Work

The Philosophy of “Body and Use”: The Appropriate Use of Bodies in the Tea Space of Ming and Qing Dynasty Literati Paintings

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: As an aspect of garden space, tea space is an important part of traditional culture and inherited culture. This paper takes 210 representative literati painting images of Ming and Qing dynasties as the research object, combining historical materials, the analysis of painted images and mathematical statistics to transform the representative paintings into visual plan form, and then identifies and extracts the environmental elements and behavior activities in the paintings to build the factor base. It is determined that the main sources of tea activities are Hall Style, Water Pavilion Style, High Pavilion Style, Grass Pavilion and Terraces Style and Combination Style. The analysis results show the following: (1) The tea events mainly occur in outdoor gardens and indoor and outdoor spaces, with windows as climate boundaries. (2) Regarding the use of furniture, indoor spaces tend to use wooden furniture, while outdoor spaces use stone furniture and natural stone, or portable wooden furniture. (3) In terms of indoor and outdoor spaces with tea activities, indoor and outdoor spaces often borrow landscape elements from each other, and screens and partitions are often used as a means of space division in terms of space separation. The findings of this study lay a theoretical foundation for the design of traditional garden tea spaces, and provide a reference for the fine design of contemporary architecture and garden tea spaces.

Source: Buildings

DOI: 10.3390/buildings15060968

Authors: Lin Zhang, Yang Shi

Institution: Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture

Language: English

Topic: Landscape and Cultural Studies

Subfield: Archeology

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,137

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China