A tiger hat with a rustic atmosphere
Craft oil-paper umbrellas painted with auspicious patterns such as flowers and auspicious clouds
Traditional folk paper-cut patterns that are auspicious and festive
A half-moon calendar decorated with illustrations of seasonal plants
New Year Painting "Mighty Eight Wilds"
A lifelike lantern for the Year of the Tiger
Ancient myths and stories tell us that Nuwa used loess to shape life, and life is closely linked to the land. The attachment to the homeland has always been rooted in the depths of people's emotions, and the love of the homeland has formed a hometown sound, a villager, and a hometown. People use "earthwork" to communicate emotions, carefully generate the temperature of handicrafts, and also connect the common memory of traditional handmade objects.
The "Folk Art Land Life - Chinese Folk Art Research Method Exhibition", which is currently being exhibited at the Folk Art Museum of China Academy of Art, studies the interdisciplinary nature of folk art from the perspective of life, emphasizes that folk art is the "art of life", and aims to make folk art return to the daily life of Chinese by combing the research methods of folk art.
1. Exploration, the "art" of daily use in life
Traditional crafts create the "art" of daily use with handy "work".
Professor Hang Jian, director of the Art Museum Group of china academy of art, wrote in the article "The Road of Chinese Folk Art after 'Changing Customs and Customs'" in the book "Yuanxiang Design": "Many people today like folk art, which is a kind of nostalgia and affirmation of simplicity and simplicity in view of the complex state of contemporary society. "Carefully generating handicrafts needs to be inherited and carried forward, rooted in a "living" life posture, and transformed into the needs of current life. Due to the changes of the times, the love of folk art has been passed down from generation to generation and has been continuously integrated with the present, thus becoming a part of our bloodline.
Traditional craftsmanship is inseparable from people's daily lives. A group of Chinese scholars excavated, analyzed and sorted out traditional crafts and ethnic arts from different angles such as history, aesthetics, philosophy, archaeology, philology, folklore, anthropology, etc., combined the concepts of "arts and crafts", "traditional crafts", "decoration", "patterns and practicalities", and "folk art" with life, conducted systematic research on Chinese folk art, and comprehensively presented the research methods of Chinese folk art.
For example, Professor Zhang Daoyi, one of the pioneers of Chinese folk art disciplines, advocates the constructive thinking of folk handicraft disciplines, and has established research on the daily use of "Chinese painting", "folk art characters" and "female red". There are also a group of scholars who carefully record the "art" of daily use, starting from the theoretical works of folk art such as "Meizha Chinese Characters", "History of Chinese New Year Painting", and "Thoughts of Craftsmanship", and actively explore the beauty of practical art and daily use.
Founded in 1971, Hansheng Magazine includes many handicrafts related to people's lives, such as "Huishan Clay Man", "Hand-tied Chinese Knot", "Northern Shaanxi New Year Customs", "Langzhuang Noodle Flower" and so on. Among them, "Female Red" shows the daily "art" of female ginning, spinning, weaving, embroidery and other needle leads, and in the daily life, it conveys the love and warmth of the loving mother's "tight seams before the trip, fear of delaying the return". The emotional beauty of folk art and the fascinating world of imagery constitute the original meaning of the life of "truth, goodness and beauty" of traditional Chinese farming culture.
2. Reinvention and discover the beauty of folk art
Folk art is the soul of the nation, it is not only a matter of local and cultural research, but also related to our future life. People attach their lust to things, and in the Mongolian reading book "Kindergarten Qionglin", the meaning of "things" is said: "But the magic skills seem to be useless to people, while the hundred arts are useful." However, in the process of rapid economic development, how can traditional crafts return to contemporary life? How to discover traditional Chinese wisdom and revitalize national handicraft art? Tracing the soil of traditional crafts, it will be found that local culture is the origin of traditional crafts.
Carpenters, painting blue and white porcelain, striking iron, burning pottery, making umbrellas, painting kites... The customs and customs of different regions have become the source of re-understanding and excavation of creation by the inheritors of traditional crafts. The designer team's new interpretation of traditional craftsmanship has become an emerging force in the current "folk art reconstruction". In the form of handicraft design, they integrated traditional Chinese craft ideas into modern creations, and a wave of traditional handicrafts returning to the current life gradually appeared.
