Aesthetic characteristics of arts and crafts

Arts and crafts are often restricted by their practicality, production conditions and materials used. To understand the aesthetic characteristics of arts and crafts, we must first grasp this essence.

Applicability and aesthetics

Arts and crafts are closely related to people's food, clothing, housing and transportation. Like architecture, it has two basic social functions, that is, to meet people's practical needs in life and aesthetic needs in thought at the same time. In a sense, handicrafts are first applicable and then beautiful. A desk lamp that can't illuminate, a pen that can't write, no matter how beautiful the decoration is, it has no aesthetic value. Because of this, many display technologies are developing in the direction of application in design, for example, they can also be used as windshields and large decorative screens to separate halls. But this does not deny the existence and development of simple decorative arts and crafts. Broadly speaking, it is the embodiment of its applicability for decoration to display its decorative function with display technology. From this point of view, the aesthetic value of daily-use handicrafts can only be perfectly reflected through the exertion of applicability. For furniture and handicrafts, its applicability is expressed through aesthetic value. Here, "application" is concrete and "beauty" is abstract. The opposition and unity between "concreteness" and "abstraction" have enabled many arts and crafts to maintain their environment, history,

All kinds of beautiful social forms and ideological youth. Undoubtedly, the combination of application and aesthetics is the essence and primary feature of arts and crafts. The aesthetics of arts and crafts is also restricted by the characteristics of craft types. The aesthetic value of various handicrafts depends on whether the characteristics of these handicrafts are fully exerted to some extent. For example, carving is the art of knife filing, which requires different materials, different knife conveying methods, suitable tools and various carving techniques to complete carving. China's "nuclear ship" in the Ming Dynasty gave full play to the characteristics of this craft. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Wei Xueyi recorded it in detail. On a narrow peach pit, the artist Wang Shuyuan carved five people, eight windows, a canopy, an oar, a stove, a pot, a roll of books and a rosary. What's even more peculiar is that it is also engraved with couplets with the title ***34 words. The characters have different expressions, and the knife marks are as thin as mosquito feet. Such exquisite display of carving techniques is rare in ancient and modern works. Another example is today's wonderful embroidery work "Shuang Mianxiu", which is the "unique skill" of giving full play to various embroidery stitches and techniques, and has extremely high aesthetic value. Therefore, when we appreciate arts and crafts, we must look at the degree to which its own technological characteristics are limited by materials, tools and production level in the production process. The higher the degree of development, the greater the aesthetic value of its arts and crafts. The effect of technical beauty does not lie in the quality of the materials used. A diamond, a piece of pure gold and an ivory are of high economic value, but if they are not used in craft creation within the scope of craft aesthetics, their aesthetic value is equal to zero like a walnut, a piece of soil and a bamboo. Therefore, the appreciation of arts and crafts can't and can't distinguish the artistic value of craft materials, but depends on whether the materials are reasonable, fully utilized and transformed. For example, the impure color of stone is a serious shortcoming of raw materials, and sometimes it will ruin a sculpture handicraft that is about to be completed. The fine tradition of jade carving artists in China to deal with raw material spots is the so-called "skillful work". In other words, judge the situation and teach students in accordance with their aptitude. The modern sculptor Wang Luhuan's Engraving New Buttons can illustrate this problem: the artist carved the dark green spots on the Yin Shi into lifelike beetles, turning disadvantages into advantages. Wang Chaowen, an aesthete, commented on this treatment: "If he hadn't been inspired by the dark green spots, he would have peeled off a beetle and then stuck the carved beetle on stones of different colors, no matter how clever his carving technique was, it would be difficult to arouse the amazement of observers. With his talent and wisdom of turning passivity into initiative and turning shortcomings into advantages, the author broke through the limitations of raw materials while obeying, showing the talent of the artist. " Another example is the "Ma Gu Xian Shou" made by the Sage Craft Bamboo Weaving Factory, and the use of materials is also unique. Craftsmen use embroidery needles to carve a piece of 2.8 cm-wide fragment thinner than paper into 150 filaments, and then use silver needles to pierce and weave, so that the delicate skin, hair, skirt and ribbon of Xiangu dance in the wind, making Xiangu look beautiful and moving, giving people a graceful aesthetic feeling. Therefore, the rationality and sufficiency of the transformation of raw materials directly affect the aesthetic effect of the works. The sense of harmony of craft products is reflected in harmonious colors, moderate size, reasonable layout and proper collocation with the environment, which is the advanced realm of craft beauty, that is, the word "art" that is usually emphasized. For example, the metal handicraft "Kirin Songzi" is based on the folklore of Kirin Songzi. Author Liu He made a copper plate on a whole piece of copper after more than 30 times of firing. Xiangyun floating at the bottom of the copper plate sets off a child with a long life lock. Wearing a helmet and tassels, he sat on a unicorn, just like walking on white clouds. The round pier surface is full of vitality, with wishful thinking in the right hand and unicorn horns in the left hand.

