An Analysis Of Entertainment Activities Seen In Han Dynasty Portrait Stones

The Han portrait stones are the most valuable material wealth left by the Han Dynasty to later generations.Their portraits are magnificent and exquisite,and their contents are rich and colorful.Mr.Jian Bozan once called them "a history of the Han Dynasty with embroidered images".The academic circles have made great achievements in the study of portrait content.This paper will continue to deepen on the basis of previous studies.The complete collection of Chinese stone reliefs consists of eight volumes,including more than 1900 stone reliefs,covering many aspects,such as celestial phenomena,ghosts and gods,historical stories,vehicles and horses,farmland and pastures,banquets,cooking,music and dance.This article discusses various entertainment activities in the stone portraits of the Han Dynasty.The portraits involving entertainment activities are classified into three categories: banquet games,music and dance,and hunting and fighting.This article firstly sorts out the content of "Complete Works of Chinese Portrait Stones",focusing on the relevant parts of the portrait stones that involve entertainment activities,and sorts and categorizes them.The author sorted out a total of 572 stone portraits involving entertainment activities,and divided them into three categories: banquet games,music and dance,and hunting and fighting according to the characteristics of the portraits.Among them,there are 263 portrait stones of music and dance,126 hunting and fighting,and 183 banquet games.It can be seen that music and dance are the most common entertainment activities.Secondly,select 98 representative stone portraits in the Complete Works of Chinese Portrait Stones,and after in-depth analysis of the image content,painting location,symbolic meaning,etc.,we can find that entertainment activities are mostly chosen in the painting layout on the top of the portrait content.Part or the lower part,this point is to show that the tomb owner pursues,whether it is the immortal world entered after death,or the underground world entered after death,he hopes to be a blissful world where singing and dancing can be held and various entertainment activities can be held.Thirdly,some recreational activities appear frequently in the stone portraits,but they are rarely recorded in the history books.For example: acrobatic performances such as playing the altar and spinning the wheel.Finally,there are also great differences in the popular entertainment activities among different groups.Taking hunting as an example,it is a way of seeking pleasure and excitement that the upper-class princes and nobles pursue after satisfying their daily necessary dietary problems.And some entertainment activities that do not require a lot of material,human and financial resources,such as banquet games,music and dance performances,are widely popular among ordinary people.Taken together,the Han portrait stones mostly reflect the scenes of the lives of princes,nobles and wealthy families,which can be mirrored with historical records.