Chapter 2 Section 2 Religion and Aesthetics

In the Han Dynasty, Taoism was born in China and Buddhism was introduced.Religion gradually exerts influence in people's spiritual life.Taoism believes that famous mountains are places where gods live, so believers go up to the mountains to practice Taoism in order to achieve Taoism and become immortals.Buddhism requires believers to completely change their secular desires and seek liberation through painstaking practice.For the purpose of teaching and self-cultivation, they regard famous mountains and scenic spots as "fairy mountains and Buddhist kingdoms" that are beyond the mundane, and they regard them as ideal places for religious activities.The main difference between Taoism, Buddhism and the worship of natural gods is that the former worships human gods and ghosts, while the latter worships natural gods. "The world's famous mountain monks account for most of them." The believers occupy famous mountains and scenic spots to carry out religious activities, not to worship mountain gods and water gods.

During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, visiting famous mountains and rivers has become a new fashion for scholar-bureaucrats and literati, and natural landscapes have become an independent aesthetic object for people to visit.Poets, painters, scholars, officials, monks and Taoists who love famous mountains and rivers and express their love for mountains and rivers often gather among famous mountains and rivers to appreciate mountains and rivers, talk about metaphysics, recite poems and paintings, build temples and temples, practice Zen and enlightenment, and form friends.It can be seen that many people with cultural literacy participated in the development and construction of China's famous mountain scenery from the very beginning, which has infiltrated profound cultural content.The beautiful natural scenery inspired them, so they realized it in their chests and published it in pen and ink, creating a new era of Chinese landscape culture.In the history of Chinese literature, landscape poetry was born, and in the history of Chinese painting, the school of landscape painting was born.Both landscape poems and landscape paintings are the result of the author's friendship with the natural landscape after visiting famous mountains and great rivers.For example, Xie Lingyun, the founder of landscape poetry, is famous for his indulgent travels in famous mountains and rivers. Zong Bing, a landscape painter, has been "living in hills and drinking valleys" for more than 30 years. Therefore, it has a profound aesthetic experience and reaches the state of being in a state of perfection.Let the aesthetic subject enter the free kingdom of landscape aesthetics, so as to obtain the greatest enjoyment of natural beauty.

The functions of famous mountains and great rivers have undergone a great transformation from nature worship to religion and aesthetics through the development of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and produced a new landscape culture, including: landscape aesthetics, landscape poetry, landscape painting, landscape literature, landscape gardens, landscape Music, landscape architecture, religious culture, landscape geography, and philosophical thoughts about landscape, etc.The term and concept of landscape also emerged from this period.Landscapes play an important role in the spiritual and cultural life of people, especially literati and bureaucrats.

During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the economy was developed, the culture was prosperous, and the religion flourished. Scholars and scholars visited famous mountains and rivers, and mass pilgrimage to mountains and sightseeing activities were quite popular, which greatly promoted the construction of famous mountains and rivers. Not only temples, palaces and other religious There are many cultural landscapes such as libraries, academies, pavilions and cliff carvings dotted among the natural mountains and rivers.Even temples and temples are all permeated with the brilliance of landscape culture.Many literati, celebrities, scholars, officials and travelers traveled all over the world in pursuit of the beauty of natural landscapes.They express their love for mountains and rivers, touch the scenery to create emotions, express them in pen and ink, write them in literature, and reproduce them in calligraphy and painting, pushing the landscape culture to a historical peak. The huge influence it has produced in the spiritual and cultural life of the entire society is no longer under religious culture. .

