Themes in Chinese Folk Art

Folk art has always been a form of art created, used and appreciated by the people, and its theme is nothing more than the fulfillment of two needs: a use function in terms of material use, and a non-utilitarian spiritual aesthetic need. During the thousands of years of folk art formation and development, the production and life style of agricultural society has not changed much. Therefore, the first thing needed in agricultural production and life is human resources, i.e., the production of population, which is the greatest need for survival, and the worship of reproduction, the content of praying for children, and the multiplication of children and grandchildren have become the most common images and themes in folk art. People's belief in the existence of spirits in everything stems from the worship of nature and the power of the universe in the era of low productivity. The themes and connotations of folk art are centered on the psychological needs of avoiding harm and seeking good fortune, which is also the instinct of self-preservation of human beings. The most important function of art is to satisfy spiritual needs, both to express hope for the future, but also to delight the spirit of aesthetic activities, so people's lives in all life rituals can not do without the company of folk art, and people live with food, clothing, housing and transportation related to all the activities and venues can not be separated from the participation of folk art. Folk art is the art of hope, the art of good luck and the art of vitality. Reproductive worship is one of the most important themes in folk art. China's agrarian cultural pattern and the production and life style of working at sunrise and resting at sunset have a great thirst for laborers and human beings. One of the ways in which fertility worship is expressed is the ubiquitous begging for children. It originated from the reproductive beliefs of primitive people and became a stereotype in people's conception. In ancient times, sacrifices to Gao Sacrifice, the god of reproduction, were very solemn, showing the importance people attached to the heir.

In traditional Chinese culture, one of the dominant Confucian views, filial piety, emphasizes the idea that "there are three unfilial things, and no one is more important than one's own". People's desire for children was not only expressed in the worship of the ancient god of child-rearing, the "High-requesting Sacrifice" - Nuwa and Fuxi - but also became a cultural mentality rooted in people's hearts. Later, Taoism and Buddhism, and local folk deities also gave birth to the function of sending children, such as the Jade Emperor, the Queen Mother, Zhang Xian, Buddha, Goddess of Mercy, the Queen Mother, the Queen of Sending Children, Mazu and so on, and their temples are all over the country.

The Gong and Liu Temple (Zhou Gong Temple) in Gansu, Junxian, Huaiyang, Songshan in Henan, Pingyao Shuanglin Temple in Shanxi, Daixian, Baigou in Hebei, Tianhougong (A-Ma Temple) in Tianjin, and Baiyunguan (White Cloud Temple) in Beijing, etc., are still offering sacrifices or holding "tethering dolls" on the birthdays of the gods. A large number of works of folk art are to show the birth of a child and the theme of sending a child, a variety of clay pinch painted dolls, buckle mold clay dolls, cloth dolls, paper 祃(印有送生娘娘像) silver engraved dolls, dolls made of other materials, such as gypsum dolls, papier-maché dolls, painted plastic dolls, begging for a child to draw a charm and so on, are often found in the temple fair.

One of the representative activities is the Henan Huaiyang People's Ancestral Temple Fair from February 2 to March 2 of the lunar calendar. During the festival, people come from all over the world to worship Fuxi, the ancestor of man, to touch the "Zisun kiln," which symbolizes the female genitalia, and to buy a "mud dog," which symbolizes an heir, and offer it to their families in order to have children. At the Mazu Temple in Tianhougong, Tianjin, people who come to beg for children burn incense and worship, and then tie back a colorful statue of a child (commonly known as a "big brother") as the eldest of the family heirs, in the hope that he will be able to bring the second and third children to the family of the beggar. Gansu Gong Liu Temple, Shanxi Shuanglin Temple, Daixian Yang Family Ancestral Hall, etc., are the locations of temples where clay dolls, face flowers, cloth dolls and other objects are used to beg for children. Northwest local paper-cutting art in the bun doll is a fertility witchcraft performance, a large number of folk art in the fish and bird patterns, begging for children with dolls - clay dolls, cloth dolls, silver or copper, iron dolls like and a variety of face molding, paper-cutting and other works of art, all with the significance of the cult of reproduction and begging for children. China's folk religion is a quasi-religion with a strong synthesis, with primitive religion accounting for most of its components, including witchcraft, divination, taboo content, totem worship of plants and animals, and belief in ghosts, gods and ancestors. With the development of society, folk religion has been blended with the traditional culture of Confucianism, Taoism and foreign Buddhism, and its content is extremely broad. People worship the God of Wind, the God of Rain, the God of Wealth, the God of the Five Directions, the God of the Five Directions, the Three Gods of Fortune and Longevity and all kinds of deities, and all the deities in the Buddhist and Taoist religions, such as the God of Guan Gong, the Buddha, the Three Gods of Fortune and Longevity, the Five Directions, etc., and they also worship the Confucian philosophers and sages, such as Confucius, Laozi, Yue Fei, etc. These are regarded as personalities of the gods with divinity. Although folk religion is not strictly monotheistic, it is characterized by pragmatism and the satisfaction of psychological needs, and has been y rooted in the life and customs of the Chinese people, and has been preserved intact in a relatively stable natural and social environment, and has undergone mutations in different eras according to the spiritual needs of the people, some of which have been watered down and alienated, and some of which have been endowed with new contents to be developed, and there are a lot of folk activities which have been weakened or transformed from folk religion. There are many folklore activities that have been weakened or transformed from folk religion.

