The atmosphere of the Lunar New Year is accompanied by Chinese folk art life, in the face of such a rich local folk art creation, the traditional style of cultivating a distinct custom of the ancient customs, and the rich local atmosphere tailored by hand by all the people, how can researchers clearly sort out its multi-faceted cultural aspects from different categories such as folklore, style, function, mechanism, craftsmanship, and material?
The "Folk Art Land Life - Chinese Folk Art Research Method Exhibition" recently presented by the Folk Art Museum of China Academy of Art combs the research methods of folk art from the perspective of Chinese folk art as the "art of life" and returns to the Chinese living world.
Exhibition site
Since the 19th century, in the trend of aesthetic education and national salvation theory, art and life have been combined, and Lu Xun has advocated the idea of art for life, and should not forget the reference of national folk art. Mr. Lu Xun and Zheng Zhenduo co-edited the "Ten Bamboo Zhai Notes" to absorb the copyright page form of ancient book binding, how to combine book binding with artistic life; Mr. Tao Xingzhi "life is education"; after Pang Xuanxuan returned from the southwest rear, he began to systematically study Chinese decorative patterns and southwest ethnic minority decorative arts, how Chinese decorative patterns beautify life; Chen Zhifo started with systematic pattern research to explore the beauty of practical art and daily use. The contemporaneous decorative arts giant Lei Guiyuan combined the content of traditional Chinese decorative patterns to explore the development of the early decorative arts and educational disciplines in the mainland. Zhang Guangyu has a strong Chinese national folk color painting, the expression of art of popular life and the source of art life.
Pattern Writing Practice, published in 1951
Back in ancient times, the combination of folk art and life has not stopped and interrupted. "Zhuangzi • The World on Earth": "Those who look at the other side, the void room is born white, and the auspiciousness stops." "Flowers are connected to the roots, beauty is beautiful in the heart, soaked in the people's livelihood of the native China "relying on the sky to eat", "a hundred miles of different customs", there is an idiom of "entering the country and asking customs". Festive and auspicious is the pursuit of happiness and beauty in life, and its drawings are shaped and shaped into things, which are widely used in life ceremonies and festive festivals. Mountains and rivers and human affairs, endowed with folk art culture. "One side feeds the other", people regard their customs as nature.
In the lives of the people, the creation of "paintings must have drama, a hundred looks are not tired; the exit must be auspicious, in order to be satisfactory; the character should be handsome, can win people's joy", beauty in the folk, often self-evident.
Mud Tiger, collection of the Folk Art Museum of China Academy of Art
Decorative life: traditional customs and objects are suitable for children and grandchildren
In May 1916, Cai Yuanpei's "Lecture Notes on the Chinese Engineering School" said: "Decorators, the most ordinary art is also." The material it takes... With the progress of human intelligence, the way of decoration gradually differs from its scope. The decoration of the body is still in the uncivilized era; the decoration of the city is not a culturally developed country and cannot be paid attention to. From near and far, from private to public, you can watch the fortunes of the world. ”
How to combine the excellent "traditional customs and materials suitable for descendants" handicrafts with life, starting from decorative life, some from folk culture, some from the intellectual elite eager to push folk crafts to refinement and systematization.
From nature worship to people's life, the infinite realistic desire and ideal understanding of society is a huge internal driving force, carrying the rich accumulation of history and culture, with "circle" as the motif, symbolizing the circle of emotions, the circle of ideas, the circle of life, the circle of the sun, the circle of the universe, and even the circle of the surrounding things, with far-reaching meanings. Unfold the symbolic symbol system, yin and yang, swirling back and forth, heaven and earth running, all things growing, all in it. This desire and ideal has long been accumulated in the collective unconscious of the people. He is polite and tolerant, and pursues perfection in everything he does. Spring Festival's New Year paintings, door gods, Spring Festival, Lantern lights, April kites, May Dragon Boat, July beggar carvings, August 15 "Mid-Autumn Festival" flowers and full moon longevity, etc., year after year inheritance and continuous innovation. Traditional woodblock prints, paper cutting, embroidery, printing and dyeing, carving, clay sculpture, ceramics, etc. are all hopes for auspiciousness and harmony.
Hansheng Magazine Folk Culture: The Year of the Tiger (November 2010)
The first to pay attention to folk art were folklore scholars. Founded in 1923, the Customs Survey of Peking University will take "collecting customs artifacts" as its purpose, and widely collect folk customs items from all over the world, and has collected works such as New Year paintings and paper notes from various places. Taking folk art as the object and material of folklore research is the beginning of the collection and research of folk customs and related arts and crafts on the mainland.
