How did the fan evolve to the present?

Fans in the pre-Qin period were mostly made of feathers or bamboo rafts, which looked like magpie wings or doors.

During the Warring States period, fans were also called "instant noodles" because it was more convenient to cover the surface with such fans. Therefore, instant noodles, also known as "sieve noodles", are short-handled bamboo fans with a length of 40.8 cm and a slightly trapezoidal fan surface. They are woven into a rectangular pattern with extremely thin red and black stripes, and there are two rectangular holes near the handle.

The long-handled fan in the Western Han Dynasty is about 1.76 meters long, with a wooden handle, the fan surface is woven with silk, and both sides of the fan surface are wrapped with cloth. During the Western Han Dynasty, a kind of fan made of fine silk appeared, which was called "Wan Fan" or "Silk Fan" and also called "Tuan Fan" because of its shape of "reunion as the bright moon".

Square fans were also common in ancient times. There are two kinds of square fans. One is a fan-shaped door with a handle on one side, and the other is a square fan with a handle in the middle.

During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the "tail fan" was popular. An ostrich is a kind of deer. Some people call it a moose, while others say it is led by a big deer. The ancients used its tail hair to make dust, which was called "the tail of a bird". Because it is shaped like a fan, it is called a "hair fan".

After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the tail fan gradually declined, and as the mainstream, the round fan had more room for development among the people. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, most of the round fans had a round waist and a large fan surface. It was not until the Kaiyuan and Tianbao years in the Tang Dynasty that most of them were round, and at the same time, a small round fan appeared, which was deeply loved by ladies.

Since the Song Dynasty, the shapes of round fans have been diversified, such as rectangle, ellipse, palm fan, polygon, curve, begonia and so on. With the invention and development of the paper industry, a paper-based bamboo fan, called "paper ball fan", appeared.

In the Song Dynasty, another form of fan appeared, that is, folding fan. In fact, there were folding fans in Nanqi, China, but at that time, this kind of fan had not attracted people's attention and its shape was not mature. By the Northern Song Dynasty, this kind of fan was mature.

After the Ming Dynasty, the fan-making industry had a more prosperous development. There are many styles of fans, such as Zhu Tuan fan, red embroidered square fan, single dragon fan, double dragon fan and longevity fan. And folding fans include spring fans, autumn fans, incense fans, oil fans and boot fans. , as well as "inverted shoulders", "plaid view", "golden face" and "colored face", are more accepted by the people, whether they are practical or beautiful. Fans also expand the space in people's artistic life.

fan