse of a jade mountain" when he was drunk, while others thought that Ji Kang was "serious as the wind under the pine, high and slow".In other words, Li Ying's wind was clear and strong (Su Su), but Ji Kang was blowing up slowly.This kind of Panasonic style obviously has a more elegant and unrestrained charm. In fact, this is also the difference between the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Wei and Jin Dynasties, that is, the Eastern Han Dynasty put more emphasis on morality while the Wei and Jin Dynasties put more emphasis on aesthetics.Moreover, the premise of aesthetics is "the valleys and valleys exist alone".It's no wonder that a person who is excellent and beautiful is called "there is a breeze under the long pine"; it's no wonder that people's perception of mountain waves is like "climbing the mountain", but they feel "quiet and far-reaching".

This is really a beautiful life. Yes, as beautiful as nature. Celebrities in the Wei and Jin Dynasties had indeed surpassed their predecessors in their love for nature.Emperor Jian Wen's sentence "feeling birds, beasts, birds and fish come to relatives" fully expressed their hearts.They not only judge the characters with the breeze and moon, spring willows and strong pines, but also put themselves in the nature and experience indescribable joy from it. Such as Gu Kaizhi and Wang Xianzhi. Gu Kaizhi is a painter and Wang Xianzhi is a calligrapher, but what they like most are the mountains and rivers in Shanyin County, Kuaiji County (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang).Gu Kaizhi's description is: Thousands of rocks compete for beauty, thousands of ravines compete for flow, and the vegetation is covered with clouds, like clouds and rosy clouds.Wang Xianzhi's statement is: From the mountain vagina, the mountains and rivers reflect each other, making people overwhelmed.If it is autumn and winter, it is especially hard to worry about.

Both of them are artists, so their feelings are of course keen, but this ability to feel is not necessarily universal.A monk came back from Jiankang to Kuaiji and passed by Wuzhong and encountered snow. The description of the scene afterwards was equally poetic: the suburbs were still full of people, but the mountains and forests were all white. For such a text, any explanation would be superfluous.What I want to say is only: This is completely different from the previous description of the scenery in "Chu Ci".There, nature and natural phenomena are nothing more than backgrounds for characters or stories.Here, however, it is an independent and purely aesthetic object.

Similarly, the natural world in the eyes of Wei and Jin people is no longer a moral symbol for Confucius or a political bargaining chip for Dong Zhongshu.It can be seen and judged just like real-life characters, only perhaps more beautiful. Heaven and man are still one, but the meaning is different. This is a major turning point in the history of Chinese civilization. The relationship between man and nature has changed from a moral and political one to an aesthetic one, and the resulting civilized achievements are landscape paintings and landscape poems.Although they didn't become popular until after the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Eastern Jin Dynasty undoubtedly opened a precedent in terms of concepts.

The change is not surprising, because the Wei and Jin Dynasties were an aesthetic era, and the most beautiful way of living is nature.In fact, Wei and Jin people love nature because it is natural.Naturally in Chinese, it originally means "naturally so, without artificial".The only thing that can do this is nature.So the Japanese use "natural" to translate nature, which is also very natural. However, just as Chinese landscape paintings cannot be understood as Western landscape paintings, the discovery of nature in the Wei and Jin Dynasties has nothing to do with science.In people's eyes, the natural world is still a part of human society, with willpower and human touch.Therefore, when they stopped moralizing and politicizing the natural world, what developed were two spiritual civilizations other than natural science. This is philosophy and art.