论明式家具的场所适应性及其造型设计中的“天地阴阳”原理

Discussion on the Social Adaptability of Ming-Style Furniture and the Theory of “Heaven & Earth/Yin & Yang” in Its Modeling Design

文章旨在探讨明式家具的场所适应性及其设计原理。通过展示图像史料中文人风格(明式)家具在民间场所和宫廷场所中所呈现的和谐感,以及存世的明式民间家具和明式宫廷家具在造型上的相似性,指出明式家具的场所适应性及其造型的非阶级性特征。以此为切入点,结合造型分析、例证和分类归纳等方法探索明式家具造型的设计规律,并以儒道哲学对其进行解读,论证“天地阴阳”原理与明式家具场所适应性之间的关系。该原理为明式家具的造型设计提供了原则和依据,表现在用材截面的形状、杆件之间的结合形式、杆件线条的曲直所带来的视觉效果、杆件之间的比例关系,以及其他细节的处理等方面,从而在整体上赋予了明式家具“中和”的美学品格,并体现了儒道哲学追求“天爵”的价值取向。相比清式家具的造型设计强调阶级差别而追求“人爵”的价值取向,明式家具在境界上更胜一筹,对当代设计也更具启示意义。

This paper aimed to explore Ming-style furniture’s social adaptability and its design theory. Through exhibiting the harmonious effect of Ming-style furniture’s presence in folk and court places, and through exhibiting the similarity of extant Ming-style furniture from royal families and that from the ordinary, it revealed the character of Ming-style furniture’s social adaptability and nonclass nature in its model. By analyzing Ming-style furniture’s modeling design, inducing its design principles and decoding them with Confucian and Taoist philosophy, it expounded on and proved the relationship between the “Heaven & Earth/Yin & Yang” theory and Ming-style furniture’s social adaptability. This theory provided Ming style furniture’s modeling design with principles, which were revealed in the wood member’s cross section shape, the way they joined, their curve and straightness, the proportion among them, and other detail designs. These design principles endowed Ming-style furniture with the beauty of neutrality and embodied the value of natural nobility that Confucian and Taoist philosophy pursued. In contrast with the design of Qing-style furniture, which emphasized class distinctions and thus pursued artificial nobility, the design of Ming-style furniture was of higher spiritual state, and therefore of more instructive significance to contemporary design.