Overview and examples of arts and crafts in China from ancient times to the present day

The origin of Chinese arts and crafts can be traced back to the creation of the first labor tools by the ancient ancestors. The practical and spiritual connotations that coalesced in the primitive tools established the initial form of Chinese arts and crafts and the status of arts and crafts as the forerunner of the plastic arts of the Chinese nation. The Neolithic stone and jade, bone and teeth, weaving, sewing, and especially pottery-making crafts have clearly shown that Chinese arts and crafts attach importance to the unity of practicality and aesthetics of the idea of making things and designing artisans, as well as the ability of craftsmen to grasp the properties of the materials and the production process, and the understanding and application of the laws of form and beauty.

Chinese arts and crafts made epochal progress during the Shang and Western Zhou periods, and the practical and spiritual connotations of crafts were further enriched and strengthened. Spiritual connotation of a large number of infiltration of social consciousness and religious consciousness, so that the arts and crafts of this period has a sublime aesthetic charm. Primitive celadon and lacquer ware gained initial development, while bronze ware and jade ware made brilliant achievements.

The arts and crafts of the Spring and Autumn, Warring States and Qin and Han Dynasties show the development of economic power and ideology in the early feudal society of China. The rise and exaltation of the spirit of rationality, the pursuit of practical utility and realistic life values, and the inheritance of primitive cultural traditions full of passion and colorful form of organic unity, resulting in light and lively, flowing and unrestrained, strong and ancient aesthetic characteristics, in ceramics, lacquer and silk fabrics on the full expression.

The political, economic, military, cultural and the entire ideology of the Three Kingdoms, Jin Dynasty and the North and South Dynasty, resulting in changes in the production pattern of arts and crafts the pursuit of value. The production center gradually moved from the north to the south, crafts tend to the inner personality and the heart of the display. During this period, the tendency to create objects that emphasize the spirit of the subject's personality and the aesthetic style of sparseness, quietness and blandness profoundly affected the overall development of Chinese arts and crafts. Celadon, building pieces and religious arts and crafts in this period has made outstanding achievements.

Chinese arts and crafts gained comprehensive development in the early Tang and the Sheng Tang, presenting a prosperous and developed scene. The skill level and production scale of brocade weaving, printing and dyeing, ceramics, gold and silverware, lacquerware and carpentry surpassed those of previous generations. Economic development, cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, as well as the liberation of human ideology, so that the Sui and Tang dynasties arts and crafts show stretching momentum, delicate and rounded decorative craftsmen and rich and full of morphological characteristics.

Ancient Chinese arts and crafts more perfect paradigm and realm appeared in the Song Dynasty, and concentrated on ceramics. Developed handicrafts and the cultural atmosphere of literature and reasoning, to maintain the harmony and unity of artifacts and the subject of the aesthetic ideal provides a great possibility, thus forming the generation of calm and elegant, bland and implicit, the heart of the materialization of an aesthetic style. Song Dynasty arts and crafts fully materialized the cultural spirit of the Chinese nation and aesthetic consciousness, which embodies and reveals the principle of creation still has significant practical significance.

After the Mongols unified China with their strong military power, arts and crafts had a certain development. The gold brocade of dyeing and weaving, the blue and red glaze of ceramics are the outstanding contributions of this period. From the influence of the nomadic culture of martial arts, the Yuan Dynasty arts and crafts style tends to be rough, bold and strong.

The Ming Dynasty was another powerful era in Chinese history. The emergence of capitalist factors and the production of new culture and science in line with this, prompted the Ming Dynasty Arts and Crafts into a new stage, brocade, cotton textile, ceramics, lacquer, goldsmiths, furniture and architectural decoration and other categories have been more comprehensive development. The arts and crafts of the Ming Dynasty inherited the aesthetic pursuits since the Song Dynasty, and developed towards programatization and perfection, with aesthetic characteristics such as dignity, simplicity and robustness.

All categories of ancient Chinese arts and crafts were more perfected in the Qing Dynasty, and their varieties, skills and techniques were far more abundant than those of the previous generation, presenting the situation of the great success of each historical period. From the upper class aristocratic aesthetic interest in winning the concept of artifacts, in the Qing dynasty arts and crafts production further strengthened, so that the generation of art style is becoming more and more decorative carving, exquisite and elaborate.

After the Opium War in 1840, China's arts and crafts production pattern, product structure, craft ideas and artistic style are showing a new face. Decay and renewal, imitation and creation, adherence and differentiation constitute the basic landscape of modern Chinese arts and crafts. The traditional crafts inherited from the Qing Dynasty are rapidly declining under the impact of modern industrial civilization, while the modern arts and crafts adapted to the requirements of the new era are rapidly rising and flourishing, and the fresh, simple and bright modern arts and crafts mark a brand-new cultural form and connotation, so the difference between it and the traditional arts and crafts is extremely obvious.

The emergence and development of modern arts and crafts opened up a new field for Chinese crafts activities and set up new aesthetic style and value standards.