Culture of the Song dynasty

Trends in painting styles amongst the gentry notably shifted from the Northern (960–1127) to Southern Song (1127–1279) periods, influenced in part by the gradual embrace of the Neo-Confucian political ideology at court.

The emphasis laid upon landscape painting in the Song period was grounded in Chinese philosophy; Taoism stressed that humans were but tiny specks amongst vast and greater cosmos, while Neo-Confucianist writers often pursued the discovery of patterns and principles that they believed caused all social and natural phenomena.

The scholar-artists considered that painters who concentrated on realistic depictions, who employed a colorful palette, or, worst of all, who accepted monetary payment for their work were no better than butchers or tinkers in the marketplace.

One of the greatest landscape painters given patronage by the Song court was Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145), who painted the original Along the River During Qingming Festival scroll, one of the most well-known masterpieces of Chinese visual art.

Song developments in poetry included the works of the social critic and pioneer of the "new subjective style" Mei Yaochen (1002–1060), the politically controversial yet renowned master Su Shi (1037–1101), the eccentric yet brilliant Mi Fu (1051–1107), the premier Chinese female poet Li Qingzhao (1084–1151), and many others.

The high court Chancellor Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), ardent Neo-Confucian Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), the great calligrapher Huang Tingjian (1045–1105), and the military general Xin Qiji (1140–1207) were especially known for their ci poetry, amongst many others.

Chancellor Sima Guang (1019–1086), the political nemesis of Wang Anshi (1021–1086), was responsible for heading a team of scholars that compiled the enormous historical work of the Zizhi Tongjian, a universal history completed in 1084 AD with a total of over 3 million written Chinese characters in 294 volumes.

Shen Kuo published his Dream Pool Essays in 1088 AD, an enormous encyclopedic book that covered a wide range of subjects, including literature, art, military strategy, mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, geology, geography, metallurgy, engineering, hydraulics, architecture, zoology, botany, agronomy, medicine, anthropology, archeology, and more.

[16] As for Shen Kuo's equally brilliant peer, Su Song created a celestial atlas of five different star maps, wrote the 1070 AD pharmaceutical treatise of the Ben Cao Tu Jing (Illustrated Pharmacopoeia), which had the related subjects of botany, zoology, metallurgy, and mineralogy, and wrote his famous horological treatise of the Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao in 1092 AD, which described in full detail his ingenious astronomical clock tower constructed in the capital city of Kaifeng.

However, historian Stephen H. West asserts that the Northern Song era capital Kaifeng was the first real center where the performing arts became "an industry, a conglomerate involving theatre, gambling, prostitution, and food.

"[30] The rise in consumption by merchants and scholar-officials, he states, "accelerated the growth of both the performance and the food industries," asserting a direct link between the two due to their close proximity within the cities.

[39] Themes enjoyed in stage skits varied from satires about corrupt officials to comedy acts with titles like "Setting fire when delivering the soup," "Raising a ruckus in the winehouse," "The peony smells best when the wine is stolen," and "Catching a monkey in a restaurant.

[42] Surprisingly, actors on stage did not have a wholesale monopoly on theatrical entertainment, as even vendors and peddlers in the street, singing lewd songs and beating on whatever they could find to compensate for percussion instruments, could draw crowds.

"[37] Theatrical stunts were also performed to gain attention, such as fried-glutinous-rice-ball vendors hanging small red lamps on portable bamboo racks who would twirl them around to the beat of a drum to dazzle crowds.

For the austere and hardworking peasantry, annual festivals and holidays provided a time of joy and relaxation, and for the poorest it meant a chance to borrow food and alcoholic drink so that everyone could join in the celebration.

[47] Preparations for the New Years festival took place over a month's time, as people busied themselves painting door gods, crafting paper streamers with lucky characters for "welcoming the spring," making printed images of Zhong Kui, and cooking special kinds of foods such as porridge of red haricot beans.

[49] Meng Yuanlao (active 1126–1147) recalled in Dongjing Meng Hua Lu (Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital) how the earlier Northern Song capital at Kaifeng would host festivals with tens of thousands of colorful and brightly lit paper lanterns hoisted on long poles up and down the main street, the poles also wrapped in colorful silk with numerous dramatic paper figures flying in the wind like fairies.

