Did kimono come from the Tang Dynasty?

Look at the coarse clothes in ancient Japan. The narrow sleeves and oblique skirts are very similar to those worn in ancient China. However, it is really recorded in writing that Chinese clothes were introduced into Japan and institutionalized, which should have started from the Nara era.

In Nara, China was in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, that is, the 8th century. China has the greatest influence on Japanese economic and cultural life. Japan sent a large number of scholars and monks to study in China, and these envoys brought back the culture, art and law of the Tang Dynasty to Japan. At that time, China wuyue's long sleeves and robes spread to Japan, becoming the formal attire of the upper class, especially the formal attire of the imperial court. In the historical changes since then, although the kimono has been continuously improved, the basic elements of the kimono have never been separated from the fixed framework of the five clothes. There is another saying about the introduction of kimono: In the Nara era, the costumes of China in the Tang Dynasty were introduced to Japan, and they were first popular among the nobles, and were called tang style aristocratic clothes.

During the Heian period (after the ninth century), due to the influence of the national wind at that time, the aristocratic clothing of Tang dynasty was reformed, and the colors of the clothing began to diversify, such as the sleeves and trunk became longer and the width of the clothing became wider. In order to give people a sense of beauty, it is tightly attached to the body when wearing, consciously showing the beauty of people's lines, and the clothes are printed with family lines. In ancient Japan, every family was divided into families according to their surnames. It is estimated that there are more than 20,000 kinds of family lines in a few days, and the design of casual clothes has begun to be formalized, which is a feature of entering the Muromachi era.

During the Taoshan period (/kloc-mid-6th century), people began to pay attention to wearing different clothes in different places, so "visiting clothes" for wedding banquets and tea parties and "sleeve clothes" for various celebrations, adult festivals, banquets and blind dates appeared.

The Edo period was the most prosperous period in the history of Japanese clothing, and the clothes, kimonos and their accessories that we saw today and loved at the ceremony also became decorations for interior decoration. This change in clothing is called national weathering by the Japanese. Since then, this kind of clothing has been fixed as a Japanese kimono.

So kimono must have something to do with the costumes of China in the Sui and Tang Dynasties:

The first is the pattern of clothing. Most of the clothing patterns in Sui and Tang Dynasties were mainly flowers, or flowers were used as a foil. The pattern is standard, neat, continuous and symmetrical, and some images tend to be realistic. In Wen Xin Diao Long, Liu Xie discusses the dialectical relationship between subject and object in artistic creation activities, advocates a kind of "natural interest" and thinks that "natural beauty" is more noble than "carving beauty". The photo of flowers with nature as the object itself is a kind of beautiful pattern, which has the double meanings of technical beauty and pattern beauty, and there are also transliteration of flowers in ecology. It is also a kind of "image praise of ecological charm" that the shape of Japanese kimono and the portrait of patterned fabric, as well as the cherry blossoms with kimono pattern characteristics are so exaggerated and deformed.

Secondly, whether in China or in ancient Japan, women were forbidden to appear in public places. "Reading notes? It stipulates that "when a woman goes out, she must cover her face. "From China's' face clothes' in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, to the' Muluo' in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and then to the' hat' in the Tang Gaozong period, although the forms are constantly changing and innovating, their functions are all for hiding. In Japan, women are basically indoors, so the screen plays a hidden role, which is inseparable from China's feudal ethics thought followed by Japan, which is almost harsh.

Thirdly, from the perspective of the collars of Tang Dynasty costumes, it reflected the openness of thought at that time, and even there was an "open collar", in which underwear was not worn and the chest was open to the outside. There is a saying in Tang poetry that "Shimada Hanzo with pink breasts is too dark for snow". Although the appreciation of the Tang Dynasty focused on the charm of the chest, the Japanese costumes of the same period were surprisingly similar, especially the concave design of the neckline. In order to show the delicate and slender skin of the neck, kabuki costumes still retained this style until later. This involves the unique aesthetics of the Japanese.

Fourthly, the costumes of Nara period still inherited the wide robes and big sleeves of Tang suit. Meng Haoran's poem "Chun Qing" said: "When sitting, the clothes are wrapped in grass and the skirts are swept." The lady in the painting "A Lady with Flowers" is the dress depicted in this poem. Besides being influenced by China, there is another important reason, that is, religion. The capacity of "width" is relatively large. The wider the clothing, the more abstract the human body is, which hides both the concrete body and the human character. From the visual recognition of depth, people's eyes focus on a small area, and things outside the focus look blurred, so wide clothes can attract people's visual focus, but the surrounding image is blurred and people's image is tall.

Fifth, the makeup style of the Tang Dynasty spread directly in Japan. From the image of kabuki, we can intuitively understand that pink face, wide eyebrows, small lips, pouting face and oblique red were all popular at that time. The difference is that for the treatment of hair, Japanese classical women comb long hair, so that long hair and decoration are integrated. Just like nature, the branches of trees are naturally combed. Branches hang down like long combed hair. Japanese women's headdresses have special requirements for any specific decorative accessories and ornaments. Just like China's Peking Opera figures, headdresses have specific norms and practices for certain roles such as Lao Dan and Hua Dan, and most of them are flowers in Japan.

Thus, China's costume culture has had a far-reaching impact on Japanese costume culture. Now, kimono has become a traditional national costume, and people will only wear it on grand occasions. No matter how we appreciate them now, they all add color and atmosphere to Japan.