The green bamboo has attracted countless literati throughout the ages. They were inspired by bamboo and created thousands of bamboo myths, poems, calligraphy and paintings, forming an important part of Chinese bamboo culture. .
"The Book of Songs" is my country's first comprehensive collection of poems. There are a large number of bamboo poems in it, 5 of which are mentioned directly and appear 7 times; there are dozens of indirect mentions. For example, "Poetry of Wei Fengqiao" says: "Looking at Qiao, the green bamboo is Yiyi." Historically, there have been different views on the above-mentioned records about bamboo in the Book of Songs, but in fact it is conclusive that it refers to bamboo. The Book of Songs was compiled in the Spring and Autumn Period. Since then, bamboo poems and paintings have been recorded in various classics of various dynasties.
When describing bamboo poetry and painting, we must mention several touching stories of bamboo love. According to "Taiping Yulan", Wang Huizhi (Ziyou) (son of Wang Xi), a great calligrapher of the Jin Dynasty, once "temporarily sent someone to live in an empty house so that he could plant bamboos. Or ask, what's the trouble with staying temporarily?" He chanted for a long time, pointing directly to Bamboo said: "How can one day be without this king!" He has loved bamboo all his life and can be regarded as a good friend of Bamboo. Su Dongpo in the Song Dynasty also had a high opinion of bamboo. He said in a poem "Yu Qian Monk Luyunxuan": "You can eat without meat, but you can't live without bamboo. Without meat, you will be thin, and without bamboo, you will be vulgar." A thin person can still gain weight, but a layman cannot cure it...". Zheng Banqiao, one of the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou", an outstanding artist of the Qing Dynasty, was particularly fond of and good at painting bamboo. He also wrote hundreds of poems on bamboo paintings, which are rich and colorful and unique. He wrote a poem on the eyebrow of the picture "Bamboo and Stone": "Stick to the green mountains and never relax, and take root in the broken rocks. Still standing strong despite all the hardships, regardless of the winds from the south, east, west, and west." He highly praised bamboo's ability to defy adversity and thrive. In the history of the Chinese revolution, many ancestors used bamboo poems and paintings. Among them, the martyr Fang Zhimin was the most typical. He wrote a couplet and hung it in his bedroom to encourage himself: "I have three loves: strange books, horses, beautiful mountains and rivers, and four things planted in my garden." Green pines, green bamboos, white plums and orchids." Even his children were named after pine, bamboo, plum and orchid, which shows the status of bamboo in his heart. At the difficult juncture of the revolution, he wrote a powerful epic: "The snow is weighing down the bamboo head, and it is like mud when it is lowered. A red sun rises, but it is still level with the sky."
my country's traditional painting art has existed since ancient times. It is no accident that we attach great importance to painting bamboo. The noble spiritual outlook and special aesthetic value of bamboo not only inspire the artist's creative inspiration, but also become a model respected by the artist.
The art of painting bamboo plays a considerable role in traditional Chinese painting art. In the mid-Tang Dynasty, bamboo had formed a special painting theme; in the Northern Song Dynasty, Wentong founded the "Huzhou Bamboo School", which was revered as the ink painter by later generations. The originators of bamboo painting; Ke Jiusi, Gao Kegong, and Ni Zan in the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Fu, Xia Chang, and Xu Wei in the Ming Dynasty, and Shi Tao, Zheng Banqiao, Pu Hua, and Wu Changshuo in the Qing Dynasty. They are all the founders of a new style of bamboo painting. It promoted the development of bamboo painting art and made important contributions to the development and improvement of bamboo painting techniques and theories. To this day, China's bamboo painting art still maintains its ever-growing momentum and is considered a unique cultural phenomenon in China.
Bamboo painting was already popular in the Tang Dynasty, and the ink bamboo in traditional Chinese painting was originated in the Tang Dynasty. After the Song Dynasty, bamboo painting became more successful. There are many famous bamboo painters. The great poet Su Dongpo is a master of bamboo painting. His second son Su Guo is a famous bamboo painter. His best friend Wen Yuke is also a master of bamboo painting and has superb skills in bamboo painting. Su Dongpo's painting theory of "being confident" has been favored by ink bamboo painters throughout the ages and followed in traditional painting creations. His "Ink Bamboo Picture", which is known as a wonderful work, can achieve "a rich and unrestrained posture, which is full of sandalwood". Luan Zhixiu has a graceful and graceful appearance that can be moved by the wind and formed without bamboo shoots. His famous article "Wen Yuke Painting Appreciating Flute Valley and Yanzhu" is a masterpiece that has been passed down through the ages. The article says: "To draw bamboo, you must first have bamboo in your heart"...
