seasonal toys
Shanxi seasonal festivals and folk toys in traditional temple fairs often make people intoxicated with the memories of interesting holidays in childhood. On New Year's Eve and the first day of the first month, "Didi Jin"; Tie lanterns and play with lanterns on the Lantern Festival; On February 2 nd, at the ancient temple fair where the dragon looked up, the dynamic structure of cloth dragons, face dragons, bamboo snakes and paper snakes gave them a sense of attraction, which attracted children to laugh and fight for it. On the third day of March, the mud whistle sounded sweet; Flying kites before and after Qingming; Wear sachets and play with Ai Yehu on Dragon Boat Festival. There is also the small windmill, the seven-tone whistle, the leather tiger and the grasshopper cage, which makes the children happy.
lantern toys
Children's lantern toys are mostly portable. Generally, it is paper paste with little red candles inside. The traditional small lanterns in rural areas are tied with sorghum poles, covered with hemp paper, painted with colors with people's favorite animals or fairy tales, printed with woodblock New Year pictures, or pasted with folk paper-cuts and equipped with small oil lamps. Nowadays, it has developed into a bamboo frame structure, with colored paper or silk paste and candles inside. Although it is not proficient in production skills, it is rough and powerful, and there is no feeling of affectation. Whether it is modeling, materials, colors and production styles, it has a lively local life atmosphere and strong local characteristics.
cotton plastic toys
a cotton plastic only needs a handful of cotton, a few peeled sorghum poles and a little glue. It is easy to make. First, several sorghum poles are tied into a skeleton, and the swollen cotton is gently wrapped around the skeleton, and then glued and shaped. With more glue and less glue, different shapes can be molded. Finally, a layer of glue is evenly coated on the surface of the body to fix the shape, and then the articles are dyed in color, and a cotton plastic animal or figure is made. Insert it into a pre-prepared drum, which is a toy with rich sound and shape that can be displayed and enjoyed as well as played at will. Cotton-plastic toys use less materials, are low in cost, and can be made from local materials, so artists often sell them while performing. There are chickens, sparrows, magpies, swallows, cranes and other birds in the cotton plastic toys, which are only three or five inches long and six or seven inches high. The main characters are the monkey grandson of the The Journey to the West Elf, the simple and honest sand monk, the silly pig Bajie and the charitable Tang Priest, all of which are vivid and unforgettable.
The folk art of dyeing, weaving and embroidery actually includes several categories, such as printing and dyeing, hand-weaving, embroidery, brocade and silk reeling.
printing and dyeing are handicrafts closely related to folk costumes and daily room decoration, mainly including batik, tie-dyeing, blue printed cloth, color printing canvas, etc., which are mainly used in clothing, hats, bedding, bed decorations, door curtains, wrapping cloth, etc., and are widely used fabrics.
Embroidery includes four famous embroideries, local folk embroideries and ethnic minority embroideries. The four famous embroideries are Xiang embroidery, Su embroidery, Shu embroidery and Yue embroidery. The representative national and folk embroideries in various places include Miao Xiu embroidery, Tu embroidery, Manchu pillow top embroidery (embroidered at both ends of pillows), Hubei embroidery and Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan folk hand embroidery.
Traditional Embroidery
Embroidery
Traditional embroidery in China is divided into folk embroidery and four famous embroideries according to different users, regions and exquisite craftsmanship.
folk embroidery is a popular folk embroidery process in China, which is relative to the "Four Famous Embroideries" with the style of palace culture and literati painting. China traditional embroidery has a long history, and it exists with the emergence and development of silk. As early as four or five thousand years ago, embroidery has become an important decorative means in the "chapter and clothing system". Embroidery unearthed from Mawangdui Tomb in Changsha more than two thousand years ago has been rich in different stitches. It can be seen that at that time, there were stylized fixing processes with different stitches in embroidery technology. In 1982, embroidered quilt and Zen (single) clothes were unearthed from the No.1 Chu tomb in Mashan, Jiangling, Hubei Province, with dragon, phoenix, tiger and flowers embroidered on them, which were both vivid and colorful.