Many folk arts are closely related to folk beliefs and witchcraft activities. Witchcraft idols, paintings of gods, and even things like kites, which today seem to be purely entertainment, were early witchcraft tools used to spread disasters and remove illnesses. The third day of the third month of the lunar calendar is the day of kite flying in folklore, and it is believed that as the kite strings are cut, illnesses and impurities will go away with the wind. There are countless examples of this. When their own strength fails to achieve their goals, people always look for some kind of spiritual support, so they want to use their imagination and external forces to help them achieve their goals, and we can regard this phenomenon as a kind of distorted conceptual grasp of the world. As a cultural phenomenon and social existence, folk religion survives in the special space and time constituted by such concepts and mentalities, so it is very important to recognize the characteristics of folk religious beliefs for our understanding of traditional Chinese culture. Seasons and festivals are an important part of folk culture. Folk art in seasons and festivals reflects people's concepts and emotions in the process of society's running of time and cycle. China is an ancient agrarian society, and over the long course of thousands of years of civilization, the various agricultural festivals of the seasons and the various festivals based on beliefs related to agricultural production have had a great impact on the lives of the Chinese people and on their artistic creations. In the case of the Han Chinese, for example, there are numerous festivals ranging from the Lunar New Year to the New Year's Eve, when the old and the new are removed. The "Winter Solstice" festival, the Laha Festival, the Zao Festival on the 23rd day of the Lunar New Year (commonly known as the New Year's Eve) and the New Year's Eve on the 30th day of the Lunar New Year are all celebrated between October and December, and so on. Successive annual festivals (excluding some local festivals and government holidays, and excluding the gods and folk temple fair), the folk art from the beginning of the year to the end of the year through up.

From ancient times to modern times, some of the traditional seasonal celebrations of the New Year's festivals have undergone some form of change, but the people's mentality and original intention is **** common. The desire to drive away evil spirits, get rid of diseases but ghosts, welcome good fortune and good luck, be rich and prosperous, have many children and longevity, have a good harvest, prosper six animals, commemorate sages, worship ancestors, educate the descendants, follow the good, loyalty and filial piety, mutual love and other wishes are the deeper cultural connotations of the various festivals, folklore and folk art. Another important theme of folk art is to ward off evil spirits and pray for good fortune, and to avoid harm. In the ancient society with harsh natural conditions and low level of science and technology, natural disasters and wars often threatened people's survival and life. The belief in gods and the dependence on nature made people full of reverence for the gods who could bring them happiness and good fortune, and drive away demons and harm. On every festival or the birthday of the gods, they will pray at the god's position or post the statue of the god, make offerings to the god, or pray for the blessing of the gods with masks of swallowing the mouth and a kind of artifacts such as gourds to ward off evil spirits and demon-detecting mirrors. Such as the New Year's posting of the door god, New Year's paintings, all kinds of idols, the home of the house lion, tile cat, etc. are expressed in the wish to welcome good luck and good fortune, to get rid of illnesses and disasters. The Zhong Kui statue is the most common idol to drive away ghosts and is often posted on the back door.

