I. Modern times: potential metamorphosis
In the early 20th century, China's political system and social environment underwent the most profound changes ever, overthrowing the millennium of feudalism, the establishment of the **** and the country; the May Fourth New Culture Movement and the destructive force of the old ideological system and stereotypes, thus opening up a new era of China's cultural history. However, in the midst of such drastic social shocks, traditional handicrafts did not seem to have changed much on the surface, largely inheriting the styles and techniques of the Qing Dynasty, and continued to be strong and weak for several decades. However, analyzing the correlation between traditional handicrafts and social patterns and lifestyles, we can see the potential factors that will soon force it to undergo a metamorphosis.
(1) The market for traditional handicrafts is shrinking
In ancient China, the use of handicrafts involved almost every level of society. In the natural economic environment of "men plowing and women weaving", handicrafts provided most of the social needs and necessities of life, ranging from the emperor's gowns and ceremonial vessels to the folk's dowry and paper horses. In particular, the demand for high-class handicrafts by the court and the favored bureaucracy had greatly stimulated its production, bringing the skills of gold, jade, lacquer, wood, silk weaving, and embroidery to their peak. However, the sudden change in political system caused by the Xinhai Revolution abolished the top hat and plume and the dragon robe and court beads overnight, and handicrafts with the brand of feudal hierarchy immediately lost their market. This is one aspect of the narrowing of the market. On the other hand, since the late Qing Dynasty, Western household goods were imported into China, such as foreign cloth, foreign oil lamps, foreign fires, foreign socks, electric fans, electric lamps, clocks and watches, etc., which gradually took over the market of the metropolis, and even Cixi and Guangxu had pianos and sofas. 6,325 electric lamps were installed in Shanghai in 1893 (the nineteenth year of the Guangxu era), and 9,091 lamps were installed in the following year. Then, Beijing and Tianjin, including the forbidden court of the imperial palace, were equipped with electric lights (Jiao Runming: A Cultural History of Modern China). In this way, the production of practical handicrafts was inevitably sidelined.
(2) A shift in the understanding of the value of handicrafts
Traditional handicrafts originally had two main categories. One category is high-grade goods (i.e., what is later referred to as specialty crafts). Both ornamental and collection value. One category is the popularization of practical goods, direct service to people's lives. In feudal society, high-grade crafts have long been the object of a small number of people to accumulate wealth, antiquities as "curio" collection. According to the "confiscated and the list of family assets", the He family jade library has "jade tripod thirteen seat high two feet five inches, jade chime twenty blocks, jade ruyi one hundred and thirty-two handles, inlaid with jade ruyi one thousand one hundred and sixty-six handles ......, the above * * * for the price of silver seven million two". Antique curiosities have "antique copper bottle twenty, antique copper tripod twenty-one, antique copper sea thirty-three ......, above *** for the price of silver eight million taels" and so on. Since the Republic of China, practical handicrafts, although there is a trend of contraction, but the rich merchants, large landowners and nouveau riche on the demand for high-grade handicrafts did not have the slightest decrease. Therefore, the value of handicrafts is obviously biased towards high-grade special crafts. The economic value and collection value of the obvious rise, so that the practical value seems insignificant. The late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of Suzhou arts and crafts deformed development is an example, at that time to mahogany furniture, jade carving, jewelry, sandalwood fan, embroidery for the bulk, basically are special crafts.
(C) the creative concept of handicrafts is difficult to synchronize with the times
The creative concept of modern traditional handicrafts has long been stuck in the Qing Dynasty style, with few changes, the reasons for which are manifold. First, the father and son, master and apprentice generations of inheritance, so that the skills and styles to programmed, difficult to reverse. As said in the book of "Kaogong Ji": "The one who knows creates things, the skillful one describes them; the one who keeps the world is called a worker". Secondly, the unbalanced nature of modern cultural transformation has prevented traditional handicrafts from rapidly converging with the times. At the beginning of the last century, when the southeastern region and the metropolis has appeared more suits, remote areas are still to the young girl wrapped in feet, the society appeared in the phenomenon of mixing ancient and modern, Chinese and Western, traditional handicrafts seem to be at a loss. Some people feel the change of the world, to innovate to fight for the market, such as Jingdezhen porcelain vase appeared on the fashion figure painting. Some people in the hunt for psychological, but also do not throw away the traditional concepts, produced a mixture of non-Central African and Western styles. Such as Suzhou Dongshan carving building, both Chinese auspicious patterns and twenty-four filial piety carvings, but also Roman column head and Renaissance-style carvings, disorganized. Only embroidery unconsciously underwent a more radical metamorphosis. Embroidery in ancient times to practical mainly, the Ming Dynasty Lu Xiangyuan "Gu embroidery" pioneered the embroidery to imitate the craft of painting, and widely spread. In the decline of practical embroidery, this process is flourishing, but it is no longer the traditional sense of embroidery. Third, the high-grade crafts above the real life, originally used to appreciate the collection and playthings, to imitate the ancient as the best, naturally, can ignore the social changes. In short, modern traditional handicrafts in the change and unchanged, seems to change the edge of the line, predicting an unstoppable wind of metamorphosis will sweep across China.
