The monotonous single eyelid in the beauty picture may be realistic in the Jin and Tang Dynasties. Looking up, you can see that both men and women have single eyelids. Naturally, it is impossible for all painters to have double eyelids, just as western painters do not paint westerners with single eyelids. But after the Song Dynasty, painting a beauty as a single eyelid became a procedure. The formation of the program is either due to Chen and Sean, or due to the long-term aesthetic restriction with the north as the cultural center. In a word, before China people's aesthetics were surpassed by western aesthetics, China people had their own standards for the identification of beauty.
First, the decline of traditional aesthetics.
Although the male and female figures in the portrait have both single eyelids and double eyelids, the beautiful women in the pictures of ladies in past dynasties are all single eyelids without exception. Why is this? The reason is simple: portrait painting must be faithful to the facts, but there is no such restriction on painting beautiful women. As long as you follow the agreed aesthetics, you can draw your own beauty. The aesthetics of past dynasties are not static. For example, people in the Tang Dynasty advocated beauty and fullness, while people in the Ming and Qing Dynasties advocated exquisiteness and gentleness. The only constant thing was their preference for slender and single eyelids. In painting, from the oldest existing figure painting-The Picture of Women's History by Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, and even before the Anti-Japanese War, the preference for single eyelid and slender process has never changed.
The monotonous single eyelid in the beauty picture may be realistic in the Jin and Tang Dynasties. Looking up, you can see that both men and women have single eyelids. Naturally, it is impossible for all painters to have double eyelids, just as western painters do not paint westerners with single eyelids. But after the Song Dynasty, painting a beauty as a single eyelid became a procedure. The formation of the program is either due to Chen and Sean, or due to the long-term aesthetic restriction with the north as the cultural center. In a word, before China people's aesthetics were surpassed by western aesthetics, China people had their own standards for the identification of beauty.
This standard of China people was completely destroyed before and after the Anti-Japanese War. I once visited the "Centennial Prints Poster Exhibition" in the Chiang Kai-shek Art Museum. From the "Moon Brand Painting" on display, we can roughly see the changing process of the power contrast between China and the West. Yue Pai painting originated in Shanghai in the early 20th century, and it is a kind of beauty advertisement painting with western painting techniques. The beautiful women painted on the cards at the beginning of the month are delicate, with slender phoenix eyes and single eyelids. In the later period, the body is generally strong and handsome, and the eye type is mostly double eyelids and big eyes. The trajectory of the transition can be clearly found.
Looking through picture books often, I accidentally found an interesting phenomenon: all the beautiful women in the pictures of ladies in past dynasties were single eyelids, and I didn't see any of them. Why is this? I started thinking. Single eyelid is one of the characteristics of Mongolian people, and its cause is that there is more fat above the upper eyelid, forming folds to cover the upper eyelid. So, the ancient Han people were "pure" Mongols?
Second, national integration.
This change can be seen from the murals and sculptures in the Tang Dynasty. There are many Hu people with convex noses and concave eyes in murals and sculptures. Double eyelids have also appeared, but they don't seem to appear on the faces of Han people. Double eyelids have not appeared in large numbers, which may be related to the fact that these murals and sculptures exist in the north. At that time, the north was still the cultural center of China, and the nomadic people such as Xiongnu and Xianbei assimilated by the Han nationality in the north should all be quite "pure" Mongolians. Although the genetic structure of the northern Han nationality has changed, as far as eyelids are concerned, the single eyelid, one of the ethnic characteristics of the Mongolian people, does not seem to be greatly affected. In the beautiful women handed down from ancient times in the Tang Dynasty, everyone has a pair of slender phoenix eyes and a single eyelid. This should reflect the actual situation of physical anthropology at that time, not just for aesthetic considerations.
Similar to the great ethnic integration in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, it happened again in the Song Dynasty. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, the cultural center of China has moved to the Yangtze River valley. The expansion of the Han nationality to the south has made many ethnic groups in Southeast Asia integrate into the Han nationality. At the same time, Liao (Khitan), Jin (Manchu) and other aliens who invaded the north were assimilated by the Han nationality. Since the Yuan Dynasty, most of the indigenous people in the south have been sinicized, and the Han people in the north have not added a lot of new blood. The genetic structure of the Han people in the north and south has basically been finalized.
From the perspective of ethnology, the Han nationality should be regarded as a cultural identity, not a nation. A Uighur friend of China Encyclopedia Publishing House in Beijing once talked to me about this problem. He said, "What is the Han nationality? No one has ever made it clear. In my opinion, it is just a messy group outside 55 ethnic minorities. " Although he made some jokes, it was not unreasonable. With the same ideographic characters, Confucianism and the concept of "the world" as the cohesive force, the Han nationality firmly unites ethnic groups with different dialects and even blood, and becomes a super-large nation. In human history, similar examples are very rare.
Thirdly, the information of portrait painting.