In the Yuefu poem "Peacocks Fly Southeast" in the Han Dynasty, there is a poem "My concubine has a embroidered waist, and she grows bright by herself". At the end of the Han Dynasty and the Six Dynasties, figures appeared in embroidery themes, which set a precedent for later figure embroidery. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, literati began to participate in the design of embroidery drawings. The poetic realm, elegance of calligraphy and painting expressed by literati paintings affected the creation of folk embroidery, and embroidery began to develop in the direction of refinement and literati. In the Song Dynasty, embroidery almost became the most common and important one of women's needlework, and the embroidery creation of many well-educated rich women made the embroidery process more exquisite and wonderful. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, numerous commercial embroidery workshops appeared in urban and rural areas of China. Especially in the Ming Dynasty, China's traditional embroidery first appeared in Shanghai as "Gu Embroidery", which is famous for its exquisite embroidery and ingenious personal style with needles, and specializes in embroidering paintings of flowers, birds, animals, pictures, hand scrolls and other furnishings, indicating that's traditional embroidery has become an independent art from a decorative means attached to clothing. In the Qing Dynasty, several important schools of embroidery appeared, such as Beijing embroidery, Kaifeng Bianxiu, Shandong Luxiu embroidery, and four famous embroideries which were praised by later generations.
in the late Qing dynasty, folk embroidery techniques with local characteristics and technical characteristics appeared everywhere. However, for a long time, the official culture and elite culture have paid little attention to the folk embroidery techniques that have appeared in various places, let alone recorded and reviewed them. Folk embroidery is basically in the position of ordinary "craft" which is completely integrated with daily life, but it is the art of this life that makes folk embroidery spontaneously preserved from generation to generation and become the most wonderful, vivid and culturally rich intangible cultural category in traditional art we see today.
folk printing and dyeing
traditional folk printing and dyeing in China include tie-dyeing, batik, blue calico and colored calico.
The first three are all processes of coloring and showing flowers by printing and dyeing. Indigo extracted from Polygonum cymosum is used as dye, which is also called blue dyeing and blue printing in folk. Color printed cloth is a multi-plate color printing process. According to the Records of the Historian, the Year of the Bamboo Secretary and other ancient books, as early as the beginning of the 26th century BC, "the Yellow Emperor made a mysterious crown of Huang Shang, and dyed it with the juice of plants and trees". In the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, there was already a rule that the printing and dyeing colors and decorative patterns of clothing were used to distinguish the grades of honor and inferiority. After the Qin and Han dynasties, the stencil printing method was very popular, and then there were more and more varieties of colors and colors, and the printing and dyeing process was also improving.
China brocade
China brocade has a long history. According to archaeological findings, as early as the pre-Qin period, multi-color jacquard brocade such as "He rhombus brocade", "Flower-filled Yan brocade" and "Dragon-to-phoenix brocade" was produced. By the Han dynasty, brocade with beautiful patterns had been woven with complex and precise jacquard machines. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, brocade and makeup satin made of various kinds of silk thread and gold and silver thread were colorful and magnificent, which was hailed as icing on the cake.
Shu brocade is produced in Sichuan, mainly in Chengdu, so Chengdu is also known as Jincheng and Jinguan City. Besides, Sichuan Brocade is also produced in Nanchong, Langzhong, Leshan, Mianyang and Xindu. Shu brocade still follows the weaving of dyed cooked silk, with tough texture, colorful and unique local style. Song Jin, also known as "Suzhou Song Jin" because of its origin in Suzhou today, is famous for its simplicity and elegance, and now it is facing the endangered situation of skill interruption. The origin of Yunjin is in Nanjing, so it is named because its brocade is as magnificent as a cloud. Its pattern layout is rigorous, rich in decoration, and mostly shows flowers or twisted edges with gold thread. It is a royal brocade of China and represents the highest technical level of brocade technology.
