A Study On Ritual Costumes In Shandong During The Ming And Qing Dynasties

Ritual costumes are clothing charged with greater symbolic meaning than aesthetic value which has regulatory function and intensively reflect social values,thus being more stable than casual clothing.They highlight the importance of certain rites and imply significant changes in individual life and social relations.The Ming and Qing dynasties witnessed severe divisions of Chinese feudal society,which caused costumes,especially those ritual costumes to revive and merge with Chinese traditions toward a rebirth.In Shandong,the birthplace of Confucian culture,ritual culture exerted influence on people's ideas and dressing.In representative rituals such as marriage,funerals and sacrifices,ritual costumes embodied local folk customs,etiquette systems,moral ethics,political and economic status and cultural norms.During Ming and Qing dynasties,local people's reverence for “rites” and fusion of “folk” was expressed through ritual costumes,demonstrating their innovative spirits,aesthetic values and social conditions.An analysis on ritual costumes in Shandong area during the Ming and Qing dynasties will expand the study scope of traditional ritual costumes and provide sources for other studies on etiquette systems and costumes culture.From a theoretical perspective,the analysis will contribute to passing on the unique local costumes culture.Meanwhile,the analysis is beneficial to exploring and upholding artistic features and cultural elements in the Shandong region,as well as value of costumes,which will further provide a theoretical basis for applied research on the inheritance and innovation of traditional Chinese costumes culture.This study focuses on ritual costumes in Shandong area during the Ming and Qing dynasties.It analyzes the handed-down costumes collected in museums,including the Shandong Museum,Confucius Museum,China National Silk Museum,the Folk Costumes Museum of Jiangnan University,and some folk customs museums in Shandong,the handed-down physical pieces collected by private collectors and ritual costumes unearthed from the Ming and Qing dynasties tombs in Shandong.It conducts studies on these costumes based on data analysis,clustering segmentation and intelligent extraction method,and colorimetric measurement,and meanwhile refers to local historical records,books,papers and other documents.By adopting a theoretical analysis approach,it looks into the changes of ritual costumes used in wedding,burial,funeral and sacrificial ceremonies,to understand the interaction between folk customs and ritual culture and present the overall landscape of these ritual costumes.With the outcomes of data analysis,it extracts symbols from traditional elements and patterns according to modern design principle,then analyzes differences and sameness between styles,structures,sizes,textures,patterns,composition forms and manufacturing techniques of these ritual costumes.The study aims to develop a system for studying ritual costumes in Shandong area during the Ming and Qing dynasties.The following are main conclusions:(1)In the course of rituals' development in Shandong area during the Ming and Qing dynasties,ritual culture and local customs interacted and developed gradually.The wedding and funeral rituals underwent a sequence of changes.In the early Ming dynasty,the de-mongolization and revival of traditional ceremonies helped to maintain these rituals complete.From the middle Ming dynasty to the middle Qing dynasty,the secularization of these ceremonies became a trend as the traditional ideas grew weaker and barriers among different social classes were gradually lifted.By the end of Qing dynasty,wedding and funeral ceremonies developed from complexity to simplicity.In contrast,sacrificial ceremonies to Confucius have been increasingly grander during the Ming and Qing dynasties as the importance attached to sacrificial rites was deeply recognized by the people.(2)Ritual costumes in Shandong area during the Ming and Qing dynasties which were dressed in wedding,funeral,burial and sacrificial ceremonies have displayed respect for traditions,conservatism and characteristics of that period.They preserved the traditions and connotations of previous ritual costumes and maintained a stable style.They followed the collocation type of Tang and Song dresses,upper jackets and lower skirts.Specific to wedding costumes in the Ming dynasty,officials should strictly follow the dressing code while the common people might wear costumes of different types,fabrics and ornaments based on their financial status.The collocation types and styles of wedding dresses of the Ming dynasty were maintained in the Qing dynasty,and yet integrated the characteristics of Qing era when the Manchu people merged with the Han majority.With respect to funeral costumes,they conveyed connotations of folk customs such as kin relations,filial piety and ethics,and meanwhile advanced toward simplification and populace.Concerning burial robes,luxury and bright cotton garments with religious patterns were used,displaying aspiration for warmness and abundance after death and good luck for the offspring.Regarding sacrificial dresses,as the Confucius memorial ceremony in Queli has become a national ritual during the Ming and Qing dynasties,sacrificial costumes were stipulated by officials and collocation types of such costumes required strict compliance.As the costumes in “rites and music” culture serve the purpose of education,they display rich humanitarian connotations.(3)These costumes reflected the Confucianism of harmony between man and nature in their structures and five elements and five colors philosophy.The cruciform structures of these costumes showed balance and symmetry.Such a feature echoed the Confucian thoughts of achieving “harmony between man and nature”.The general characteristics of colors and patterns of ritual costumes were summarized by employing chromaticity measurement and hue-saturation-value(HSV)color model,and segmenting and intelligently extracting patterns through K-means clustering methods.As it turns out,all these costumes embodied the aesthetic value of five elements and five colors philosophy,all featuring saturated and bright colors.Wedding dresses preferred red color.Among them,those in the Ming dynasty boasted stronger brightness contrast between pattern colors and ground colors if compared with those of Qing dynasty.Funeral dresses were usually white,showing respect and mourning to the dead and revealing Confucianism's great impact in the Shandong area.Burial costumes adopted cold colors in high saturation as the base colors.Among them,those in the Ming dynasty had simple but bright colors and intensive color contrast;while those in Qing dynasty employed multiple colors in high brightness but with a weaker color contrast.As to sacrificial dresses,very limited colors were used in the fabric without patterns or with a small proportion of pattern colors,which presented rigorous attitude and solemn feeling in the ceremony.(4)These costumes embodied local features,artistic values and folk customs through their fabrics,patterns and techniques.Resulting from the large-scale plantation of cotton,cotton fabrics instead of silk fabrics were extensively used in ritual costumes,which has broken the boundaries among different social classes.As for pattern features,patterns of these costumes displayed typical features of Han people,with an arrangement emphasizing symmetry and balance between simplicity and complication.In the Ming dynasty,patterns were relatively rough in thick colors.Such themes,contents and composition of patterns were further enriched in the Qing dynasty,forming more elaborate and detailed patterns.These patterns implied auspicious blessings and demonstrated the unique folk customs in the Shandong area.Regarding the techniques,Lu embroidery was a local unique technique applied in these costumes,which was known for cotton threads and vigorous lines and ornamental function.Such embroidery displayed rough style of the northern China and embodied connotations of Shandong folk customs.(5)These ritual costumes were influenced by local natural and social environment.During that period,extreme weather occurred frequently in the chilly Shandong,resulting in the wide usage of cotton garments for ritual costumes through the whole year because cotton symbolized warmness and abundance.Besides,political condition has played a leading role in shaping costumes requirements,causing ritual costumes reflecting interaction between rituals and folk customs in Shandong as influenced by strict dress code and local customs.Additionally,economic development has provided a material basis for the evolution of ritual costumes.As the prosperity of cotton and silk textile industries accelerated the boom of the commercial economy in Shandong,local people's dressing styles transformed from simplicity to luxury.In a sense,using cotton fabrics to make ritual costumes reflected the progress of society.Lastly,educational promotion has created an atmosphere that rites shoul...