recently
A new book by CAFA Picture Book Creation Studio
"China Festival" is listed
The book is intended to be adopted
Traceability, combing, correcting the name,
Make one for Chinese festivals
As comprehensive an introduction as possible.
"Chinese Festival" is a long-term project developed by the Picture Book Creation Studio of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. These ancient traditional chinese festival stories have evolved and flown over thousands of years, some are no longer the original appearance, some are familiar but have many misinterpretations, and some have withdrawn from contemporary life, but they are still an indispensable part of the traditional festival system.
The 16-volume "China Festival: Our Traditional Festival Stories" (hereinafter referred to as "China Festival"), which has just been launched, is a fruitful fruit of this project.
Xiang Hua, the instructor of the picture book creation studio and the text creator of this set of books, said that the creation of "China Festival" is a dialogue with the coordinates of time and space, through several examinations, the festival story that can be sorted out, but also to complete the most important step: refined into a picture book story suitable for children to read, presented in a simple and complex visual language. Simple but not simple, ancient but modern, is the belief and pursuit of CAFA Picture Book Creation Studio.
A humane holiday story that transmits the traditional virtues of truth, goodness and beauty to children
Regarding the Lantern Festival, it is more common to have the story of Dongfang Shuo and a palace girl called "Lantern Festival". In this set of "Chinese Festivals", the author has re-sorted out various versions and selected a mythological version that is more in line with children's reading tastes - the story of the daughter of the Emperor of Heaven who risked saving the people. Through such a humane story, the traditional virtues of "kindness" in this festival are skillfully conveyed, so that children can unconsciously feel the beautiful emotions when listening to the story.
In addition, accepting others, knowing gratitude, sharing spirit, perseverance, kindness, bravery, justice... These rustic emotions and virtues, which are both universal and traditional, are very delicately presented in this set of festival picture books through different festival stories. And the emotional power hidden in the text is the profound charm unique to the seemingly simple picture book. Children will receive spiritual growth that cannot be achieved by mere preaching in the process of reading.
The trees of the heavens will have their roots, and the waters that surround the mountains will have their sources
"Cultural self-confidence and cultural roots are inseparable from good traditional festival stories – which often hide the code that resonates with the psychology of contemporary children." This set of festival stories has a strong atmosphere of life, a variety of illustration styles, and is told to children, which cleverly opens up the secret channel of communication between contemporary children and ancient ancestors, and realizes the same frequency resonance between national childhood and individual childhood, which is both fun and long knowledge, which is very suitable for children's reading and parent-child reading. "Only those who go deep into their own traditions can go further in this increasingly diverse world."
Inclusive and equal pluralistic perspectives, taking into account the traditional festivals of ethnic minorities
In this set of picture books about traditional Chinese festivals, in addition to the more common and important festivals such as Lapa Ba, Chinese New Year's Eve, Lantern Festival, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival, four traditional festivals of ethnic minorities are specially added - the Torch Festival of the Yi People, the Songkran Festival of the Dai People, the Old People's Day of the Koreans, the Danu Festival of the Yao People, in addition to some festivals that have gradually faded out of people's vision but still have their historical and cultural significance - Dragon Head, Zhongyuan Festival, March 3, etc. This perspective of multi-ethnic and multi-cultural integration is a rare feature of this set of festival picture books.
Giving traditional stories a new children's outlook and modernity, it is more suitable for today's children to read
When collecting and sorting out festival stories, Xianghua discards some of the solidified environmental protection, women's and children's views in the old stories, and passes on the ancient experience to today's children in a way that conforms to current values.
Taking Chinese New Year's Eve as an example, in the traditional story, Xi is a terrifying beast, and at the end of the year, people will drive it away by setting off firecrackers, sticking couplets, and hanging red lanterns, so as not to harm the human world, reflecting an unfriendly antagonistic relationship. In the picture book story of "China Festival", the author designs the sunset in the Chinese New Year's Eve story as a tall and terrible shape, but inside lives a lonely, timid, and eager child "sea beast".
16 festival stories, 16 illustration styles, rich and diverse humanistic aesthetic education enlightenment
For picture books, which are an image-based form of reading, the importance of illustration is self-evident. As the first CENTRAL AMERICAN picture book creation studio in China to set up picture book creation as a college major, in order to better present the uniqueness of each festival, the studio's 16 illustrators have selected 16 different styles of painting styles to create, rough and childish printmaking style, strong ethnic style with strong emotional colors, beautiful ukiyo-e style, festive folk paper-cutting style, beautiful light watercolor, cute and round cartoons, etc.
Using these different illustration styles, different media materials, different colors, lines and shapes, repeatedly polished, to create a set of festival stories with diverse painting styles, which not only presents the characteristics of the festival, but also continues the studio's exquisite, unique, childlike and affinity creative characteristics, giving children a real artistic aesthetic enlightenment.
Text/Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City Reporter: Wu Bo
Photo/ Guangzhou Daily, Xinhuacheng reporter: Wu Bo
Video/Guangzhou Daily Xinhuacheng Reporter: Wu Bo
Correspondent: Zhao Zheng
Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor: Moschig