Painting in Song Dynasty attached importance to realism, with diverse themes and not avoiding secularism. From the figure paintings in the Song Dynasty, we should be able to get a glimpse of the physique and shape of the Song people. From about the Yuan Dynasty, literati painters replaced professional painters and became the mainstream of painting. Literati painting pays attention to their own spiritual feelings, not to whether the objects depicted are similar. When literati paintings swept through the painting world, only portraits and folk temple murals were unaffected. Portrait painters are often regarded as painters, but they all need portrait painters to be realistic and vivid, from the imperial court to the people. A lot of interesting information can be seen from the portraits handed down from generation to generation.
The author once looked through the picture books at hand and found that among the emperors of past dynasties, Song Taizu (Zhao Kuangyin) had a single eyelid, while his younger brother Song Taizong (Zhao Guangyi) had a double eyelid; Yuan Shizu (Kublai Khan) has a single eyelid, but his queen (Csobor) has double eyelids; The ancestors of Ming Taizu, Ma Huanghou and Ming Dynasty had single eyelids, while Xuanzong of Ming Dynasty had double eyelids. Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty and Sejong of the Qing Dynasty (Yongzheng) both had single eyelids, but the emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty and his noble lady Hui Xian had double eyelids ... Among the painters of past dynasties, Song Huizong, Ni Zan (Yunlin), Yun (Nantian) and Jinnong (Dongxin) all had single eyelids, while Shen Zhou () and Xu Wei had single eyelids.
If you look up more portraits of the ancients, I believe you can get the ratio of single and double eyelids in the north and south. If we compare it with today's ratio, we may get some interesting information. Taking Taiwan Province Province as an example, the genetic structure of people in Taiwan Province Province has changed obviously. 1949 Du Dong's150,000 soldiers and civilians not only brought a new culture to Taiwan Province province, but also changed the genetic composition of people in Taiwan Province province. This historical change provides excellent research materials for ethnogenetics, anthropology and sociology.
Fourth, the integration of southern nationalities.
The increase of double eyelids after the Tang dynasty may be related to the mixing of Hu people (Caucasian race) in the western regions and the development of the south. In the Tang Dynasty, a large number of conference semifinals from the western regions came to China, and it was impossible not to marry the Han people. On the other hand, although the indigenous people in the south belong to Mongolian race, they are mixed with Mediterranean (Caucasian race) and short black descent. It used to be distributed in South China (even Central China). As the Han nationality expanded to the south, some of them were assimilated and some fled to the south. From Indo-China Peninsula people, Malaysians and South China ethnic minorities, we can see the primitive form of South China aborigines.
These facts tell us that with the national integration, the genetic structure of the Han nationality has changed again and again, which is already different from the time when the Yellow River Basin was the center.
Although the male and female figures in the portrait have both single eyelids and double eyelids, the beautiful women in the pictures of ladies in past dynasties are all single eyelids without exception. Why is this? The reason is simple: portrait painting must be faithful to the facts, but there is no such restriction on painting beautiful women. As long as you follow the agreed aesthetics, you can draw your own beauty. The aesthetics of past dynasties are not static. For example, people in the Tang Dynasty advocated beauty and fullness, while people in the Ming and Qing Dynasties advocated exquisiteness and gentleness. The only constant thing was their preference for slender and single eyelids. In painting, from the oldest existing figure painting-The Picture of Women's History by Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, and even before the Anti-Japanese War, the preference for single eyelid and slender process has never changed.
The monotonous single eyelid in the beauty picture may be realistic in the Jin and Tang Dynasties. Looking up, you can see that both men and women have single eyelids. Naturally, it is impossible for all painters to have double eyelids, just as western painters do not paint westerners with single eyelids. But after the Song Dynasty, painting a beauty as a single eyelid became a procedure. The formation of the program is either due to Chen and Sean, or due to the long-term aesthetic restriction with the north as the cultural center. In a word, before China people's aesthetics were surpassed by western aesthetics, China people had their own standards for the identification of beauty. Even in the period of the Republic of China, we can see the preference of China's traditional aesthetics for beautiful women with small eyelids and long eyes. This standard of China people was completely destroyed before and after the Anti-Japanese War of the Republic of China. I once visited the "Centennial Prints Poster Exhibition" in the Chiang Kai-shek Art Museum. From the "Moon Brand Painting" on display, we can roughly see the changing process of the power contrast between China and the West. Yue Pai painting originated in Shanghai in the early 20th century, and it is a kind of beauty advertisement painting with western painting techniques. The beautiful women painted on the cards at the beginning of the month are delicate, with slender phoenix eyes and single eyelids. In the later period, the body is generally strong and handsome, and the eye type is mostly double eyelids and big eyes.
China's traditional aesthetics was completely subverted by western styles in the1940s. From then on, the characteristics of China's portrait of beauty became big eyes and double eyelids close to the western devil style. The more beautiful a woman is, the more beautiful she looks like the whitening devil in Britain and France.