All these beautiful stones are regarded as jade in China.
Jades are generous gifts of the nature. As jades are glittering and translucent, elegant and pure,they are symbolized the essence of the mountains in the ancient mysterious Orient.The elaborated jade wares have been endowed with supernatural qualities and rich connotations, which could be used for offering to the gods as deity medium,wearing ornaments symbolizing their noble quality, burial amulet for exorcising evil spirits,furnishing houses for revealing elegance and wealth. Jade wares are not only high quality utensils in our life, but also art works with pleasure mentally.
Jades, representation of men’s nobility and sacredness and symbol of purity and beauty, are the vivid embodiment of the Oriental spirit and important material foundation of Chinese traditional culture.
Jades are one of most important cultural carriers of Chinese traditional etiquette, which help people to communicate with the gods of heaven and earth, show their own social status, and keep themselves health
physically and mentally.
Ritual jade wares originated as early as the late primitive society, those were mostly used to pray the gods for blessing. The system of ritual jades was set up in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which is a part of systematic social norms and regulations of noble behaviour. The ritual jades had been widely used in ritual occasions, such as sacred ceremony, pilgrimages, wedding and funerals, etc. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the connotation and functions of jades had developed gradually to its peak by thinkers from the Confucian and other schools. Thus, Jade became a unique symbol of Chinese traditional culture with deep and far-reaching influences.
Wearing jade is a major part of the ancient jade system in China. It is characterized by the largest variety, the largest number, the longest term of use and the widest range. Some still has the function as ritual jade at same time. Since the Neolithic Age, some jades had been wore on for aesthetic function. Between the Shang and Zhou, the ritual system of wearing jade gradually set up, and reached its peak downward the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period to the Han Dynasty. Wearing jades was endowed with moral connotation and virtues, which played a very important role in social life. The gentlemen must wear jade for showing their moral cultivation. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, wearing jades gradually became a noble fashion.
Chinese jade wares gradually became secularized in common life after the Eastern Han Dynasty, and reached its great prosperity during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the early Qing Dynasty, the society was rather stable, the economy was thrived, so that the jade industry was developed as well, stimulated by the archaistic fashion. In the late Qing Dynasty, as royal jade wares was declined the commercial jades emerging and rising, such as graceful writing and painting instrument,ingenious furnishings, elegant knickknacks, playthings and daily utensils,etc. Various of jade wares were very exquisite with auspicious meaning in order to decorate surroundings of their own life and to cultivate their aesthetic tastes.