plastic arts
plastic arts refer to folk works of art mainly made by methods such as kneading, molding, stacking and mixing, including plastic arts such as clay sculpture, dough sculpture, pottery sculpture, sugar sculpture, rice flour kneading products, pulp patting, colored glaze and glass. Plastic arts often rely on artists to perform arts by hand and to shape by hand. Because of their different creative techniques from sculpture, their artistic effects are also different. Plastic arts are often combined with painting and decoration methods, and then painted after shaping to increase the appreciation, symbolism and auspicious and peaceful atmosphere of works of art. For example, the typical works in clay sculpture include "Hand-held Opera" by Huishan, Jiangsu, "Clay Dog" by Huaiyang, Henan, noodle soup in Beijing, and the works of noodle man lang. Nami toys, such as clay bobo, Fu Fu, Fengxiang clay sculpture, male prostitute in Beijing, Mid-Autumn Moon Cake, proper fruit and Sugar Man, are all typical plastic folk arts. Some folk masks and utensils are made of paper pulp, while glass and sugar people use blow molding, which is also a plastic art.
clay sculpture art
clay sculpture
clay sculpture art is an ancient folk art in China. It takes soil as raw material, and it is shaped by hand kneading or stamping the mud, either plain or colorful, with figures and animals as the mainstay.
From the Neolithic Age to the Han Dynasty, there were a large number of pottery figurines, pottery beasts, pottery carriages, pottery boats and so on in China. Some of them are hand-pinched, and some are molded. In the funeral customs of ancestors in Han Dynasty, clay idols were widely used as funerary objects. In the Tang Dynasty, clay sculpture reached its peak. Yang Huizhi, known as the master of sculpture, is an outstanding representative. With the development of clay sculpture art in Song Dynasty, not only the large-scale Buddha statues with religious themes continued to prosper, but also small clay toys developed. Many people specialize in making clay figurines and sell them as commodities. After the Yuan Dynasty, after the Ming, Qing and Republic of China, clay sculpture works of art still spread in the society, which can be used for viewing the furnishings and allowing children to play. Tianjin, Huishan in Wuxi, Jiangsu, Dawu in Guangdong, Fengxiang in Shaanxi, Xunxian in Henan, Huaiyang and Beijing are still important producing areas of traditional clay sculpture.
dough sculpture art
China's traditional food culture has a long history. According to the literature, dough sculpture existed in the Han Dynasty. The Song Dynasty recorded the custom of using dough sculptures in the Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and wedding celebrations. The earliest existing ancient dough figurines are the female figurines, the male figurines' upper body figures and the dough pigs unearthed in the tomb of the 4th year of Yong Hui in Tang Dynasty (AD 653) found in Astana tomb in Turpan, Xinjiang. In the Qing Dynasty, there were craftsmen who made dough figurines for a living. Today, the crafts and customs of dough figurines are still preserved in most parts of northern China.
dough figurines are generally divided into ornamental dough figurines and edible dough figurines (or gift buns). Pastry used for viewing is usually made of refined flour, glutinous rice flour, salt, preservatives and sesame oil, while dough used for eating is made of powdered flour and raw flour. The different materials make the two kinds of dough sculptures have a little difference in production technology.
dough modeling
The making tools of edible flour flowers are simple, and all depend on the ingenuity of women. The method is to knead and knead white flour into dough, and then shape the dough with scissors, kitchen knives and combs. Ornamental and decorative dough sculptures are made by pouring boiling water into flour, glutinous rice flour and preservatives and stirring with chopsticks, and then kneading the dough repeatedly and evenly. Then add magenta, magenta, magenta blue, white powder, pot smoke black and other colors into the noodles to make a variety of color noodles, and then shape the image by kneading, rubbing, cutting, picking, pressing and gluing. You can also use some feathers, cotton and so on to decorate the hair, beard and so on, so that a complete image appears.
Edible flour flowers or custom-saving steamed buns are popular in northern China, where pasta is the main food. There are edible flour flowers in Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong provinces along the Yellow River valley, as well as in rural areas of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Northeast China. Noodles are mainly produced in Beijing, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Beijing has the highest artistic level of dough sculpture.
