"A man of culture" Wenren and the development of Chinese incense art: experience of the historical and culturological study

In the article, the phenomenon of traditional East Asian culture, which originated in ancient China, is analyzed, namely the incense art is considered through the prism of the activity of «a man of culture» 文人wenren. The representatives of this association of intellectuals were characterized by vast knowledge in the fields of history, literature, arts, and rituals. The root of the conception of an educated man was the knowledge of classical texts, the skills of composing poems and drawing. The developed game practices and various kinds of intellectual entertainments were traditionally accompanied by incense burning. The work presents a brief description of the history of incense culture in China. Here we distinguish the most important stages of the evolution of representations of incense functions: from rituals related to sacrifices and religious practices (through the solution of particularly pragmatic sanitary and hygienic problems) to the development of a complex system of aesthetic criteria of delight in aromas. The development of the richest tradition of incense use mainly rested on the multifaced activity of «a man of culture», which consisted in the creation of various manuscripts, drug and herbal manuals, poems, game practices, and applied art products. This greatly promoted the popularization of the incense culture and finally resulted in the formation of «the way of aroma»香道 xiangdao. During the active interaction of China with other countries of the region, the tradition of using incenses penetrated to Korea and Japan where it generated the national variants of this elite art. The article separately deals with the issue on the current state of the incense culture in China. It is noted that at present a kind of emphasis is laid on the development of this sphere of the traditional culture: throughout the country many associations and museums are organized along with exhibitions, symposiums and workshops; books, albums, and movies are produced. On the one hand, these phenomena can be considered as a search for the ways for the traditional culture to oppose the press of globalization with Western civilization values. On the other hand, this is also associated with the problem of transformation of the concept of a modern «man of culture» and his social functions in traditionalist societies. The anthropological model of the modern «man of culture» in East Asia countries is dynamic and many-sided; therefore its development can be predicted only with regard to the features of the functioning of its national variants.