Two, modern: the inevitability of the metamorphosis
The last fifty years of the 20th century, China's economy had a big fall and a big rise, while the traditional handicrafts, on the contrary, a big rise and a big fall, which inevitably causes us to think y: what does such a "difference" mean? It means that in an industrialized society, traditional handicrafts are bound to undergo a metamorphosis as an objective law. The factors contributing to this metamorphosis are manifold.
(I) Production methods not compatible with the market economy
In the 1950s and 1960s, traditional handicrafts experienced a rare revival. Under the direct guidance of government departments at all levels, collective ownership replaced decentralized individual workshops, and successor talents were trained in two ways: by founding arts and crafts colleges and by inheriting the work of their children. In the process of changing the economic system to a market system under the economic leverage of planned foreign trade, many factories had difficulties in maintaining or even closed down. Individual workshops gradually emerged. Handicraft production was mainly manual, and the design and production of products could be done piece by piece, which was completely different from industrialized mass production, and often required the application of skills according to the materials. The clustered assembly line operation and hierarchical wage system drowned the individual's creativity in the "big pot of rice", which was bound to be in trouble in the new economic system. As a result, a large number of practical goods are mass-produced by industrialization, such as daily-use ceramics and furniture; a small number of special handicrafts are carved by workshops, such as jewelry, gold and silver jewelry, etc., and the phenomenon of polarization has occurred.
(2) Products detached from lifestyle
The more direct reason for the decline of traditional handicrafts in modern times is the detachment from the lifestyle of the industrialized society. 1950s-1970s, although the life of the Chinese people was simple, in fact, there was already a serious tendency of "westernization". The Chinese people's life in the 1950s and 1970s, though simple, was in fact already heavily "westernized. In the 1950s and 1970s, although Chinese life was simple, there was in fact a serious tendency towards "westernization", such as monotonous western-style clothing, simple western-style housing, bicycles with no gears, steam locomotives, and so on. Traditional handicrafts, except for foreign exchange, have been very far from the people's lives. since the mid-80s, Chinese people's lives have moved from "subsistence" to "well-off" and "affluent". Closer to the "well-off" and "affluent", the trend of westernization accelerated, the improvement of the living environment, the popularity of household electrical appliances, the extension of the highway, the increase in the number of private cars, the rapid development of the information industry, have made people's values, aesthetic concepts, the concept of space and time have undergone a fundamental change in the clothing, food, housing and transportation needs, mainly relying on industrialized products, inexpensive and good value for money. Although the price of handicrafts climbed, but "high and low". There is a woman entrepreneur spent a huge sum of money to establish a rosewood museum, can do so and how many people? Visible, modernized lifestyle and cultural atmosphere, will inevitably result in the contraction of the material aspects of traditional culture, which is difficult to get rid of the law of the nation.
(C) the "new" misunderstanding
Traditional handicrafts in the long process of historical development is never static, but with the times is always in the "flux", and thus the formation of a rich and varied historical The modern "push the boundaries" of craftsmanship. Can modern "innovation" bring it back into line with the trends of the times? Two attempts at innovation in the 1970s show that this is a very difficult task. During the farce of the Cultural Revolution, traditional handicrafts were inspired by the "model theater", and there was a climax of directly reflecting revolutionary themes or a certain plot of the "model theater", which can be called the "model theater style". This can be called "model theater-style" innovation. This kind of innovation basically excluded the laws of art. With the end of the "Cultural Revolution", this kind of innovation also ended. in the late 70's, a lot of waste to revitalize the traditional handicrafts, and made a "renaissance-style" innovation attempt, that is, advocating the revival of "Han and Tang style", "style", "style", "style", "style", "style", "style" and "style". Style", "Dunhuang style" and so on. The intention was to get rid of the constraints of the Ming and Qing styles in the past few decades, and to draw nourishment from classical art to make it have a broader field of creation. However, this disguised retro in the 70s and 80s difficult to receive the expected results, the two "push the envelope" encounter there are deeper reasons, one is the difference in the understanding of traditional culture. The diversity of traditional Chinese culture needless to say. But the general mind of the traditional handicrafts are often framed in the Ming and Qing styles, not only because they are directly linked with the modern era, and many relics of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as architecture, gardens, furniture, painting and calligraphy, opera, novels, etc., they are fused with handicrafts as a classical cultural landscape, the formation of a stereotype on the understanding. For experts much appreciated Han and Tang Dynasty, Dunhuang and other arts but feel strange. Suzhou Hanshan Temple in recent years to build an imitation of the Tang Dynasty Pagoda, many people regarded as "Japanese style". If the revival, even if the high level of art, it is difficult for most people to appreciate. Secondly, improvement cannot save traditional handicrafts. The above two kinds of "innovation" are on the premise of keeping the techniques, materials and expressions of traditional handicrafts extremely intact, but only switching the subject matter and making partial improvements. It has been proved that, in modern society, traditional handicrafts either show the profound history with the established style; or separate the technique and style, and then integrate into the environment of industrialized society through the re-combination with modern elements, so as to obtain the "regeneration".
