Why are there fewer carvings on Ming style furniture? What are its characteristics?

Although the production technology is now improving rapidly, the furniture or crafts made are perfect, but some collectors like to collect those ancient furniture or crafts. If you know enough about ancient furniture, you will find a peculiar phenomenon, that is, the carvings on ancient furniture in the Ming Dynasty are much less than in other dynasties. Many people think that this is because people in the Ming Dynasty advocated simplicity and elegance, so they could not bear to destroy the texture of the surface of wooden furniture, so there were fewer carvings, but in fact, the real reason is not like this.

The first point is because the law does not allow overly ornate and flamboyant decorations. Because Zhu Yuanzhang was born as a commoner, he still maintained a simple style of life after becoming the emperor. Therefore, he has strict standards and regulations for the clothing, buildings, and even daily utensils of the common people.

If there are too many folk furniture carvings, there is a possibility of usurping the imperial power. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, many people would choose to use as simple furniture as possible to avoid breaking the law.

The second reason is that the carpenter's skills in the folk have not reached the level of making difficult carvings. Due to the high concentration of imperial power in the Ming Dynasty, most of the skilled craftsmen were recruited into the imperial palace. There are very few people who can make gorgeous furniture by one person, and the complex carved furniture is done by many craftsmen working together, and even if there are skilled carpenters in the people, it is difficult to change the simple fashion of the whole society by themselves.

Therefore, the carving on the furniture of the Ming Dynasty is very simple, not only because of the decrees made by the emperor, but also because the number of craftsmen scattered among the people is scarce. It was not until the fall of the Ming Dynasty that a large number of carpenters in the palace fled to the people, and the carvings of the people's furniture became more and more gorgeous. This can be seen from the stark contrast between the carvings of furniture in the Qing Dynasty and the carvings of furniture in the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, Ming-style furniture is a lot of carving, and its carving is very exquisite, now it is also priceless, the reason why its carving is less, because of the political reasons of the Ming Dynasty at that time. Encourage everyone to be frugal.

There are two reasons, the first is that the Ming Dynasty was highly hierarchical, and the same was true for the carvings on the furniture; The reason why there are few carvings is because it is too complicated and will be suspected of trespassing.

The second is that carving is an artificial technology, the productivity is limited, if you want to keep improving, you can't carve too much.

Compared with the furniture of other dynasties, Ming-style furniture is more elegant and concise, with a literati atmosphere.

Because carving on furniture, the need for special carving tools, well-trained carving skills, carving patterns of the concept, is the need to be completed by a number of craftsmen, the need for large-scale cooperation of the social collective, at that time, only the royal family can have such a production team, so there are carvings are used by the royal family, folk are carved are relatively few.