What are the characteristics of Chinese shadow animation and what are the representative works?

Chinese shadow animation is characterized by manipulation skills and singing. The representative works include The Legend of the White Snake, The Jade Bangle, The Story of the Western Chamber, Qin Xianglian, The Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden, The General of the Yang Family, The Legend of Yue Fei, The Water Margin, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West, and The Founder of the Gods, and so on.

In the shadow play, manipulation and singing are taught orally by the master and practiced diligently for a long time. In the performance, the artists have the ability to manipulate the shadow people, musical instruments and singing at the same time.

Some of the masters can play seven or eight shadow people at the same time. The martial arts scene is a tightly packed, shadow man gun to sword, up and down tumbling, lively and extraordinary. And the music and singing of the field of the music and singing, but it is the rhyme, beautiful and melodious. Or exciting or lingering, there are happy and sad, voice and emotion, moving the heart.

Expanded Information:

Inheritance and Development

Traditional Shadow Theater in many ways There are unavoidable limitations. This is also the biggest obstacle for it to adapt to today's fast-paced society.

1, shadow carving, the ingenious color modeling has overwhelmed countless artists, but the production of it has brought great difficulty. The production of a shadow person includes more than ten procedures, such as skin making, tracing, carving and coloring, and these complex processes are enough to take a craftsman weeks of time, not including the possibility of any small mistake during this period that leads to the possibility of not being able to modify, and the previous work is discarded.

2. The preservation of the finished product is also a challenge, as long exposure to the sun will cause the pigments to fade, and hot and humid changes in temperature will cause the shadows to distort. These are all undoubtedly fatal weaknesses for an industrialized society that emphasizes mass production.

For a long time in the past, shadow puppets were basically performed for entertainment purposes. In today's diversified entertainment life, the glamorous aura of shadow play is gradually dimming, and only some special occasions can be seen (e.g., Beijing's Laoshe Teahouse and some interpretation of the history of the theater)

With the progress of the society, the people's material standard of living continues to improve, and the level of aesthetics are also gradually improved, and thus everyone will be in the previous shadow of the role and characters, are more exquisite and more delicate carving process to show. The carving process is more exquisite and delicate.

The production process of shadow puppets is slowly transitioning from the former entertainment-oriented and appreciation-oriented to the present appreciation-oriented and entertainment-oriented. In the future, shadow puppets will emphasize and highlight their static artistic value, and display their unique charm through the layout of the scene, the expression of the characters, and the rich colors, etc.

The shadow puppets will also be used as the main character of the movie.

In China, a lot of local operas are derived from the shadow play, and the reasoning and artistic means used in the shadow play also played a pioneering role in the invention of movies and the development of art films. Nowadays, Chinese shadow puppets are collected by museums all over the world, and they are also the gifts for leaders of the Chinese government and other countries when they communicate with each other.

For thousands of years, the ancient art of shadow play has accompanied generations of ancestors through many happy times. Therefore, the characters and figures in the previous shadow play are expressed by more exquisite and delicate carving process, which emphasizes the artistry and decorative nature of the shadow play. After the shadows were made, they were mounted for exhibition and decoration.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Shadow Theater