“瓶花清供”与晚明“长物”美学

The “Table-setting of Vase and Flower” and the “Superfluous” Aesthetics in the Late Ming Dynasty

晚明文人强调"生活艺术化",重视营造日常生活中虚实结合的意境之美;他们追求身体的愉悦感,在"身体-器物"的连结中感受物我浑融的审美体验。"长物"是晚明文人享受身体愉悦感的介质,也是晚明文人美学的主要审美客体,其充分展示了晚明文人"生活艺术化"的审美趣味。作为代表性的"长物","瓶花清供"以其艺术化、情境化、崇尚天趣的特征见证了晚明"长物"美学的别样风采,暗合了晚明文人的自我觉醒与追求美好生活的理想。晚明文人在仕途遇挫,襟抱难开时,对日常生活世界的审美开掘,固然有其"颓废"的嫌疑,然其作为特定生存语境中的精神应对之策——既调适和安顿了自我身心,完成了新的人生选择,也拓展和丰富了古代文人的审美实践;既为中国当代社会"美育"提供了借鉴,也为全球生活美学研究提供了中国的本土经验。

Scholars in the late Ming Dynasty emphasized the "artistic life" and attached importance to the creating of the aesthetics and combing the virtual and real things in daily life. They pursued the pleasure of the body and felt the aesthetic experience in the fusion of objects and themselves in the connection of "body and objects"."Superfluous" is not only the medium for the scholars in the late Ming Dynasty to enjoy the sense of physical pleasure, but also the main aesthetic object for them, which fully demonstrates the scholars’ aesthetic taste of "artistic life" at that time. Representatives, such as "superfluous" and "table-setting of vase and flowers", have witnessed the unique style of "superfluous" aesthetics in the late Ming Dynasty with its artistic, contextualized and nature-advocated characteristics. It coincided with the self-awakening and the pursuit of a better life of the scholars in the late Ming Dynasty. When they were frustrated in their careers, the aesthetic exploration of the daily life, though being regarded as the suspicion of "decadence", was the spiritual response in the specific survival context as it not only adjusted and settled the body and mind of them, completed the new life choice, but also expanded and enriched the aesthetic practice of ancient scholars. Moreover, it not only provides a reference for the "aesthetic education" of contemporary Chinese society, but also provides the study of global life aesthetics with China’s indigenous experience.