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March 11, 2024

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Silk museum showcases 
clothing, vessels used in
Confucian ceremonies

By Wu Huixin | 00:00 UTC+8 March 11, 2024 | Print Edition

The wearing of ceremonial costumes and the usage of ritual vessels are vital parts of rites in Confucianism. The China National Silk Museum is showcasing etiquette-related antiquities on loan from the Confucius Museum in Shandong Province through May 26.

Li (礼) is a classical Chinese word widely used in Confucian and post-Confucian Chinese philosophy. The English equivalent of li is “rites,” but when referring to its realization in the context of human individual and social behavior, it has also been translated to “mores.”

Li embodies the entire web of interaction between humanity, human objects and nature. Confucius included in his discussions of li such things as learning, ceremonies, tea drinking, governance, music and costumes.

Visitors can form a well-rounded picture of how li was interpreted millennia ago through the exhibits on view. The exhibition also shows the collaborative research results of the two museums.

The Confucius Museum in Shandong Province is believed to be China’s top-flight venue collecting thousands of vessels and costumes related with ancient rites from the pre-Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) to the Republic of China (1912-1949). The China National Silk Museum is the country’s largest silk research organization, which has been conserving and restoring historic textile materials and researching silk for years.

The exhibition includes 10 national top-notch Confucian treasures made during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. Among them, a Qing Dynasty gilded copper bell is being displayed to the public for the first time.

Music played a paramount role in Confucian rites. In ancient China, an octave was divided into 12 pitches to form a standardized gamut. This gamut served as a fundamental tool for tuning and was preserved in the form of bells and pipes.

The displayed bell is also named jiazhong (夹钟), which is used as a musical interval that encompasses three semitones. Jiazhong is one bell of the entire set of bianzhong, which dominated the ritual music in olden times. These bells were used as polyphonic musical instruments. They were hung in a frame and struck with a mallet.

Bianzhong held an unparalleled status in ancient Chinese music for millennia. Historians see them as the origin of traditional Chinese music, especially royal music.

The Ming Dynasty dragon-patterned ding (鼎) is also a ritual vessel used in Confucianism. Ding had varied shapes and designs adhering to specific manufacturing criterion, and each had a particular name. The vessels used to hold grain were named gui (簋), while those containing meat were called ding.

The use of food containers stuck to a rigid system. They were divided into five levels, each with a specific number of vessels. The top level had nine ding and eight gui, which were only for the king. The lowest level had only one ding, for court officials.

Wugong (五供) is another set of vessels used to worship ancestors and gods. It includes an incense burner, two vases and two candlesticks. The exhibition shows a set of Qing-Dynasty cloisonné enameled wugong, which reflects the aesthetic values and skill of artisans at the time.

Cloisonné is a form of decorative enamelwork where intricate designs created with copper, silver, or fine gold wires on metal vessels are either filled with powdered, colored enamel, or painted on with enamel before being fired in a kiln.

The patterns in wire are painstakingly made by craftsmen using tweezers and custom-made pliers. Copper is considered the most suitable material since it is cheap, light and easily hammered and stretched. A piece of cloisonné takes hundreds of steps to finish, requiring both great care and creativity from a craftsman. In ancient times, cloisonné ritual vessel was only for the royal family’s use.

The wearing of ceremonial caps, embroidered robes, patterned silks and mourning clothes are vital parts of li in Confucianism. The exhibition shows ritual costumes from Confucius’s descendants living in Ming and Qing dynasties, including chiluoyi (赤罗衣) and zaoluoyi (皂罗衣), which were worn on important occasions, such as plantings, harvests, honoring the dead and birthdays of Confucius.

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