With the progress of society, people's faith in gods and spirits has been reduced, and all kinds of auspicious paintings and statues of gods and god paintings, more often than not, express a festive atmosphere, embellish and decorate the environment of the festival, but the intention of praying for blessings and warding off evil spirits is still preserved in them, and has an irreplaceable significance. Our common paintings such as Wan Nian Ru Yi, Tian Guan Zeng Fu, Qilin Sends Children, and Money Tree are all such auspicious paintings for praying for good fortune. The recitation of folktales is the most common form of popular entertainment, and it has a very long history. Since mankind has had language, there have been stories of oral tradition. For a long period of history, folktales have been passed down and preserved by people's oral tradition from one generation to the next. History books with written records have also recorded a large number of folklore, myths and legends.

The famous figurines of storytellers appeared as early as in the Han Dynasty, showing the vivid expressions of storytellers, indicating that storytelling had already become a specialized profession. In the Song Dynasty, the book "Tokyo Dreaming Records" already contained the record of "Hook Lane Warehouse", which was a professional place for storytelling and entertainment, showing that the development of folk literature had reached a peak, and that folk stories had become the most popular art among the citizens. Since the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the development of novels and operas provided a broader platform and channel for the dissemination and promotion of folktales. Many of the contents of Yuan operas, illustrated prints and embroidered novels, and operatic performances came from ancient folktales. They were composed, edited, integrated and adapted to become the content of various folk art performances, and the contents of folk operas, plays out of paintings, colorful sculptures, architectural paintings and stone and wood carvings were particularly prominent.

China's long history, stretching more than 5,000 years of civilization, from the "Classic of the Mountain and the Sea", "Sojourner's Tale", "Fengshen Yanyi", to the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "Dream of the Red Mansion", "Journey to the West" and other four great masterpieces, the subject and content of which contain a large number of folk tales, not to mention the folk tales of various ethnic groups throughout the country.

In traditional societies where there were no modern forms of media, the people relied on folktales and literary content from various sources to educate themselves and their descendants. Folktales are an important part of China's oral culture and have an important edifying function, teaching people to be good, love their country and love their family, and giving them the inspiration and education of truth, goodness and beauty. For example, the Chinese New Year's painting "Meng's Mother's Three Moves" tells the story of how Mengzi's mother moved three times in order to create a good learning atmosphere for her children to study hard, and how the traditional "Twenty-four Filial Piety Stories" (which tells the story of filial piety and filial piety to parents through the ages. As for the traditional "Twenty-four Filial Piety Stories" (which promote a traditional concept of filial piety and compassion) and "The Mouse Marrying Her Marriage" (which satirizes the concept of marriage between a family and its parents), they can be found all over the world, and they are all part of our invaluable cultural heritage. Folk art not only exists in daily life and in the seasons of the year, but also serves the important function of being a companion to the rituals of life and an indispensable source of support and comfort in people's spiritual life. From the perspective of a group, folk art is indispensable to the four seasons and eight festivals of the year. From an individual point of view, the role of folk art is equally important, not so much as a companion, but as a part of life, a part of the life course.

From before a person is conceived in the mother's womb, there is already a ritual of begging for a child through the medium of small clay dolls and other folk art, and even in today's modernized society, the custom of "tethering dolls" still exists in many corners of the countryside. After a woman becomes pregnant, a series of taboos and fetus education activities begin, and the baby's full moon and first birthday are also the occasion for the collection of folk art, with all kinds of embroidered clothes, shoes, hats, flower buns, and congratulatory gifts gathered in the family of the child. In the process of growing up, there is also the ceremony of becoming a child, 12 or 13 years old is a stop in life, when there is a special birthday ceremony, the long life lock is a must. From infancy to young adulthood, various children's toys accompany the children. Customs and rituals in love marriages are another showcase of folk art, with ceremonial ornaments, cave decorations and women's red work taking people to the world of folk art in different styles. Longevity ceremony and funeral ceremony, these two important moments in life, more importantly, the folk arts and crafts embellishments and accompaniment, celebration of auspicious paintings, longevity cakes and buns, etc. is the younger generation to the elders to show filial piety conveyance of the intermediary; and funeral paper, paper-cutting, and the coffin cover, the funeral rituals and furnishings, and is the living and the dead to communicate with the carrier. A person's life begins with folk art and ends with folk art.