Pottery painted female figurines with pipa

[Pottery painted female figurines with pipa]

Pottery painted female figurines with pipa, Tang Dynasty, 34 cm high and 7.8 cm wide
The female figurines wear a pair of buns, a jacket inside, a cape outside, and a long skirt down to the ground. Stand up and play with the pipa
Pipa came from the Western Regions. Its performance skills have been continuously popularized, developed and improved during the Han, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, and reached the peak in the Tang Dynasty. Broadly speaking, the pipa of the Tang Dynasty can be divided into four categories: the first category is Qin Hanzi, or Ruan Xian. Ruan Xian of the Tang Dynasty, which is stored in Zhengcang Academy in Japan, is made of red sandalwood, with mother-of-pearl inlaid on the outside, with exquisite decoration, round neck trimming, four strings and four cross bars, and multiple columns. It can be regarded as a typical representative. The second type is the crooked pipa. The neck is short and curved, turning into a right angle or obtuse angle, which is similar to a ladle-shaped shape, and is mostly four-stringed and four-bar. The third category is the five-stringed pipa, also known as the five-stringed pipa in ancient books. The shape of the speaker is basically the same as that of the crank-necked pipa, but slightly smaller than that of the crank-necked pipa, with five strings and five bars. The fourth type is between Qin Hanzi and the crooked pipa, with the shape between the circle and the ellipse, the speaker is large, the head slightly curls inward, and the four strings and four bars. Pipa is often played with a dial. In the early Tang Dynasty, the musician Pei Shenfu began to play by hand, which was popular with Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. This performance method is called “0706” Pipa. According to the analysis of the existing documents and cultural relics, the hand playing of the lute began in the early Tang Dynasty, which is an improvement of the traditional playing method. This way of playing was not common at that time. Only highly skilled people could master this skill. The general musicians still followed the tradition, which is why plucking is more common than hand playing. The Tang Dynasty produced a large number of famous pipa performers, such as Cao Miaoda, Cao Shancai, Cao Gang, Kang Kunlun, Duan Shanben, and so on. Most of them came from the countries of Cao and Kang in the Sote region (today’s Central Asia region). The sentence of the poet Cen Shen of the Tang Dynasty, “seven hundred thousand in Liangzhou, Hu people half play the pipa”, vividly describes the love of the “Hu people” for the pipa, which also shows the profound influence of foreign culture on the culture of the Tang Dynasty
There is no trace of holding and pulling in the hands of this figurine. When the method of hand flicking is used, it can be seen that its skill is superb.