Research On The Art Creation Of Attached Officials In Han Dynasty

Attached officials(掾史)were important subjects of art creation in Han Dynasty.With respect to a hierarchy or class specific,three main functions of attached officials were related to the creating context and activities:First of all,the administrative functions based on official system.Succeeded to the bureaucracy system of pre-Qin and Qin Dynasty,their duties focused on writing,sealing and criminal supervising within law.In ordered to ensure the efficiency of administrative activities operating,they needed to master words,calligraphy and practical articles.That can be observed by most of the stamps and wooden slips in Han Dynasty from archaeological discoveries.The institutional and individual factors were included in these related documents by applying various forms and styles of calligraphy.Secondly,the social functions based on the hierarchy/class identity.The local talents or relatives/students were hired by officers in official selection.Then they needed to assist officers in public and private affairs using their subsidiary identity.They also can master affairs for their teachers and local clans using talented identity.They advertised the contributions of officers and themselves through inscriptions on the stones,decorations in tombs and clan halls.Also,these activities were usually part of the political and cultural communication.They charged,donated,contacted,coordinated and sometimes participated in calligraphy or writing,so as to connect officers and people,and communicate friends and relatives as a bridge at the meantime.Stone inscriptions with different shapes,funds,styles,and the images regarding to them on decorating tombs and clan halls were derivatives from their social function.The last but not the least,the cultural function based on self-cultivation.Besides the skills of writing,calligraphy and counting,they also should learn Six arts(六艺)to adjust themselves to the election system and Confucian governing conceptions which gradually implemented after the Emperor Wen and Wu.What could make them to be an officer or to be a recluse for learning and teaching were Four-courses(四科),election,examination,self-contribution and clan reputation.As a result,music,calligraphy,poem,inscription and proverb,etc.had been their main subjects and key creations.At the period of Later-Han,more and more Confucian scholar became attached officials,and the identity overlapping and exchanging between attached officials and scholar were very common.As such,plenty of musicians,litterateurs and calligraphers had born.Since the Spring and Autumn period,the system of rite and music had been collapsed,and aristocratic privilege had been down as well.Then the class of scholar obtained more cultural education opportunities,and succeeded the Six arts tradition,but they didn’t have any official position,real estate or clan yet.What they could do only were travelling around aristocracies,and tried to guide the politics by Confucian orthodoxy.As the reform of talents election system had been adopting from Qin Dynasty,especially in Han Dynasty,intellectual took the power again.They acquired real estate and clan,along with the chance to practice and guide politics by Confucian orthodoxy.The attached officials were the biggest group in bureaucrat and intellectual of Han Dynasty,and also in the critical period of art revolution during more than four hundred years.On one hand,they took charge of culture and art by writing articles,administrating art institutions and supervising talents cultivation to assist government.On the other hand,they succeeded conception of Six arts of Confucian and cultivated their own moral character.Meanwhile,the trend of knowledge got to be prevailed.They implemented and applied the ideas and behaviors of swimming in artistry(游艺)into personal and political lives through art creation,criticizing and writing,so the political power could be restricted by Confucian orthodoxy.Attached officials not only extended the subjects of art creation,but also upgraded and improved the art creativity from the beginning of early Han Dynasty’s magistrates to the ending of later Han Dynasty’s scholars along with more than 400 years’ art practice.They also profoundly influenced and impacted the art development of Northern and Southern Dynasties and even the dynasties after it.