Ancient Chinese color hierarchy

Official clothing color system was initially formed in the Sui Dynasty, officially completed in the Tang Dynasty. Based on the Tang Dynasty's color system, basically to purple, scarlet, green, green four colors of the official character of the high and low respect.

The colors of the official's clothes were slightly changed in the Song Dynasty.

Song history - the service record: the Song dynasty official chapter clothing to four products service purple, five products six products service scarlet, seven to eight products service green. To the Yuanfeng years, it is stipulated that more than four products serve purple, more than six products serve scarlet, more than nine products serve green. Liao, Jin, Yuan reign, absorbed and adopted many of the political system and cultural patterns of the Han Chinese people, in the official uniform is also the same, the provisions of the five products above the purple, six products seven products served scarlet, eight products served green.

To the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the color marking level has been far more than the overall color of the dress, including the color of all parts of the clothes. As for other decorations and patterns on the dress, there are more stringent requirements. In terms of color, the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, "a product to four products, scarlet robe; five products to seven products, green robe; eight products nine products, green robe; not into the stream of miscellaneous officials, gowns, wattles, belts and eight products below the same."

Expanded:

On the decorative patterns of Han clothing, animal, plant and geometric patterns are mostly used. The expression of patterns has roughly gone through several stages, such as abstraction, standardization to realism. The patterns before the Shang and Zhou dynasties, like the original Chinese characters, were more concise and generalized, with strong abstraction. After the Zhou Dynasty to the Tang and Song dynasties, the pattern is increasingly neat, balanced up and down, left and right symmetry, pattern layout tight.

Ming and Qing dynasties, has focused on the realistic approach, a variety of animals, plants, often being portrayed in a delicate, realistic, lifelike, as if picked directly from real life, without any processing, fully demonstrating the hard work and wisdom of the Han people.

People's Daily Online - How Ancient China Split Nobility and Discriminate Ranks by Color

Baidu Encyclopedia - Traditional Costume Colors