They unfolded from life, focusing on the people's clothing, food, shelter, clothing, housing, decoration environment, festival customs, entertainment, rituals, etc. during the agricultural period, and said that "the people's daily use is the way".
Hansheng Magazine No. 121: Folk Culture: The Great New Year
How is the daily life situation of the Chinese nation provided by Hansheng Magazine in the past and how is it going to be in the future? The movement, possession, and consumption of objects constitute a history of life experience. The flow of people and objects shows the history of multi-faceted dynamic life, and comprehensively presents the art of realistic aspirations and ideals of Chinese folk art life.
The beauty of folk decorative life and the fascinating world of imagery create a colorful life.
Folk Art Reconstruction: The Beauty of the Earth is a Great Festival
Does urban civilization need folklore? Strong ethical concepts and human feelings are almost indispensable to all festivals, the first knife new spike, the first plate of fresh fruit, the first new leek, the first cup of wine, are used to pay tribute to the ancestors. Through various festivals and festivals, people express the filial piety and remembrance of future generations, and the cycle of festivals and customs is continuous, and the family consciousness and blood kinship are constantly strengthened.
In the current cultural context of the urbanization process, the traditional cultural ecology is undergoing continuous reshaping and construction, and folk art is constantly adapting to the demands of the new era. The people pray for abundant grain, prosperity for both people and animals, and peace in the years. New Year Festival, Lantern Festival, Cold Food, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, July And a Half, Mid-Autumn Festival, Heavy Nine, First Day of the First Winter Month, Winter Solstice and other festivals. Or temple sacrifices, or tomb sacrifices, or sprinkling incense, or looking at the sky to pray. The biggest festival of the year is the Spring Festival, during which the food is also the most abundant. More than ten days before the festival, families began to prepare food. Chinese New Year's Eve evening, the whole family will sit around and eat a "reunion dinner", even when the people outside arrive, they will have to squeeze the car to catch the boat home for reunion. Chinese New Year's Eve the evening dishes are very rich, and generally families with conditions have to cook 12 dishes, symbolizing the 12 months of the year, and some are more. Shortly after the Spring Festival, it is the Lantern Festival, at which time it is necessary to eat tangyuan. Next, eat rice dumplings at the Dragon Boat Festival, eat mooncakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival, "winter solstice wontons and summer solstice noodles" and so on. Noble people and family-attached peoples have their own calendars and festivals. The new era needs to form a new cultural ecology that integrates design and folk art life.
Creation of Nature: New Country Play - Tiger Puzzle, 2022
According to Chinese folklore, the popular meaning of the tiger is to ward off evil spirits and protect the life of the town house. Ordinary people sew cloth tigers or related customs, the elderly through their own hands, the good wishes with "female red" wear on the child's body. Let children learn tigers, not to seek prestige and learn to be domineering, but to practice a good skill. Just learn to walk, put on tiger head shoes, stand up like a tiger, walk steadily; put on the tiger head hat, have spirit, "tiger tiger is angry." The "Customs and Customs" says: "The tiger, the yang, the chief of a hundred beasts, can fight and frustrate sharply, and eat ghosts." The Han Dynasty called the tiger a "divine tiger" and was regarded as one of the "four spirits" alongside the Green Dragon, suzaku, and Xuanwu.
Shaanxi Tiger Head Hat, Collection of folk art museum of China Academy of Art
In the way of regional combined folklore, folk art is recreated and brought back to life. For example, the cloth tiger, which is popular in northern China, has formed different artistic styles due to differences in regional culture and human nature and folk customs. Generally speaking, the cloth tigers in the northwest region represented by Shaanxi are mostly rugged and vigorous, with novel and peculiar shapes, thick and warm colors, alluding to the hidden meaning of ancient Austria, and have a romantic and mysterious artistic temperament; the cloth tigers in North China, the Central Plains and the Qilu area represented by Henan have a round and thick body, a simple and concise configuration, a simple and simple color, a simple and simple color, a meaning of Xiao Chang and a closeness, and a solid and free artistic temperament.
