1 thought on “Transformation and regeneration of handicrafts”

  1. At the beginning of the 20th century, China's political system and the social environment had undergone the deepest changes in history, overturned the millennium feudal system and established the Republic; This has opened up a new era of Chinese cultural history. However, in such a violent social shock, traditional handicrafts seem to have not changed much from the surface, which has generally inherited the style and skills of the Qing Dynasty, and it continued for decades weakly. But from the analysis of the correlation between the social form and the lifestyle, we can see the potential factor that is about to force it to transform.
    (1) The market of traditional handicrafts is gradually narrowing
    In ancient China, the use of handicrafts almost involved almost every level of society. In the natural and economic environment of "men's plowing and women", handicrafts provide most of the needs and life needs of society, to the emperor's dresses and rituals, and small to folk wedding dresses and paper horses. In particular, the demand for high -end handicrafts in court and pets has greatly stimulated its production, making the technique of gold, jade, lacquer, wood, silk weaving, embroidery and other industries. However, the sudden changes in the government caused by the 1911 Revolution made the top wearing flowers and dragon robes were abolished overnight, and handicrafts with feudal grade brand immediately lost the market. This is one aspect of market narrowing. On the other hand, since the late Qing Dynasty, Western daily necessities have entered China, such as foreign cloth, ocean oil lamps, foreign fires, foreign socks, electric fans, electric lights, clocks, etc. Piano and sofa. In 1893 (19th year of Guangxu), 6325 electric lights were installed in Shanghai, reaching 9091 the following year. Then, Beijing and Tianjin, including the Royal Palace forbidden Garden, equipped with electric lights (Jiao Runming: "History of modern Chinese culture"). In this way, the production of practical handicrafts will inevitably be excluded.
    (2) The offset of the value of the value of handicrafts
    The traditional handicrafts have two categories. One category is high -end products (that is, special craft later). Both the value of ornamental and collection. One is a popular practical product that directly serves people's lives. In feudal society, high -end crafts have long become the object of a few people accumulating wealth, while antiquities are used as "antique" collection. According to the "Search and Family Production List", the Hejiayu gallery library includes "T3 Fifty -inch, Twenty of Yu Ding, Twenty Yuli, Yu Ruyi 132 Handle, Jade Ruyi 1,100 and sixth handle ... …, The above price is seven million silver. " The antiques include "Twenty bronze bottles, twenty -one copper tribe, 33 bronze sea ... the above price is eight million silver" and so on. Since the Republic of China, although practical handicrafts have a contracted trend, the demand for high -end crafts on high -end crafts has not decreased. Therefore, the value of handicrafts is obviously biased towards high -end special crafts. The significant increase in economic and collectible value makes practical value appear insignificant. The deformed development of the arts and crafts of Suzhou in the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China was an example.
    (3) The creative concept of handicrafts is difficult to synchronize with the times
    The creative concept of modern traditional handicrafts has long been in the Qing Dynasty style, with few changes, because of many aspects. The first is the successive inheritance method of the father and son and the apprenticeship generations, so that the skills and styles are stylized, and it is difficult to reverse for a while. As the Kao Ji Ji said: "The creator of the person, the person who knows it; Second, the imbalance of modern cultural transformation makes traditional handicrafts unable to move closer to the times. In the early century, when there were more suits in the southeast and metropolis, the remote areas were still wrapped in girls. The phenomenon of mixed ancient and modern, Chinese and Western coexistence appeared in the society. Traditional handicrafts seemed to be unconventional. Some people feel the changes in the world and fight for the market with innovation, such as fashion figure paintings on the porcelain bottle of Jingdezhen. Some people are in the psychology of hunting and losing the traditional concept, and they have a mixed style of non -China -Africa. For example, the East Mountain Carving Building in Suzhou has both the auspicious patterns of China and the four filial piety carvings, as well as the Roman stigma and the Renaissance carving. Only embroidery has not unconsciously transformed. The embroidery was mainly practical in ancient times. The "Gu Xiu" of Luxiangyuan in the Ming Dynasty created the process of embroidery and imitation painting, and it was widely circulated. When practical embroidery is becoming increasingly declining, this process is booming, but it is no longer the traditional embroidery. Third, high -end crafts that are high in real life, are originally used for appreciation, with antique products, naturally ignore social changes. In short, the traditional traditional craftsmanship is changing and unchanged, and the edge line that seems to be changed, indicating that the wind of difficult transformation will sweep China. Fifty years later in the 20th century, China's economy has fallen sharply, and traditional craftsmanship will rise and fall, which will inevitably cause our thoughts: what does such "differences" mean? It means that the industrialized society, traditional handicrafts must be transformed by objective laws. The factors that contribute to this transformation are many aspects.