The posture is vigorous and powerful. The edge of the plate is inlaid with silver-blue bat lace, which symbolizes happiness and peace. This work is not only elegant and dignified in overall shape, simple and natural in color, but also has universal appreciation value, can arouse people's association of loving life, contains the philosophy of human struggle for survival, and fully shows the power of overall harmony and beauty of handicrafts. When the handicrafts are in harmony with their storage environment, the harmonious beauty of handicrafts can be more fully displayed. For example, the large-screen layout of Hunan embroidery in the Hunan Hall of the Great Hall of the People is very rich in Hunan's local feelings. In particular, a pair of ducks swimming in Shuang Mianxiu and hibiscus coming out of the water suddenly brought people to the vast Dongting water town, which produced many beautiful associations, full of interest and vitality, and received good aesthetic effects.

Characteristics and factors of process images

"Crafts mainly use color, structure and shape to express the broad and hazy emotional atmosphere of our nation in a certain era." Generally speaking, it does not copy or imitate objective objects. Even modeling with real objects only regards objects as external forms of emotions. Therefore, arts and crafts are the product of objectification of human essential feelings. Therefore, only by understanding the inner feelings of the work through the external form of the craft image can we find the basic way to understand the symbolic meaning and appreciate the sublime beauty of the work. The symbolism of craft images is related to the change and development of art types, which makes the sublime beauty of craft images have the basis and possibility of expression. In the emergence and development of symbolism art, there is a situation that people confuse the spiritual content of worshipping gods with the material form of expressing gods, such as cows, monkeys and snakes, and they are all worshipped as gods. "This kind of situation, reflected in the art, on the one hand, realize that God is not the object of feeling, on the other hand, regard the object of feeling as God. This is a contradiction. In order to overcome this contradiction, they exaggerate and distort the object of feeling to symbolize God. As a result, there have been many gods, such as three heads and six arms, Buddha with thousands of hands and thousands of eyes. Many of these images have become traditional themes of arts and crafts and become symbols of people's power to transcend nature and overcome themselves. Take the treasure of arts and crafts "Six-armed Buddha Locking Dragon" as an example, which is the work of Pan Bingheng, a contemporary jade carving master. The author skillfully used the multi-branch characteristics of coral to design a

