The original:

Things are not just inert objects that simply do what we make them do. They carry meanings, meanings sometimes so powerful that they over- whelm their use entirely. The double life of things is most easily spotted at the upper end of consumption. The court, for instance, had to be filled with objects of the finest quality, not because an expensive elegant stool was more useful than a cheap sturdy one, but because it was doing more work than supporting the rear end of the person sitting on it. It was what it was because it had to publicize the wealth and elegance that the court was expected to embody.

The Yuan and Ming courts were accordingly major consumers of luxury objects: paintings to be hung on walls, furniture to be sat on, place settings ordered from the porcelain kilns in Jingdezhen, silks to dress themselves and their families, elegantly bound books to read and to present to loyal subordinates. The scale of courtly consumption was vast. An entire apparatus of state workshops, some of them within the precincts of the palace itself, some in key manufacturing cities such as Suzhou and Hangzhou, came into being to manufacture the luxury objects the court commanded. Popular taste followed suit, of course. People outside the imperial family eyed these luxuries for themselves and connived to consume them, though they could only do so within some very particular rules—such as making sure that whenever you bought something with a dragon on it, that dragon′s feet sported only four claws instead of five. Recall that the discovery of bowls decorated with dragons counted against the Jesuits.

Taste was not a one-way conveyor belt extending from the court to society. Some people might wish to imitate the emperor by acquiring the objects he consumed, or more likely knock-offs of the real things, but to men of discrimination, this was a losing game. Better to set your own standards—and this is what the gentry did, developing styles that ac- corded with their own consumption preferences. These hinged not on what was costly and conspicuous (though it was always nice to be noticed, especially when you had paid a lot for the thing being consumed) but on what was elegant. Elegance was a tough criterion to master, tough enough to stump the nouveaux riches. It could even be tough enough to put emperors at a disadvantage, which was the point. What did an emperor have except Heaven′s mandate, a security apparatus, and an apparently endless supply of cash? Without his Confucian tutors, he could have no knowledge of the subjects of which men of good taste should be in full command: antiquities, painting, calligraphy, books, even comportment. Khubilai and Zhu Yuanzhang did not trouble themselves about mastering such arcana. Their descendants, many of whom came to the throne as children, did no better. They had tutors in such matters, but they listened to them half-heartedly. Compared to their Song predecessors, the thirty Yuan and Ming emperors stand out for their utter lack of cultural attainments. The exception is the Xuande emperor (r. 1426– 1435), grandson of Yongle and great-grandson of the founder—the rare case of an emperor sufficiently absorbed in the culture of elegance to achieve real skill as a painter. But he is the only one.

In an economy based as much on taste as on money, the emperor as wealthy consumer had to cede place to the gentry connoisseur as elegant consumer. Emperors merely possessed things, whereas connoisseurs used them to express the highest ideas of their culture: thoughtful contemplation, aesthetic discernment, and good taste. The two practices of consumption—the conspicuous and the elegant—influenced each other, but largely went on in separate social realms. Thus, while Zhu Yuanzhang was furnishing his palace in Nanjing, a wealthy collector by the name of Cao Zhao was in the same city compiling a guide to collecting elegant artifacts. Essential Criteria for Discriminating Antiquities (Gewu yaolun), which taught gentry readers how to identify objects worth collecting and to appreciate them without being tainted by the urge to possess them. The emperor would not have been interested. Still, whether merely acquisitive or deeply cultural, consumption had the powerful effect of stimulating the creation of an extraordinary oeuvre of art and artifacts that defines what most people think of as "Ming."

From：《THE TROUBLED EMPIRE-CHAINA IN THE YUAN AND MING DYNASTIES》Author：CANADA Timothy Brook

译文：

挣扎的帝国——元与明

万物皆非惰性，不会任由我们摆布。它们的存在是有意义的，有时，事物本身的意义远大于它们的用途。事物的这种双重价值往往会在一些高端消费中有所体现。就说宫廷，其吃穿用度必是质量最为上乘的，不是因为皇宫里精美华贵的凳子比外面结实便宜的板凳用处更多，而是华美的凳子还有用途之外的意义。它不仅仅是用来坐的，它还彰显着朝廷的富有和尊贵。

于是，元明的朝廷自然也就成了主要的奢侈品消费者：墙上挂的名画，精致的家具，从景德镇订购的瓷质餐具，皇室成员身上穿的丝绸以及或自己读或赠与大臣的精装书籍，无一不显示着朝廷的巨大消费。于是，一些专为皇家生产这些高档消费品的御用作坊便形成了，有些位于京城，有些则分布在苏州、杭州等重要的工业城市。古语曰：上有所好下必甚焉。很多非皇家的人自然也眼红这些奢侈品，于是他们便合议，进行私下买卖。但是民间对这类物品的使用是有限制的，比如带有龙纹图案的物件，民间只能用四爪龙纹，而皇家是五爪。犹记龙纹碗的发现被耶稣会看作大凶之兆。

然而审美并非是一条从宫内通往宫外的单向传送带。有些人为了效仿皇帝，大量搜集“皇帝同款”，或者说是仿制品。但是对于有鉴赏力的人来说，这些他们是瞧不上眼的。建立自己的审美标准，根据消费偏好形成个人品味，这才是真正的贵族所为。这些无关花费，无关名气（有名气自然是更好，尤其是当你花了大价钱把它买来时），只关乎高雅。高雅是一个极难掌握的标准，至少对于一夜暴富的人来说是这样的，甚至对于皇帝来说也是这样。重点是一旦皇帝不懂高雅，那么他的处境将会非常不利。除了神授的君权，维护安全的军事机构和用之不尽的金钱外，皇帝还有什么？若无儒学太傅教导，只怕皇帝对于人类的高雅品味一无所知：古代史，绘画，书法，文章，甚至日常的行为举止。忽必烈和朱元璋是不在乎这些的。他们的子孙大多年幼时便登上王位，亦不重视这些。当然，他们会有儒学太傅教授这方面的知识，不过，听课时心不在焉罢了。比起他们的宋朝先祖，这三十几位元、明的皇帝在文化知识方面可真是相当匮乏了。然而，宣德皇帝是其中的一个例外。他是永乐帝的孙子，朱元璋的重孙，皇帝中为数不多的热爱高雅文化并在绘画方面颇有成就的一个，他也是唯一的一个。

在一个品味高于金钱的经济环境中，作为消费者，皇帝这样的“土豪”必然不如高雅的贵族们有市场。皇帝仅仅是拥有很多物质，而贵族鉴赏家们却懂得如何用这些物质来表达中华文化之精髓：深刻的思想，艺术的眼光以及高雅的品味。这两种消费方式——摆阔式的和高雅的——既相互影响，又大部分在不同的社会领域中各自进行，互不干扰。例如，当朱元璋在装修他南京的宫殿时，一位名叫曹昭的收藏家彼时就在南京创作一本奇珍异宝收藏指南。这便是后来的《格古要论》。《格古要论》是一本教人鉴别古物真伪及收藏价值的专著，它还教育人们勿动贪念，再名贵的古玩也不一定要占为己有。当然，皇帝是不会对这本书感兴趣的。它是一本关于艺术与艺术品的旷世之作，无论是纯粹的物质消费还是更深层次的文化消费，都对它的问世有着举足轻重的推动作用，也正是这本书定义了后来人们称之为“明”的王朝。

——选自《挣扎的帝国——元与明》

作者：卜正民（加拿大）