    (1) Production methods that are not adapted to the market economy
    The 1950s and 1950s, traditional handicrafts experienced a rare period of revival. Under the direct guidance of government departments at all levels, collective ownership has replaced decentralized individual workshops to cultivate successor talents with two ways to establish two ways of arts and crafts colleges and children. In the process of planning to change the economic leverage of foreign trade to the market system, it is difficult for many factories to maintain or even fail. The individual workshop has gradually emerged. Handicraft production is mainly handmade. The design and production of the product can be completed one by one. It is completely different from the industrialized mass production. It is often applied according to the aptitude. The clustering flow operation and the grade wage system flood the enthusiasm created by the individual in the "big pot rice", and it will inevitably fall into trouble in the new economic system. As a result, a large number of practical products are produced by industrialized batch production, such as daily ceramics and furniture; a small amount of special crafts are carved with the workshops, such as jewelry, gold and silver jewelry, etc.
    (2) Products that are separated from lifestyle
    The reason why traditional handicrafts are more direct in modern decline is the separation of the industrialized social lifestyle. In the 1950s and 1970s, although the lives of Chinese people were simple, they actually had a serious "westernization" tendency. Such as monotonous western -style clothing, rude Western housing, constant transmission bicycles, steam locomotives, and so on. In addition to the exchange of foreign exchange, traditional handicrafts have been far away from people's lives. Since the mid -1980s, the life of Chinese people has moved closer to the "well -off" and "rich type" and "rich type". The rapid development of the information industry has fundamentally changed people's values, aesthetic concepts, and time and space concepts. The need for clothing, food, housing, and transportation mainly depends on industrialized products and cheap and beautiful. Although the price of handicrafts has risen, it is "high and widow." A female entrepreneur reprimanded the Rosewood Museum, and how many people can do it like this? It can be seen that the modern lifestyle and cultural atmosphere will inevitably cause the material level in traditional culture. It is difficult for any nation to get rid of this law.
    (3) The misunderstanding of "innocent new"
    The traditional handicraft has never been unchanged in the long historical development process, but as the times have always been "flowing", and thus formed a formation of formation, and thus formed a formation of formation, and thus formed a formation of formed Rich and diverse historical styles. Can the modern "new" make it reappear with the trend of the times? Two innovation attempts in the 1970s shows that this is very difficult. In the farce of the "Cultural Revolution", under the call of "model drama", traditional handicrafts have directly reflected the orgasm of a certain plot of the revolutionary subject matter or "model play", which can be called a "model drama style" innovation. This innovation basically excluded the law of art. With the end of the Cultural Revolution, this innovation is gone. In the late 1970s, hundreds of wastes were treated. In order to revitalize the traditional craftsmanship, they also made an innovative attempt of "Renaissance", that is, to promote the revival of "Han and Tang style" and "Dunhuang style". I intend to get rid of the restraint of the Ming and Qing style for decades, and to draw nutrients from classical art to make a broader creative field. However, this disguised retro was difficult to receive the expected results in the 1970s and 1970s. There are still deeper reasons for the two "innovation" encounters. First, the difference in understanding of traditional culture. The diversity of Chinese traditional culture is not as important as. However, the traditional handicrafts in the minds of ordinary people are often fixed in the Ming and Qing style, not only because they are directly connected to modern times, but also have many relics in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as architecture, gardens, furniture, calligraphy, opera, novels, etc. The integration is a landscape of a classical culture, forming a trend of understanding. It is strange to the arts such as Han Tang and Dunhuang, which are appreciated by experts. An imitation Tang Tower was added in Hanshan Temple in Suzhou, and many people were seen as "Japanese". If you blindly revive, even if the level of art is high, it is difficult to appreciate most people. The second is that improvement cannot save traditional handicrafts. The above two "new" are under the premise of maintaining the techniques, materials, and expression of traditional handicrafts. They are only switched on the subject matter and made local improvements. Facts have proved that in modern society, traditional handicrafts may show the far -reaching history of history; or separate skills and styles, and after the re -combination of modern elements, we can integrate into the environment of an industrialized society and obtain "regeneration". In the 21st century, Chinese traditional handicrafts may have three ways to survive. One is the overall inheritance. In addition to a small number of natural survival varieties, it is also necessary to protect the best varieties and masters from the high degree of artificially artificially artificially artificially artificially made it. One is the combination of traditional skills and modern styles, that is, using modern aesthetic consciousness to rebuild traditional handicrafts, which adapts to the modern living environment, such as modern pottery, its changes in shape, glaze, painting, and texture are all changes. There are inexplicable arts with modern and modernists. One is to separate the style from the skills to combine it with modern materials and craftsmanship. Only style transplants, no technique inheritance, form a modern style like ancient non -ancient. For example, the Chinese -style clothing of Western -style cuts, the New trip into fake buckles, Tuanhua can cut a brocade satin instead. This form can not only restrain the national feelings of the Chinese and adapt to the modern environment, and the vitality will be very tenacious. Among the above three types, the latter two are characterized by the separation of style and skills. From this, it is not difficult to see the law of traditional handicrafts "transformation -regeneration".