Six-armed Buddha, cut a dragon about 10 cm high from the remaining materials. The author conceives from a symbolic point of view that the six-armed Buddha represents human strength and the dragon represents the raging flood. A 30 cm long chain was cut from the Buddha's right arm and locked the dragon's neck. The relationship between Buddha and dragon has become the relationship between winner and capitulator. People feel the joy of "overcoming the flood" from this work and are encouraged by "man can conquer nature". The symbolic meaning of the work is linked with the sense of aesthetic pride and victory, creating a lofty beauty full of fighting power and competitiveness. The symbolism of craft images is also related to historical and social factors. Only by putting the works in the historical and social background can we appreciate the symbolic significance and lofty beauty of handicrafts more accurately. For example, some orphans and treasures in arts and crafts that are regarded as priceless are endowed with accurate, profound, universal and unique symbolic significance and lofty beauty due to historical and social reasons, in addition to material texture, technological level and other factors. There are many cauldrons in ancient handicrafts in China. In terms of practical value, it is a cooker, and can also be used as an instrument of torture for cooks and an alchemist for cooking medicines. Another use of tripod is as a symbol of heavy weapons and rights for building the country; Ding prevailed in slave society, which was suitable for the majesty of etiquette at that time. The "Simuwu cauldron" in Shang Dynasty is the largest cauldron ever discovered, with a huge and forceful appearance. The animal face pattern on its abdomen has Kubinashi's body; The dramatic patterns with prominent eyes are ferocious, terrible, solemn and mysterious. "There is a profound historical force in the mysterious intimidation, which seems ugly and awesome. Its mysterious terror is combined with this unstoppable historical force and becomes beautiful-sublime. " "The history of killing thousands of prisoners and slaves has long passed, but the bronze art that represents and embodies the spirit of this era has been appreciated and admired by us so far because it embodies the superhuman strength of this mysterious objective historical progress. It is this superhuman historical power that constitutes the ugly beauty of bronze art. "Today, this tripod retains the childhood style of human society, which is naive, simple, mysterious and fierce, showing people the characteristics of an era and showing the lofty beauty that the latecomers can't reach. The symbolism of craft images is also related to other kinds of culture, art and national aesthetic habits; Only by improving cultural and artistic accomplishment and understanding the aesthetic ideal of national folk culture can we fully understand the symbolic significance and lofty beauty of handicrafts. Various cultures and arts of a country and a nation always influence each other and learn from each other in the long-term development process, so the lofty spirit and aesthetic intention representing the fine traditions of the nation are often reflected in the process images, which makes the lofty beauty of the process images have literary color and typical significance. For example, the Monkey King and Pig Bajie in The Journey to the West often become the "protagonists" in porcelain sculpture and clay sculpture, and all kinds of stories in A Dream of Red Mansions often become the themes of sculpture, embroidery and other craft works, and then bring typical meanings such as "not afraid of hardship" and "anti-feudalism" into handicrafts, which greatly enriches the content that the craft image can express. Among the brick carvings once praised by Mr. Lu Xun as "profound and majestic", there is a masterpiece named "The Last Stand", which is 3.3 meters long and 1.2 meters high. It is made up of nearly 30 thick bricks by Tianjin Xibo female painter and her husband Yan, each weighing tens of kilograms. The last stop is based on the historical records "Biography of Huaiyin Hou". The works give full play to the specialty of brick carving art (large-scale works), and show the grand scene of Han Xin leading troops to fight to the death with Zhao Jun with magnificent pictures and simple and profound knife techniques. High-spirited horses, waving battle lines, dead bodies and the charm of fighters show people courage and strength. What the appreciator feels is not the cruelty of bloodshed, but the lofty spirit of "fighting to the death". This symbolic significance is extremely prominent in the epic picture, which makes the work have real artistic life and creates a lofty aesthetic mood, which is exciting. In the colorful and dazzling folk arts and crafts, some themes symbolizing happiness, auspiciousness, longevity, happiness and peace, such as "auspicious dragon and phoenix", "auspicious (chicken) celebrating fish", "Ma Gu offering birthday" and "goddess scattering flowers", are often repeated and are very popular. Taking paper-cutting as an example, it embodies the profound emotional and psychological consciousness of the Chinese nation and is a treasure of national art. The cockscomb flower cut in Xie Zhicheng, Guizhou Province adopts the traditional homophonic symbol, which combines chicken and fish, symbolizing "many blessings and many celebrations". Another example is that the "velvet flower" in Beijing handicrafts symbolizes "glory", and Huishan clay sculpture "Afu"-a smiling little clay doll-symbolizes happiness. They are all very popular folk handicrafts. The reason is that, in addition to their respective technical expertise being fully displayed in the hands of craftsmen, the key is that the beautiful symbolic meaning of these works can be understood and accepted by the broad masses of the people, expressing people's aesthetic ideals. In addition, many works in handicrafts have no direct symbolic meaning, but are made as simple decorations, which embodies people's aesthetic requirements. For example, the ivory sculpture "Gillot" displayed in the Guangdong Hall of the Great Hall of the People has a 50-story-high ivory ball, which is exquisite in knife work and hollowing out carving skills, and is as ingenious as a god. The work itself is not an attempt to teach people. The superb skills make people feel the diligence, rigor and tenacity of the craftsman, and the resolute spirit indirectly cultivates the appreciator with wisdom and strength. These works not only express the superb skills and extraordinary talents of craftsmen, but also symbolize the great creative spirit of mankind. In this sense, their superb technical beauty is also lofty. Isn't it this "omnipotent" spirit that human beings explore and forge ahead? This situation in arts and crafts is similar to the "unique skills" in artistic performances. If some crosstalk performers perform difficult tongue twisters and tongue piercing, the luck of spitting words is incredible; Another example is the rotation of dancers and the somersault of Beijing opera actors, which can last for hundreds of times. While applauding the wonderful performances of the actors, the audience also praised their wisdom and diligence in creating this superb technical beauty. The symbolic understanding of skilled craft products is summed up and sublimated by the aesthetic subject in his own feelings; For arts and crafts, this aesthetic function can not be ignored. In a word, only by linking historical, social and national factors from different aspects can we better understand the symbolic meaning of handicrafts and understand the lofty beauty of handicrafts expressed through this meaning.