For example, the martial demonstration in 1110 AD to entertain the court of Emperor Huizong, when it was recorded that a large fireworks display was held alongside Chinese dancers in strange costumes moving through clouds of colored smoke in their performance.

However, the older practice continued to be customary for some time, with a Imperial birthday banquet in the Southern Song reportedly involving "officials sitting on sheets with purple edges on the ground".

Southern Song scholar Lu You testified that the custom of low-level furniture was preserved in the palace but became phased out among the commoners, and the etiquette rules against the use of chairs was increasingly outdated.

[57] The types of clothes worn by peasants and commoners were largely uniform in appearance (with color standard of black and white),[58] and so was the case for the upper class and elite.

In the upper class, each stratified grade in the social hierarchy was distinguished by the color and specific ornamentation of robes, the shape and type of headgear, and even the style of girdle worn.

[57] From the Song period, works such as Dongjing Meng Hua Lu (Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital) preserve lists of names for entrées and food dishes in customer menus for restaurants and taverns, as well as for feasts at banquets, festivals and carnivals, and modest dining.

[63] Other additional seasonings and ingredients included walnuts, turnips, crushed Chinese cardamon kernels, fagara, olives, ginkgo nuts, citrus zest, and sesame oil.

[62] The memory and patience of waiters had to be keen; in the larger restaurants, serving dinner parties that required twenty or so dishes became a hassle if even a slight error occurred.

[75] The rich are known to have consumed an array of different meats, such as chicken, shellfish, fallow deer, hares, partridge, pheasant, francolin, quail, fox, badger, clam, crab, and many others.

This renewed interest in the Confucian ideals and society of ancient times coincided with the decline of Buddhism, which was then largely regarded as foreign, and as offering few solutions for practical problems.

The continuing popularity of Buddhism can be seen with strong evidence by achievements in the arts, such as the 100 painting set of the Five Hundred Luohan, completed by Lin Tinggui and Zhou Jichang in 1178.

Although Emperor Wen of Sui (r. 581–604) abolished the Nine Ranks in favor of a Confucian-taught bureaucracy drafted through civil service examinations, he also heavily sponsored the popular ideology of Buddhism to legitimate his rule.

[82]In conclusion on how to root out the 'evil' that was Buddhism, Ouyang Xiu presented a historical example of how it could be uprooted from Chinese culture: Of old, in the time of the Warring States, Yang Zhu and Mo Di were engaged in violent controversy.