Puppet art
China puppet art reflects the profound characteristics of Chinese culture from different aspects. From the perspective of materials and manipulation methods, puppet art has different forms, such as lifting thread, palm, iron branch, medicine hair and hydraulic power. From the repertoire, there are historical legends, myths and legends, fables, etc., heaven and earth, infatuation, and realistic sketches, which can be described as diverse; From the modeling, it can be as big as people's height (the height of the big puppet in Han Dynasty is 193 cm), and it can be less than one foot. The even head can be made as big as a thumb and can be carved with correct facial features, accurate proportion, balanced lines and bright colors. For example, the staff-headed puppet in western Guangdong, Chen Qiulin, a scholar in "Fairy Lotus", and Pig Bajie and Niu Mowang in "Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon" all maintain a harmonious proportion even if the genie exaggerates.
Modern puppets in western Guangdong can move freely with their eyes, and can make movements such as opening, staring, blinking and so on according to the needs of expression, which is handy and vivid. Wuqiao folk puppet head in southern Hebei is exaggerated, concise and unique; Some are close to Tang ladies and Dunhuang colored sculptures; Some are close to traditional Chinese opera masks, but they are flexible, funny and flexible.
On the other hand, puppet shows are also a portrayal of social life, and many emperors and literati have been touched by heartstrings and uttered heartfelt sighs. For example, during the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms, the former ruler of Shu and the later ruler of Shu, Wang Yan, felt a lot after watching the puppet, and tasted the cloud:
"Cut the path and cut the geometry of life! Some people are puppets.
the art of cutting and engraving
the cutting and engraving category refers to the folk artworks mainly made by cutting, engraving and chiseling. Its contents include paper-cutting, paper carving, shadow play, clip art, carving
wood carving
reed, iron painting, stone carving line drawing, porcelain depiction and so on. A large number of cutting techniques are also used in the production of national costumes and fabrics. The modeling order of these artworks is often from big to small, and the materials used generally have a wide and tough texture, such as paper, leather, bamboo, stone, ceramics, ivory and so on. The tools commonly used in cutting and engraving are scissors, knives, chisels, chisels and some auxiliary tools. As a modeling method, cutting and engraving are good at expressing the details of works and embodying exquisite skills. For example, paper carving works can be as fine as hair (fine-line paper carving in Yueqing, Zhejiang Province is an example), and wood carving can achieve artistic effects (such as delicate boxwood carving and ivory carving, etc.)
Paper cutting. The emergence of paper-cutting should be after the invention of papermaking in Han Dynasty, which provided favorable conditions for the emergence of paper-cutting. In the Tang dynasty, the art of paper-cutting developed greatly, and it was one of the important folk customs at that time to evoke the soul by paper-cutting. In the folk, paper-cut patterns are also widely used in woodcut carving, bronze decoration, cloth printing and dyeing and other artistic fields. The paper industry in Song Dynasty was mature, and the variety of paper products provided conditions for the popularization of paper-cutting. Various forms of expression, such as folk window grilles, lanterns and decorations on tea cups, appeared, which expanded the application scope of folk paper-cutting more than that in Tang Dynasty. During the Southern Song Dynasty, there were artists who took paper-cutting as their profession. The Ming and Qing dynasties were the heyday of paper-cutting art, and paper-cutting became an important home decoration, such as doornotes, window grilles, cabinet flowers, ceiling flowers, etc., and paper-cutting also became an essential decoration for folk activities. China's paper-cutting originated from the Han Dynasty to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, but it really flourished after the mid-Qing Dynasty. Most of the ancient paper-cuts are in the countryside, with scissors as the main hinge, and the fun is simple and natural, all from the hands of peasant women; After paper-cutting enters the city, not only the citizens' interests and ideals of life should be involved in the art of paper-cutting, but also thousands of families crowded together and passed on to each other. In order to save labor, paper-cutting artists changed to carving with a knife and more than one piece, and the style turned to exquisiteness, and artists were not limited to women. However, times change, life changes and aesthetic transformation.