Dress Of Scholar-officials In Song Dynasty

Ancient Chinese dress has a long history of development. For several thousand years, industrious Chinese people have created dresses of distinctive traditional characteristics and unique charm, which adds brilliant glory to five thousand years' civilization of Chinese nation and wins the fame as "kingdom of dress".Song Dynasty is an important period in Chinese dress history. In the early years of Northern Song Dynasty, it drew lessons from late Tang Dynasty, withdrew military power from military officers and advocated "civil administration", which greatly improved the social status of scholars. With the revitalization and development of economy, culture, art and thought, a good cultural and artistic atmosphere was created and talented scholar-officials emerged in large numbers. Faced with the particular historical opportunity, cultural and artistic development was not hindered by the partial control of Southern Song Dynasty but advanced toward a even more prosperous and vigorous direction. After the prosperity of resplendent and various dress integrated with foreign culture in Tang Dynasty, dress style in Song Dynasty took on a new look which is relatively conservative and solemn but is still of elegance and beauty. The dress of scholar-officials who were the representative figures of the new age, became a specific cultural phenomenon bearing their dignified good taste and transmitting their ideological trend, and unfolded its inner beauty.Based on the specific period in Chinese history—Song Dynasty, taking scholar-officials' fondness for dress as the research object, this thesis makes a classification of the dress of scholar-officials in order to explore its unique charm. It also analyzes the cause of dress's characteristic which is relatively conservative and solemn but is still of elegance and beauty, and the cause of identity manifested by the dress of different scholar-officials classes. Other than ritual dress system and women dress, the study fills in the gap of the dress research of scholar-officials in dress history of Song Dynasty. As a cultural phenomenon, dress also reflects the characteristics of economy, politics, thought and art, especially painting, calligraphy and poetry in Song Dynasty on scholar-officials.The thesis consists of six parts. To begin with, introduction part clarifies the theoretical and practical significance of the research subject—dress of scholar-officials in Song Dynasty, investigates the present research situation in China and explains the research objective and method. The following five parts are the classification of scholar-officials in Song Dynasty, the classification of the dress of scholar-officials, the cause of the characteristics of the dress of scholar-officials, the manifestation of the dress of scholar-officials in different situations, the identity of the dress of scholar-officials and its cause. A thorough investigation is made in these five parts.Part one is the classification of scholar-officials in Song Dynasty. As early as in Pre-Qin Period, there was description of "scholar" in literary works and in class society appeared the appellation of "scholar-officials", but its connotation differs from that of the later dynasties. With a brief review of the two terms' initial meaning and a clarification of the developmental history of scholar-officials class, according to their class attribute, scholar-officials in Song Dynasty can be divided into three groups: upper class scholar-officials, middle-lower class poor scholars and intellectuals.Part two makes a classification of the dress of scholar-officials. It respectively studies and summarizes the head dress, body dress, boots and other ornaments of three groups (upper class scholar-officials, middle-lower class poor scholars and intellectuals).Part three analyzes the cause of the characteristics of scholar-officials dress in Song Dynasty. It sums up the basic characteristics of the three scholar-officials classes and seeks explanation from factors like politics, economy, cultural and artistic atmospherePart four discusses the manifestation of the dress of scholar-officials in different situations. Different class attribute determines different social status of the three scholar-officials classes. Consequently, their dress also varies in different situations.Part five centers on the identity of the dress of scholar-officials and its cause. Through the classification of scholar-officials in Song Dynasty and their dress in different situations, it concludes that scholar-officials have a general identity in dress and analyses the cause.After a profound exploration of the above-mentioned aspects, the thesis finally comes to the conclusion that after the prosperity of resplendent and various dress integrated with foreign culture in Tang Dynasty, dress style in Song Dynasty took on a new look which is relatively conservative and solemn but is still of elegance and beauty. Song Dynasty implemented the basic national policy "stress civil administration and suppress military force" and adhered to the principle "administer the state in company with scholar-officials". Under this particular historical environment, as a social class, scholar-officials in Song Dynasty manifested different features in social status, ideology and moral standards from its previous generations, and demonstrated unique charm in the aspect of dress, too.