Song Dynasty officials listening to guqin .
A painting of people boating in a lake. There is a small island in the center of the lake, connected to the mainland by an arched bridge. The entire lake is surrounded by a low wall.
Games in the Jinming Pool , by Zhang Zeduan, a painting depicting the imperial gardens of Kaifeng , Northern Song.
A small section of A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains , by Wang Ximeng
A faded painting with three people on two horses. The nearer horse is black, and a man sits on it facing the farther horse. The farther horse is white and a woman sits on it, holding a small child.
Anonymous painting of Cai Wenji and her Xiongnu husband (Zuoxianwang) dating from the Southern Song.
A handle-less jug which has a small bottom, a wide middle, and a very small opening at the top. The jug is white porcelain with a tan illustration of leaves or a vine wrapping around the entirety of the jug.
Song ding ware porcelain bottle, 11th century.
A green jug which is small at the bottom, wide near the middle, and has a tall, narrow opening at the top. The jug has a handle on one side and a carved bird head on the other side, bot connected to the top of the jug. The body of the jug has a flower or leaf pattern carved into it.
A vase with a phoenix-headed spout, gray sandstone with celadon coating, 10th century.
Four lines of vertically oriented Chinese characters. The two on the left are formed from a continuous line, the calligraphy equivalent of cursive. The two on the right use a more traditional multiple stroke writing style.
Chinese calligraphy of mixed styles written by Song dynasty poet Mi Fu (1051–1107)
A portrait oriented painting of a blue butterfly hovering to the left of a branch with hanging white flowers attached to it.
A butterfly and wisteria flowers, by Xü Xi (c. 886 – c. 975), painted around 970
A white, handle-less jar with a small base, a wider body, and then a long, thin, opening at the top. Four flower-shaped ornaments are attached to the point where the body and the stem of the jug meet.
Funerary vase and cover, stoneware in the Longquan celadon style; from Zhejiang province, Northern Song era, 10th or 11th century.
Three young boys sit and watch as a fourth boy dangles puppets from behind a small booth set up in a garden.
"A Children's Puppet Show " (傀儡婴戏图轴), a painting by Liu Songnian (刘松年 1174–1224 AD)
Two young girls play with a toy consisting of a long feather attached to a stick, while a cat watches them. There is a large rock formation and a flowering tree to the left of the girls and the cat.
A 12th-century painting by Su Hanchen; a girl waves a peacock feather banner like the one used in dramatical theater to signal an acting leader of troops.
A long, landscape-oriented segment of scroll depicting throngs of people, mainly men, crossing a bridge over a large river. The atmosphere is chaotic.
A small section of the Qingming Shang He Tu ( Along the River During Qingming Festival ), a large horizontal scroll painting by Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145)
A long, landscape-oriented scroll segment depicting twenty-two people, both men and women, in elegant garb at a party. Near the center of the scroll five women in light colored robes play flutes while a man in a black outfit plays a wooden instrument composed of a stick and a triangular block. At the far right of the scroll is an area with two men and two women behind a curtain wall, staring off canvas.
A half-section of the 12th-century Song remake of the Night Revels of Han Xizai , original by Gu Hongzhong ; [ 50 ] the female musicians in the center of the image are playing transverse bamboo flutes and guan , and the male musician is playing a wooden clapper called paiban .
A portrait-oriented scroll depicting a man in thick red robes, black pointed shoes, and a bucket-shaped black hat with long, thin protrusions coming out horizontally from the bottom of the hat, sitting on a throne.
A painting of Emperor Zhenzong of Song , showing the long robes and official headgear of the emperor. This type of headgear, along with the headgear of officials and merchants, was made of black-colored silk . [ 55 ]
Scholars wearing zhiduo -robes and rujin (儒巾) headscarf. Various kinds of headscarves became fashionable among the commoners and the educated gentry
A bowl of reddish-purple, oval-shaped fruits with raisin texture.
Dried jujubes such as these were imported to Song China from South Asia and the Middle East. An official from Canton was invited to the home of an Arab merchant, and described the jujube as thus: "This fruit is the color of sugar, its skin and its pulp are sweet, and it gives the impression, when you eat it, of having first been cooked in the oven and then allowed to dry." [ 62 ]
Song dynasty painting showing commoners engaged in tea competition.
Twelve people gather around an outdoor table decorated with a black tablecloth, several potted plants, and dozens and dozens of small dishes. Most of the people are talking with one another. Off to the side a servant stands watching, and in the bottom of the painting four people are crowded around a smaller table set up as a staging area for the preparation of tea.
A Chinese painting of an outdoor banquet, a Song dynasty painting and possible remake of a Tang dynasty original.
A wooden carving of a female human figure, sitting with one knee on the ground and one knee pointing up, with a hand resting on that knee. The carving includes loose fitting clothing, which is covered mainly in gold foil.
A wooden Bodhisattva statue from the Song dynasty
A portrait of an older, balding man in a half pale green and half sky blue robe. He is sitting on an armchair holding a thin wooden stick, possibly a folded up fan.
Portrait of the Chinese Zen Buddhist Wuzhun Shifan , painted in 1238 AD.
A small, green-grey statuette of a lion, sitting down and looking upwards. The lion's limbs are thin and angular.
A seated lion statue, celadon , from Yaozhou, Shaanxi , 11th to 12th century
A portrait-oriented painting depicting six figures, five elderly, balding men, and one younger attendant, washing clothing on the edge of a river. The background is painted in dark colors while the figures are painted in white and light colors.
Luohan Laundering , Buddhist artwork of five luohan and one attendant, by Lin Tinggui , 1178 AD