    (1) The separation and transplantation of form and ideological connotation
    The ideas of traditional handicrafts are very rich and difficult to say. But fundamentally, it has a level concept with the traditional Chinese culture, the religious thoughts of worshiping the ancestors, the cosmic thinking of heaven and human induction, the awareness of the inheritance of the original, and the folk tradition of ward off the evil. of. However, the changes in society often forced the form of traditional handicrafts to peel off, or inject new ideological connotations into the old form, or express ancient ideas in new forms. The typical new connotation of the old form is that the Forbidden City of Beijing has become a museum from the Royal Forbidden Garden, and the Jiangnan Garden has become a people's park from a private garden. In addition, we are often decorated with Peking Opera Facebook and Mask masks. What role or gods are not important, what is important is that it reflects the charm and style of Chinese national culture. Modern people Peiyu is just for auspiciousness. Who still remembers Confucius' teachings about gentlemen with Jade Bid? The combination of the so -called new form of old connotation refers to reflecting ancient ideas and ideas with modern methods. Such as the design and production of Chinese culture -themed works, and the design and production of modern ethnic minority stage clothing. For another example, the yin and yang five elements are very old -fashioned concepts. In traditional handicrafts, the four gods representing the Quartet are the most intuitive reflection of this concept. In the 2001 "Art and Science" seminar, the series of posters "Golden Water, Water and Fire" (see "Decoration" 2001 Issue 2) use a new visual image to express the five elements and five colors of concepts. The sculpture of Li Zhengdao's creative "Words of Things" (see "Decoration" in 2001) is a modern work with "Yin and Yang Mutual Holding" as the connotation.
    (2) Separation and transplantation of form and skills
    The formation of traditional Chinese handicraft style first depends on the ideological connotation. At the same time, unique materials and craftsmanship are also important aspects. As a cultural heritage, style and skills are always a whole. But if you want to integrate into modern society, you can't help but separate them. Because materials and skills have not only brought unique styles, but also limited, it is impossible to make jade carvings from making fine works like tooth carvings. And modern society does not pay attention to the economic value of jade and ivory, but also requires Chinese or unable to change with the wind. If the formation of traditional craftsmanship and the technique from fixed, there is room for re -creation. For example, soft sculpture shows colorful pottery patterns, and uses a carpet to express the portrait stone of the Han Dynasty. Using large -scale wood -floating carving imitation jade sculptures is a successful attempt. In turn, the use of traditional skills to reflect the new subject is also a transplant. The modern ceramic art that has been mentioned above is a model. However, it is not suitable for traditional craftsmanship. There is a display, using the techniques and programs of the small clay people to make large -scale color plastic and change advantages of modern characters, which is difficult to succeed.
    (3) The separation of form and practicality is closely connected to the transplantation
    The traditional handicraft was closely connected to the past life. Some products served the life at the time and had strong practical value. In modern lifestyle and living environment, their practical value has also decreased and disappeared, and the separation of form and practicality is inevitable. For example, the pane of the old houses in the south of the river uses different styles to form a beautiful geometric pattern. In modern architecture, this kind of wooden pane has not been used at all, but in the interior decoration, they are hung on the wall or made a fake window, but they are very popular. Phenomenon. For another example, clothing embroidery has become a pendant, stone mill and horses in the yard, and so on. These very practical products have been transplanted to the decoration of ancient civilization and folk customs, and there will no longer be value for use. Such a "transformation -regeneration" must not be said to be very typical. In short, the style of traditional handicrafts will be forever. However, it pays a high price for "regeneration", that is, the transformation of reborn.

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