Illustrate the modern value of folk art with examples

On the relationship between China's traditional artistic values and China's contemporary culture. As we know, the pursuit of traditional art and aesthetics in China is basically based on Confucianism, so art and aesthetics have adopted a very typical utilitarian value orientation, that is, emphasizing the social function of art. As early as the Xia Dynasty, there was the idea of "casting a tripod like a thing, preparing everything to make people know SHEN WOO". [12] thought that the bronze design was to educate people to distinguish between good and evil. Confucius' view of "painting after the event" contains a truth, that is, the relationship between literature and quality, "element" is quality, "painting" is literature, and literature is the expression of quality. [13] This thought, which pays attention to essence and good and evil, was clearly expressed as the social function theory of "educating and helping others" by Zhang Yanyuan in the Tang Dynasty. Although Zhang Yanyuan's argument is about figure painting, when he talks about landscape painting, he adds a "pleasing temperament" at most, and still takes moral advice as the first priority: "Painters should be wary of being virtuous and foolish, and be happy." [ 14]

It can be seen that our ancestors basically adopted a practical and utilitarian value orientation to art. What changes have taken place in the face of western culture in such an artistic thought based on Confucianism? 19 At the end of the 20th century, many foreign students began to formally study oil painting, in fact, they just wanted to learn from western oil painting, because the latter represented a scientific and rational way to observe and understand the world, hoping to use this thing to transform the traditional painting that was rampant and declining in China at that time, so it was very utilitarian.

Subsequently, a series of social and political struggles in China's modern history, from anti-imperialism and feudalism to War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, and then to serving a ruling party after the founding of the People's Republic of China, always ran through such utilitarian realistic requirements. From ancient times to the present, China's artistic creation and aesthetic consciousness are always inseparable from the return of utility and practicality. This determines that China's modern artistic aesthetics is incomplete, impure and mixed in absorbing foreign culture, integrating traditional culture and innovating. Why do you say that?

Through a series of western democratic movements such as the French Revolution, we know that the most essential part or value contribution of modern western art is to advocate human dignity, independence, individuality and free creation. This part focuses on art itself and artistic self-discipline for art's sake, which belongs to the internal structure of art and aesthetics and is its core value. However, once our art is put together with the society, it will often be submerged by various social and peripheral conditions and factors, and the self-discipline within the art and the development of the language of the art itself will be disturbed and bound. As far as modern and contemporary culture in China is concerned, it is mixed in form, and its artistic value is bound to be influenced and influenced by various cultural, political and economic forces and mechanisms active in modern and contemporary society in China. It is impossible to take the non-utilitarian, independent and free artistic aesthetic road from Kant in the West. Even today, the same is true in the fields of art and aesthetics in China. When artists are creating, they are thinking about the degree of integration with society, their involvement in society, their concern for society and their voice for society. Behind this reflective way of thinking is a theory of artistic aesthetic function, which determines the contemporary culture in China and, of course, the incompleteness, hybridity and impure nature of contemporary art in China.

The above-mentioned nature of China's contemporary culture also determines that the values of China's contemporary art cannot have a single or comprehensive expression. This disunity and incompleteness means that today's attempt to "create" a unified "international image" or "values" of China's contemporary culture and art is not in line with the reality of China's culture and art, and it is also likely to make China's diversified artistic value orientation return to the old road of utilitarianism for thousands of years.