The Color Application And Cultural Connotation In The Myth Of Shanhaijing

With the rise of modern social disciplines in China,the academic and cultural value of Shanhaijing has become increasingly prominent.Although Shanhaijing has only 31 thousand words,it is regarded by many scholars as the power of ancient myth,the sprout of religion and the source of aesthetics,and many scholars regard it as the Encyclopedia of ancient life.Guo Pu in Jin Dynasty,Hao Yixing and Bi Yuan in Qing Dynasty all proofread and annotated Shanhaijing in detail.In recent years,the study of Shanhaijing has involved all aspects of the academic field in a more systematic and comprehensive way,such as geography,astronomy,nationality,animals,plants,minerals,medicine and health,philosophy,etc.But at present,the study of the color in the myth of Shanhaijing is still rarely involved.Through careful combing,we can find that the myths in Shanhaijing recorded more than 20 colors,including red,Zhe,ochre,Dan,purple,Zhu,Ci,white,silver,plain,stripe,gold,yellow,cyan,green,Cang,Xuan,black,etc.,which can be summarized into five color systems,namely red,white,yellow,green,black.These colors recorded in the mythical world of Shanhaijing are the product of the long-term social practice experience of the ancients in China.The ancients described the colors of things and experienced a development research process from concrete to abstract.Therefore,the use of color in the myth of Shanhaijing has profound cultural significance and aesthetic connotation.Therefore,studying the colors in the myths and legends of Shanhaijing can not only understand the actual use and development of the colors of the ancients in the pre-Qin period in China,but also explore the cultural implications behind them,and expand the research field of vision of Shanhaijing in China,so that we can better understand and grasp the pre-Qin culture.For the sake of clarity,the structure of this paper is described as follows.The principal of paper is divided into the following four chapters:The first chapter starts from the macroscopic,summarizes the definition of color and the color fashion in the pre-Qin period.This chapter is the basis of studying the color in the myth of Shanhaijing.To study a problem,first of all,we need to have a clear definition of this research category.This chapter is divided into the following two aspects: one is about the interpretation,classification and aesthetic attributes of color.The second is to trace the origin of the color fashion in the pre-Qin period.The second chapter is the main part of this paper,combing in detail the use of color in the myth of Shanhaijing,and carrying out classification research.The recorded colors are mainly divided into five color systems: red,white,yellow,green and black.I will roughly divide each color into four aspects: mineral,animal and plant,deity image and national name of mountains and rivers to elaborate them respectively,in order to explore the characteristics,aesthetic connotation and cultural significance of the use of color in the Sutra.The third chapter is the overall interpretation of the color recorded in the book of mountains and seas,and discusses the characteristics of color use and the factors affecting color use.Through the detailed analysis of the color description and the relationship between the colors in Shanhaijing in the last chapter,it is concluded that the characteristics of the color used in the classic include: the multi-color things have certain regularity,selectivity and unique fictionality.The factors that influence the color use are the low color discrimination ability of the ancestors,the geographical environment conditions of the farming civilization in the ancient times,the role of the concepts of "five directions" and "five elements" and the remains of the ancient cultural tradition.The fourth chapter discusses the aesthetic connotation and cultural significance of color application in the myth of Shanhaijing.One is the pursuit of the beauty of being free.In the era of Shanhaijing,people began to pursue the beauty of nature,looking for the beauty of color from nature.People mine the plants and minerals with dyestuff property,so as to refine them into clothes of various colors,improve the aesthetic taste and obtain aesthetic enjoyment.The second is the accumulation of culture,including the determination of personality paradigm,the sacrificial system and witch culture in the pre-Qin period and the life consciousness reflected by the concept of the underworld.Color,as the carrier of emotional expression,to a certain extent reflects the way of survival and reproduction at that time.After a long history of baptism,it has formed a national culture with Chinese characteristics.