Three: The Road to Regeneration: Transformation
In the 21st century, there may be three ways for traditional Chinese handicrafts to survive. One is the inheritance of the whole. In addition to a few naturally surviving varieties, the best varieties and master craftsmen should be artificially protected from the height of cultural ecology so that they will not be lost. One is the combination of traditional skills and modern styles, i.e., to recreate traditional handicrafts with modern aesthetic consciousness, so as to make them compatible with the modern living environment, such as modern ceramics, whose changes in shapes, glazes, paintings and textures are all inextricably linked with the modernists as well as with the post-modernist art. One is to separate the style from the technique, so that it can be combined with modern materials and techniques. There is only the transplantation of style without the inheritance of skills, forming a modern style that seems to be ancient but not ancient. Such as Western-style tailoring of Chinese clothing, buttons made of fake buttons, group of flowers can be cut a piece of brocade instead. This form can not only send Chinese national feelings, but also to adapt to the modern environment, vitality will be very tenacious. Of the three types mentioned above, the latter two are characterized by the separation of style and technique, from which we can easily see the law of "metamorphosis - regeneration" of traditional handicrafts.
(I) Separation and Transplantation of Form and Ideological Connotation
The ideological connotation of traditional handicrafts is so rich that it is difficult to summarize it in one word. But fundamentally, it is integrated with the hierarchical concepts of traditional Chinese culture of respect for the inferiority and superiority of people, the religious idea of honoring heaven and sacrificing to ancestors, the cosmic thinking of the induction of heaven and man, the sense of inheritance of never forgetting one's origins, and the folklore tradition of warding off evil spirits and good fortune. However, social changes often force traditional handicrafts to divest themselves of their formal aspects and spiritual qualities, either by injecting new ideological connotations into the old forms, or by using new forms to express old ideas. The new connotation of the old form is typical of the Forbidden City in Beijing, which has become a museum from the Royal Palace and a people's park from a private garden in the South of the Yangtze River. In addition, we commonly to Beijing Opera face, Nuo opera masks for decorative phenomena, they are what role or what God is not important, the important thing is to reflect the charm of Chinese national culture and style. Modern people wear jade just for good luck, who still remembers Confucius about the gentleman with jade than the teachings of virtue? The so-called combination of old connotations and new forms refers to the use of modern methods to reflect ancient concepts and ideas. Such is the case with those works in modern fashion design that are themed on Chinese culture, and the design and production of modern stage costumes for ethnic minorities. For example, the five elements of yin and yang is a very ancient concept of the universe, and the four gods representing the four directions in traditional handicrafts are the most intuitive reflection of this concept. 2001 Art and Science Seminar's series of posters, "Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth" (see Decoration, 2001, Issue 4, Cover 2), used a new visual image to express the concepts of the five elements and the five colors. The concept of five elements and five colors is expressed in a new visual image. The sculpture "The Way of Things" (see the color page of Decoration, Issue 4, 2001), created by Li Zhengdao, is a modern work with the connotation of "yin and yang embracing each other".