Bu Laohu, Collection of folk art museum of China Academy of Art
Hanging Tiger, Collection of folk art museum of China Academy of Art
Hanging tiger is the town house disaster, Najib asking for blessings and praying for the extension of life. The color and pattern of the decoration on the shape of the tiger's head mean that YiWan uses a certain symbolic form to parasitize survival and grow old; red, which means the red fire of the four seasons; pomegranate, the auspicious concept of profit and avoidance. Begonia, meaning rich; butterfly, meaning multi-blessing; through the formal structure, each structure of the work is composed of money, meaning ten thousand profit money; peony, meaning auspicious and high does not indicate the concept of things themselves, but represents the shape of the metaphor of man's vision. Folk art re-creation is not only a carrier of faith, but also the collective memory and bloodline reconstruction of folk art emotions.
"Fushou Shuangquan" New Year Painting, Collection of folk art museum of China Academy of Art
Folk art daily life: people's livelihood is true, good and beautiful
The community with stable interactive relations in China's agrarian society carries out activities in accordance with established behavior patterns and has conventional behavior patterns. Village activities such as worship, entertainment, worship, temple fairs, and intermarriage constitute a projection of the lifestyle and cultural vocabulary of Chinese, reflecting the daily life situation of Chinese.
Compared with the concept of "sculpture" in Western art, the traditional activity model of Chinese agrarian society, "sculpture" is mainly used for entertainment or decoration. It takes more clay, rice noodles, sugar, paper fiber or cotton and other soft materials; by means of picking, pinching, piling, pasting, cutting, blowing, pouring, pulling, bonding and molding, etc., and painting, dyeing, carving, scratching, dotting, stamping, printing, inserting and embellishing and other means to apply decoration. According to the modeling of raw materials, plastic toys have clay sculpture, face plastic, Jiangmi people, sugar plastic: paper plastic and cotton plastic and other varieties.
Hansheng Magazine No. 116-117: Cao Xueqin's Kite Atlas and Kao Gongzhi (August-September 1998)
Cohesion and identity among peoples. The field is an important aspect of the clan in China's agrarian society, and the illustration of the activities of daily living in the clan community shows the trajectory of cultural changes in daily life. The trajectory of life culture other than dragon dances, lanterns, kites and other cultural changes outside of agriculture and leisure has been passed down from generation to generation in their skills.
Mounting art usually has two major systems: toys and illuminations. Among the mounting toys, kites are the most important, using paper, cloth, silk, silk and other raw materials as fabrics; Folding, stretching, pasting and other means of knot structure; it is decorated or painted, dipped or pasted, and printed. Kites, windmills, flowers, manes and other mounted toys, integrating shape, color, sound and movement, set painting and sculpture in one. Entertainment toys are mainly games and play, such as "wind in the kite", "windmill", "pole climbing monkey" and so on. Educational toys are mainly based on enlightening and inspiring wisdom, such as "puzzle diagram", "tangram board", "nine rings" and so on. Aesthetic toys are mainly appreciated and played, such as "nuclear people", "hand pinch drama texts", "mud hanging form tigers", "carved gourds", "woolly monkeys" and so on.
In the exhibits, Biyi Yan has the beautiful meaning of "bi wing double flying", "double swallow than husband and wife". Beijing Sand Swallow is the most typical hard-winged kite. Its wings are made of two bamboo strips tied in a circle, which is the general practice of so-called hard wings. The size of the skeleton of a hard-winged kite has a fixed overall proportional relationship, that is, the total length and total width are equal. There is also a certain proportion of the components and the overall dimensions. In addition to "Sand Swallow", hard-winged kites also have two skeleton forms: "rice-shaped hard wings" and "multi-layered hard wings".
Natural Creations, Kite Material Pack, 2022
Tokyo Dream Record: "Qingming Festival, ordinary Kyoshi is based on the 15th day after the winter solstice. The day before the cold food is called "cooking", using noodles to make jujube carp flying swallows, wicker strings, inserted in the lintel, called "zi push swallow". This custom of making "paper kites" can still be seen in the Jiaodong region of Shandong, but it is mostly combined with stepping on the green and has become a symbol of spring.
Create truth, goodness and beauty by hand, in every aspect of folk art daily life. Professor HangJian, director of the General Museum of Fine Arts of the China Academy of Art, analyzed the relationship between handicrafts and daily life in the interpretation of "the new aesthetics" of handicrafts in "The Goodwill of Design", and cited "the "aestheticization of daily life" proposed by postmodern thinkers is the "redemption" of the flooding of contemporary material life, but it needs to be pointed out that its practical level, in addition to the "design" above the harmony and technology, should also have the help of "handicraft". "The truth, goodness and beauty of handicrafts in people's livelihood have become the source of ancient wisdom civilization.
(Note: The author is a lecturer at the China Academy of Art)