In Hangzhou, traditional civilian scissors are Zhang Xiaoquan's starting products, including "Xinhua, Shanlang, Five Tigers, Round Head, Long Head" five models, steel combination, rigid and soft. The forged and formed by the iron craftsmen with thousands of hammers and hammers makes the iron tools into works of art with sharp knife edges and easy opening and closing, and the nirvana of scissors and iron art is reborn. A group of craftsmen gathered in Hubei made Ding cans and iron pots that conform to the aesthetics and usage habits of modern people, with a thick bottom, uniform heating, slow heat dissipation, and durable, known as "Chinese good iron pot".
In the past, Jiangsu and Zhejiang had a good story that "every family has an umbrella maker, and every household will weave an umbrella line", and the literati and scholars will also paint poems on the umbrella surface before the umbrella canopy is oiled, in order to send out elegant feelings. The traditional craft oil-paper umbrella includes paper umbrella, oil umbrella, bat umbrella, etc., which later formed today's public umbrella. In Luzhou, Xuancheng and other places, the traditional craft oil paper umbrella is no longer silent, but uses local materials and places it on the poetry of the hometown.
Weifang is also known as the capital of kites, Weifang kites flourished in the early Ming Dynasty, flourished in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, and grew with the development of New Year paintings. Influenced by Yangjiabu woodblock prints, people use the spare time of printing New Year paintings every spring to draw various patterns with paper and pigments from New Year paintings and make them into kites. In the process of urbanization, a large number of traditional crafts have been protected in people's lives, bringing aesthetic pleasure to the people while realizing the inheritance of culture.
3. New folk art, people's livelihood "truth, goodness and beauty"
Whether it is the theoretical study of folk art or the reconstruction of traditional crafts, it is inevitable that the integration of life and nature, life and history, life and art will inevitably arise. Cold and summer, spring, summer, autumn harvest, winter Tibet, people according to the natural rhythm, in accordance with the "twenty-four solar terms" production and life, but also look forward to the four seasons of the year safe.
People's handmade objects often use exquisite ingenuity to conceive of a simple and peaceful and colorful life. For Chinese, the Spring Festival is the most solemn traditional festival, Chinese New Year's Eve to post New Year paintings, remove the old cloth, pray for the peace of the four seasons, paste paper-cut window flowers to symbolize the prosperity of life. The door god was originally the "god of the door guard", and the spring league and the door note expressed people's joyful mood for the arrival of spring.
The wish of blessing Naxiang is the emotional basis of folk art creation, no matter what kind of material is chosen, folk art creation is good at doing its best. Making tiger shoes and tiger hats for children, and posting the "Divine Tiger Town House" New Year painting is to pray for the peace and auspiciousness of the whole family. The town house is plagued, Najib asks for blessings, and hanging clay sculptures of tiger heads not only shows celebration, but also means the meaning of divine protection. Tiger generals, tiger soldiers, tiger tigers angry, tiger heads and tiger brains... People revere, respect and love tigers, and often use "tigers" to express praise and inspiration.
In the current cultural context, the traditional cultural ecology is undergoing continuous reshaping and construction. On the one hand, folk art constantly adapts to the demands of the new era and improves itself around the people's life, material use, emotions and concepts; on the other hand, in the process of pursuing innovative development in modern life, it has gradually formed a value identity for traditional craft culture and formed a new cultural ecology of folk art. At the practical level, the construction of the concept of "new folk art" is creating the true meaning of daily use and life of people's livelihood with a new perspective of traditional craftsmanship and current life. As Professor Hangjian said when analyzing the relationship between handicraft and daily life in the book "The Goodwill of Design", "The 'New Aesthetics' Interpretation of Handicrafts": "The new aesthetics of handicrafts are not the development of traditional aesthetics, nor a new style, nor a new style, but the way back to their hometown." "Homesickness in contemporary people's livelihood has become an ancient wisdom hidden in traditional culture. The "truth, goodness and beauty" in the people's livelihood has also become the source of wisdom for the expression of new folk art.
(Author: Ren Xiaowei, Lecturer, China Academy of Art) (Ren Xiaowei)
(Guangming Daily)