(2) Separation and Transplantation of Forms and Techniques
The formation of traditional Chinese handicraft styles depends on the ideological connotation in the first place. At the same time, material and craftsmanship uniqueness are also important aspects. As cultural heritage, style and technique are always one and the same. However, they cannot be separated without being integrated into the modern society. Because materials and techniques bring both unique styles and limitations, it is impossible to make jade carving as finely carved as tooth carving. And modern society does not value the economic value of jade and ivory, but rather the need for flashy, inexpensive ornaments and items that change with the wind. If the formation and technique of traditional handicrafts are separated from the fixed relationship, there is room for reinvention. Such as soft sculpture to express the pattern of colored pottery, carpet to express the Han Dynasty portrait stone, with large-scale wood relief carving imitation jade carving are successful attempts. In turn, the traditional techniques to reflect the new subject matter is also a kind of transplantation, the modern ceramics has been mentioned above is a model. However, not every subject matter is suitable for traditional crafts. There is a display, with small clay figure techniques and programs to produce modern figures of large-scale color sculpture, changing advantages into disadvantages, it is difficult to succeed.
(C) Separation and transplantation of form and practicality
Traditional handicrafts used to be closely connected with life in the past, and some of the products served the life at that time and had strong practical value. In the modern lifestyle and living environment, their practical value has been reduced or even disappeared, and the separation of form and practicality is inevitable. For example, the window panes of the old-style houses in Jiangnan use different styles of separation to form a nice geometric pattern. In modern architecture has not used this wooden window panes, but in the interior decoration, they are hung on the wall, or made into a false window, but popular, and even made into a new pane and then do the old phenomenon. Another example, clothing and embroidery to become a pendant, stone mill and horse stakes in the yard and so on. These once very practical products have been transplanted to show the ancient civilization and folklore in the decoration, will no longer have a use value. Such a "metamorphosis and regeneration" is typical. In short, the style of traditional handicrafts will be eternal, however, it is for "regeneration" to pay a high price, that is, the metamorphosis of the body.
Thinking about the inheritance, development and innovation of traditional arts and crafts
Suzhou arts and crafts have a long history, exquisite skills and complete categories. It is the pride of Suzhou. However, how to further promote the new development of Suzhou arts and crafts on this basis? This is every arts and crafts workers should think about the problem.
After the establishment of new China, in Suzhou arts and crafts industry all workers and artists *** with the efforts of the Suzhou arts and crafts industry has been unprecedented development, many products of the artistic quality are far more than the historical level. Such as embroidery, sandalwood fan, antique bronze and so on. But we can not help but see that there are still a lot of crafts are still behind the historical level. Products are often old faces, are déjà vu. The reason for this is that we treat the traditional things, the lack of comprehensive scientific research, just a brain to inherit or imitation. The product is old and lacks a sense of the times. Lack of sense of the times works, and how to get this era of people's favorite and appreciate it?
Any piece of craft work should have the style of the times, the breath of the times. Works without the content and flavor of the times are withered works. Only innovative works based on the inheritance of tradition and with the content and flavor of the times are works with vitality. Tradition is gradually formed and developed in the long river of history, but tradition is also developed by constantly adding new contents in the historical development. Tradition has always been based on nationalities and regions, and at the same time, it has constantly absorbed foreign things to enrich itself and enrich itself. Therefore, we can not regard the tradition as static, xenophobic, inheritance of tradition is to "abandon", take the essence, remove the dross. Must follow the "ancient for modern use, foreign for Chinese" policy, and constantly from the real world to absorb nutrients, so that the traditional forms of expression to add the colors of the times, for the development of arts and crafts to adapt to the needs of contemporary life and service. Developing products of the times with national characteristics requires us to study and inherit fine traditions from a wider scope and in a comprehensive manner. Without tradition, there is no specialty, and without specialty, we have lost our own specialty. Then, how to break through the narrow boundaries of the inheritance of tradition in the past, in the tradition of innovation and development? First, we should actively develop foreign trade. This is an important way of arts and crafts inheritance and development. Our arts and crafts industry is facing a shortage of funds, low productivity levels and other issues, we should actively utilize foreign capital and private funds to develop foreign trade products. Su fan is one of the traditional products, the use of traditional fan-making skills to actively develop a series of products, namely, "arts and crafts fan, computer fan" and other products, which is characterized by material, such as fan bone, fan surface production changes, fan bone using polyphenylene hard plastic, pattern using hot stamping, thereby replacing the traditional bamboo bone, fan fabric using different cotton cloth Polyester Lylon, thus replacing the traditional paper. The glue adopts high-strength water-soluble glue, replacing the traditional paddle paste, changing the shortcomings of traditional paper fans which are easy to moth and damage. The fan is not only beautiful and generous shape, fan face novel and eye-catching, washable, affordable, and its quality far exceeds the "Spanish fan", get the general love of the western countries, and get considerable economic benefits. Secondly, we should study the tradition, inherit and carry forward the tradition scientifically. This is the arts and crafts design and theory of an important part of the construction of the research and development of it, we do not do enough. There are still a lot of issues to be further explored and researched. China's arts and crafts in the international market is facing excellent opportunities. Embroidery, silk clothing, bedding and other products have a greater potential for development. We should grasp the opportunity to inherit the traditional products, at the same time, the courage to innovate, and actively develop new era of arts and crafts to meet the needs of the times, modern people love and appreciate. In particular, we should accelerate the discovery and development of new products under the conditions of socialist market economy, so that our arts and crafts products have a new look, new technology, new materials, new quality.