Li Bai, who "loved to travel to famous mountains all his life", wandered the world with the lofty sentiments of "everywhere is a former residence", and wrote a lot of immortal masterpieces for famous mountains and rivers.Li Bai's poems are broad and magnificent because they are inspired by famous mountains and rivers; the magnificent rivers and mountains are also more colorful because of Li Bai's poems.Su Dongpo was relegated many times in his life and wandered all over the world, but he loved the mountains and rivers of his motherland and sang happily when he saw famous mountains and rivers.He was deeply impressed by the magnificence of the Yangtze River, and sang "the great river goes east, the waves wash away, and a romantic man through the ages".He loves the beauty of the West Lake, and wrote a masterpiece of "the water is shining brightly and sunny, and the mountains are empty and rainy. If you want to compare the West Lake to the West Lake, it is always suitable to wear light makeup and heavy makeup".Su Dongpo not only loves mountains and rivers, but when he was a local official, he also led the people to dredge and build three West Lakes successively, combining water conservancy projects with landscape construction.The Su Causeway of West Lake in Hangzhou today and the Su Gong Causeway of West Lake in Huiyang, Guangdong are masterpieces of those years.

Guo Xi, a landscape painter in the Song Dynasty, had a deep appreciation of real landscapes. He summarized a set of theories and methods for viewing landscapes in "Shanshui Xun", such as "real landscapes and rivers and valleys, look at them from a distance to get their momentum, and look at them up close. To get its quality".It means to grasp the macroscopic shape of the mountain from a distance, and to observe the essential characteristics of the rocks closely.He also proposed the sensory relationship between people and the landscape environment in different seasons, resulting in different aesthetics and emotions.In the theory of Chinese landscape painting, a vivid and appropriate metaphor is made for the relationship between the natural landscape and the human landscape in the landscape. Haze is the weather, temples, villages and bridges are decorations.”This is still a reference for us to deal with the relationship between natural and human landscapes in the construction of famous mountains and rivers.

The heyday of the Tang Dynasty was also the most prosperous era for the development of religions, especially Buddhism.Buddhist temples are spread all over famous mountains and rivers, and temples enter fairy mountains and caves, which greatly promotes the development and construction of scenic spots.Thousands of people pilgrim to the mountains and visit the mountains and rivers, which is a relatively large-scale tourism method in ancient times.This kind of activity also cultivates people's aesthetic awareness of famous mountains and great rivers and their awareness of protection and construction of scenic spots.

In the Song Dynasty, it was popular to set up academies in famous mountains and rivers, adding new cultural functions to the scenic spots.The famous "Four Great Academies in the World" in the Song Dynasty have become a famous historical and cultural landscape today. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, a large number of famous mountains and rivers and tourist attractions appeared throughout the country. There were not only the traditional five mountains, five towns, Sidu, ten scenic spots and eight scenic spots in provinces, prefectures and counties, but also the Taoist "Thirty-six Caves and Heavens". ", "Seventy-two Blessed Lands" and the Four Famous Mountains of Buddhism and other famous mountains of various systems.In addition, there are many famous scenic tour cities, such as Hangzhou, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Guilin and so on.Most of the 84 national-level scenic spots and provincial-level scenic spots in our country became famous during the Tang and Song Dynasties.

Although there were no major breakthroughs in the development of famous mountains and rivers during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, they were constantly deepened and improved in terms of landscape aesthetics, construction and scientific research.For example, the construction of Wudang Mountain, a famous Taoist mountain by Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, is the most typical and successful example in the history of the construction of famous mountain scenic spots in my country.In modern terms, Wudang Mountain is a state investment, unified planning, unified design, unified construction, and continuous completion.Zhu Di's purpose is to promote the "divine right of the monarch" and use "Xuanyue to rule the world" to consolidate his ruling position.However, Wudang Mountain fully embodies the traditional characteristics of my country's mountain landscape construction in terms of landscape construction, creating a perfect landscape that is dominated by natural landscapes and integrates nature and humanity.Especially in order to maintain the perfection of the natural mountain, Zhu Di personally issued an imperial decree during the design and construction that "the mountain itself should not be repaired at all".It is precisely because the construction of scenic spots in the past dynasties strictly follows the principle of adapting to the situation according to the mountain and not destroying the terrain. Despite thousands of years, the famous mountains and rivers in our country still maintain their beautiful natural features and incorporate appropriate cultural landscapes.These valuable experiences are still important principles guiding us to build Chinese landscape scenic spots today.

A large number of historical and cultural landscapes existing in my country's famous mountains and rivers are basically rebuilt or rebuilt during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.