The Song dynasty's refined appreciation for flowers even gave rise to idlers who made a living from it!

When flowers met vases in the eyes of literati, considerations of the beauty of flower arrangements and the complementary nature of vase shapes emerged, giving rise to the aesthetics and ceremonial sense of vase flowers. After the Southern Song dynasty moved its capital, phenomena such as the southward migration of northern flowers occurred. The increasingly strong customs of growing, appreciating, wearing, and arranging flowers stimulated people's demand for flowers. The area around Macheng Road was once an important flower supply base for the city of Lin'an. The trend towards the large-scale and commercial cultivation of flowers was an important prerequisite for the development of vase flowers in the Song dynasty. The Song people's horticultural techniques were very mature, capable of altering the growth cycles and colors of flowers. Zhou Mi's 'Qi Dong Ye Yu' records the 'Macheng art of flowers,' using methods like 'steaming in a sealed room' to force early blooming and 'cool winds from caves' to delay the flowering. Wen Ge's 'Fen Men Suo Sui Lu' includes 'grafting methods,' such as grafting yellow and white chrysanthemums together, or grafting bitter plum trees with plum blossoms to produce ink-colored plum flowers, and grafting gardenias onto pomegranates to ensure red flowers. In the Song dynasty, flower arranging was known as one of the 'four idle activities,' and there even emerged a class of 'idlers' who made a living from such idle pursuits. 'Du Cheng Ji Sheng' mentions that these so-called 'idlers' specialized in entering official households to engage in miscellaneous services such as flower arranging and hanging paintings, and were known as 'first-class artisans.' This indicates that flower arranging activities at that time had professional and commercial tendencies. Among them, 'three offerings' referred to offering flowers before Buddha. This involved a pair of vases and an incense burner, or the addition of a pair of candlesticks, forming the offering style of 'three offerings' or 'five offerings.' Due to the development of high furniture in the Song dynasty, vase flowers gradually evolved away from the confines of Buddhist and Taoist offerings, becoming part of the study furnishings and literati's desk playthings, and became more popular and widespread. Song dynasty flower vessels were categorized by material into ceramic, copper, gold, silver, jade, crystal, glass, bamboo, and wood; and by shape into pots, gu, zun, lei, jars, bowls, basins, and ying, among others. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, common porcelain vase styles used for flowers included plum vases, jade pot spring vases, gallbladder vases, folded-shoulder vases (commonly known as paper hammer vases), folded-rim long-neck vases, goose-neck vases, loop-handled vases, string-patterned long-neck vases, cong-style vases, gu-style vases, zun-style vases, flower-mouth vases, tube-style vases, melon-ribbed vases, garlic-head vases, square-mouth pots (fang), and others. There were also wall vases (half vases), multi-hole flower spikes, flower pots, and supporting trays used as flower vessels. The Song people enjoyed using ancient bronze vases for flower arrangements. This was not only a pursuit of the interest in antiquity but also because fresh flowers placed in bronze vases could absorb copper ions and improve the nutritional quality of the water, along with the antibacterial and water-purifying effects of verdigris, allowing the fresh image of vase flowers to last longer. In Song paintings, combinations of desk vases and vase stands are often seen. The study spaces of Song literati were small, and placing a 'single-stem vase' on the desk allowed for constant enjoyment. As the saying goes, 'A small vase of spring blooms on the desk, with sparse flowers and leaves leaning to one side.' The 'occupying landscape basin' is a type of shallow basin-shaped flower vessel, where each 'thin tube' can be used to insert flowers separately. Similar ceramic occupying landscape basins have been unearthed from the Song dynasty. At least by the Yuan dynasty, the method of fixing bouquets with metal liners in porcelain vases had appeared. It became popular during the Ming and Qing dynasties and could effectively prevent porcelain vases from freezing and cracking. Let us savor the lyrical nature of desk objects in the microcosm of a single flower in a vase, experience the Song people's attitude towards life that cherished fun and beauty, and enjoy the refined lifestyle of vase appreciation at the desk.