Innovation is the driving force of development. Now people like the so-called "streamlined" is not an absolute concept, it is only a fresh energy, cheerful emotional performance. Arts and crafts, closely related to people's lives, it first has practical value, but also has appreciation value. Human innovation of all kinds of living things, first of all to meet the needs of people's daily life, but also in the material production at the same time, in accordance with the laws of beauty to design and manufacture products. The innovation of handicrafts is the objective need of the development of the times. People's living standards, lifestyle and aesthetic standards, always changing with the times and changes in the aesthetic function of the product must be constantly innovative. Like the past hall furnishings of the master chair, so square, so big, so bulky, so solemn, so serious. Do you like? Not only sitting uncomfortable, its style also left the era of aesthetic standards. Arts and crafts to adapt to the needs of society, survival and development, must change with the changes in people's lives, the development of development, in the aesthetic function of the product to continue to innovate. Now our arts and crafts, often how many years of consistency, detached from real life, which is precisely the key to hinder the development of our arts and crafts. The development of products to meet the needs of the times, must be combined with modern science and technology, must make the traditional skills and traditional styles in the new technology based on development. Such as our current micro-carving products, a grain of rice large ivory engraved with a poem, a hair engraved with a poem, in the past is difficult to do, now can do, which is a reflection of the modern light mirror technology. It can be said that each fine arts and crafts, are reflected in the times, not only in the use of products and aesthetic function, but also should reflect the productivity level of the times. An era of productivity determines the basic appearance of an era of products. The development of science and technology not only creates new productive forces, but also opens up a broader front for artistic expression. Historical development to today, science and technology is changing rapidly, and with it should be compatible with modern productivity of new arts and crafts. But our existing arts and crafts, science and technology into productive forces of the problem is still very prominent, and the capitalist countries these work better than we do, such as lacquer is our traditional products, and later imported into Japan, the Japanese use of modern science and technology to study the "lacquer" of the chemical composition of the research dry method, so that the product's functional quality and so on. The Japanese used modern science and technology to study the chemical composition of "lacquer" and the drying method, so that the function and quality of the products have surpassed us. The backwardness of science and technology and the backwardness of products are one of the main reasons affecting the upgrading of handicrafts in China. Historically speaking, without smelting technology, there is no bronze, there is no chimes. Chimes are bronze musical instruments of the Western and Eastern Zhou in China, which consist of a series of bells hung in sequence on a wooden frame and struck with small wooden mallets. Such as Hubei Suizhou City, the early Warring States ZengHouYi tomb unearthed "ZengHouYi chime" is China's largest chime, ***65 a set of early 1999, in order to meet the arrival of the 21st century, the party central committee, the state council issued a plan, require suzhou to develop a set of antique bronze musical instruments in 9 months! "China and bell", 108 pieces. Its shape should be adapted on the basis of ancient chimes, and its color, volume and timbre were strictly stipulated requirements. Suzhou arts and craftsmen worked hard and finally succeeded in developing a set of "Chinese and bells" within the stipulated time, no matter in the design of the shape, sample, molding, casting, production, or in the coloring, tuning and other aspects, have played the best level of skills, and at the same time in the traditional skills on the basis of modern technology for bold innovation. 108 pieces of bells to be based on ancient chimes. The 108 bells hang together with beautiful sound quality and grandeur. The scale of the bells far exceeds that of the Zeng Houyi Bells, and the 108 bells symbolize the spirit of the Chinese nation, the peace and good fortune of the country, and are of great practical significance and far-reaching historical significance. The successful development of "China and bell" is a new breakthrough in our Suzhou arts and crafts business. Gives us an inspiration - the use of traditional skills combined with the characteristics of the times, the courage to innovate, to develop products of the times is an important way of traditional arts and crafts development, is the inheritance, innovation, development of arts and crafts must go through.
The wheel of history rolls forward, our arts and crafts must also keep up with the wheel of the times, accelerate the pace, correctly deal with the inheritance of tradition and innovation and development of the relationship, seize the opportunity to give full play to their own wisdom and talent, to create a more beautiful works to meet the needs of the modern people's material life and cultural needs, and at the same time also make the traditional arts and crafts culture of Suzhou shines with a new luster.