In ancient my country The use of bamboo has been reflected in myths and legends, and the exact records originated from Yangshao culture. In 1954, Yangshao cultural sites dating back about 6,000 years were excavated in Banpo Village, Xi'an. The symbol "bamboo" could be recognized on the unearthed pottery, indicating that bamboo had been studied and utilized by people before that, that is, The history of our people's research and utilization of bamboo can be traced back to the New Age of 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. Chinese characters originated from the Yangshao culture when primitive society collapsed, and the original symbol of the word "bamboo" should have appeared before that. Bamboo objects were also found at the Hemudu primitive society site in Yuyao County, Zhejiang 7,000 years ago. It can be seen that bamboo was closely related to people's lives during the primitive society. Because only bamboo has been used by people, it is necessary to create a text symbol to represent it.
Research has shown that the Shang Dynasty in my country already knew the various uses of bamboo. One of them is to use bamboo slips, that is, to write words on bamboo slices (sometimes using wood slices), and then string them with ropes. Together they become "book", from which the Chinese character "book" comes. Bamboo slips and wooden slips have preserved for us a large number of precious documents before the Eastern Han Dynasty, such as "Shangshu", "Book of Rites" and "The Analects of Confucius", etc., which were all written on bamboo slips and wooden slips. In the Yin and Shang Dynasties, books written with bamboo sketches were called "bamboo books" and letters written with bamboo sketches were called "bamboo newspapers." The invention of the bamboo pen also played a pioneering role in cultural history. The ink and ink handwriting written by the brush can be seen on the oracle bones, jade pieces and pottery unearthed from the cultural relics of the Yin Dynasty. There is also evidence from the cultural relics unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Marquis Yi in Hubei and the Spring and Autumn and Warring States tombs in Ting'e. Another great use of bamboo is paper making. As early as the 9th century, my country began to use bamboo to make paper, about 1,000 years earlier than Europe. Of course, the big development of bamboo paper will come later. Regarding the use of bamboo to make paper, detailed records were recorded in the "Tiangong Kaiwu" of the Ming Dynasty, with bamboo paper manufacturing diagrams attached. The use of bamboo to make paper marks the great development and achievements of ancient my country's papermaking technology and promotes the prosperity of Chinese culture. In fact, before the emergence of bamboo paper, papermaking tools were inseparable from bamboo. From the beginning of bamboo slips to the emergence of bamboo paper, bamboo has always played an important role in the history of cultural development, playing a direct and indirect role in preserving human knowledge and forming the long-standing and glorious history and culture of the Sinochem nation.
There are many aspects of the use of bamboo in ancient my country. For example, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, our ancestors had made the bamboo tool "Ju" that used levers to lift water, and the "High Rotary Drum" that used bamboo tubes to lift water for irrigation. car". Bamboo also played an important role in the history of weapon development. From the primitive bamboo bow for archery to the trebuchet of the Spring and Autumn Period, the gunpowder arrows and bamboo tube muskets of the Song Dynasty, they are all ancient bamboo weapons.
From the analysis of the bamboo characters in Chinese characters, we can also see the ancient history of the use of bamboo in China. The ancients regarded "neither hard nor soft, neither grass nor wood, small differences, empty and solid, and great harmony." The plant is called bamboo. Starting from the morphological understanding, bamboo was processed and made into items, and the bamboo character was derived from the word "bamboo". As humans' understanding of bamboo continues to improve, bamboo is increasingly used. The number of Bamboo characters will inevitably increase accordingly. The Chinese Cihai (1979 edition) contains a total of 209 Bamboo characters, such as pen, book, book, bamboo slips, articles, chopsticks, cage, flute, sheng, etc. The collection of various dictionaries in the past dynasties is even more impressive. Idioms such as "Bamboo brings peace", "Bamboo with declining silk", "Childhood sweethearts", "Three poles in the sun" also contain interesting allusions related to bamboo. These bamboo texts and idioms involve various fields of society and life. On the one hand, they reflect the increasing understanding and utilization of bamboo by humans. On the other hand, they reflect the role of bamboo in industrial and agricultural production, culture and art, and daily life over the thousands of years of history in China. It plays an important role in many aspects of life.