How to integrate traditional cultural elements into modern fabric doll design?

Abstract: Traditional Chinese decorative elements as an important part of traditional Chinese culture, has been doubly popular among the public. This paper discusses the way of application of traditional Chinese decorative elements in home fabric products, which not only provides cases for home product design, but also better inherits Chinese culture.

Keywords: traditional elements; fabric products

Traditional Chinese decorative elements, as an important part of traditional Chinese culture, have been widely accepted and favored by the public despite the changes of the times. [1] This paper analyzes the traditional Chinese decorative elements and explores the method of applying them to home furnishing products, so as to reflect the cultural characteristics of the country and meet the needs of modern people for simple and green home furnishing products, in order to better inherit and carry forward the traditional Chinese culture.

1 Traditional Chinese Decorative Elements

1.1 Geometric Decorative Patterns

Traditional Chinese geometric decorative patterns originated in the Neolithic period, and were mainly water patterns, triangular patterns, and swirl patterns with simple shapes. [2] During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, simple geometric patterns were gradually replaced by animal-face patterns with solemnity, such as the Taotie pattern, in order to show the power of each country. [3] During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the introduction of Buddhism made geometric patterns more refined and richer in meaning, such as the Hui pattern and the Wanshou pattern. With the development of society and the rise of auspicious patterns, geometric forms of decorative patterns gradually withdrew from the status of the main body of decoration, and turned to the form of auxiliary patterns.

1.2 Auspicious Allegorical Decorative Patterns

The traditional Chinese auspicious allegorical patterns are accumulated in the historical development, carrying people's pursuit of good things and expectations. These patterns are rich in themes and varieties, and can be categorized according to the content of the decorative patterns: plants, figures, auspicious birds and beasts, and combinations of artifacts. [4] Most of them are metaphorical and symbolic, and are widely used in furniture as well as homes.

1.3 Calligraphic Characters

In China, Chinese characters are one of the elements that can best emphasize traditional culture. The development of Chinese characters has mainly gone through the stages of hieroglyphics, oracle bone inscriptions, gold inscriptions, small seal script, official script, and regular script. [5] During the evolution of Chinese characters, an art form called "Calligraphy" has also gradually emerged, which has further changed the composition of Chinese characters.

1.4 Ink Painting

Ink painting in ancient China often had the significance of reflecting the character and heart of the painter. In the ink painting, the realistic painting emphasizes on writing rather than realism, and through the combination of different ratios of water and ink as well as different painting techniques, a few strokes can often show a rich mood. On the other hand, the brush painting in ink painting requires "a delicate and fine one", emphasizes realism, and has a strong decorative nature. [6]

2 Traditional decorative elements in fabric products in the performance characteristics

2.1 National Characterization

In the process of designing fabric products into the traditional cultural symbols with a strong national color, should not only be a copy of the traditional pattern, but to inherit the traditional elements on the basis of further exploration of their potential meanings, [7] from which to draw the key images or meanings, in order to continuously improve the quality of the design of fabric products. Key images or meanings, in the process of continuous convergence and integration to form a new way of application, to maximize the embodiment of nationalized qualities. [8]

2.2 Diversification of forms

Modern household products in order to attract people's attention, often injected into the design of a variety of elements. The Chinese cultural elements are just right to meet people's desire for home product decoration, shape and color diversity. [9] In the design of fabric products, designers can combine a variety of traditional elements, based on the symbolic form of traditional elements for styling design, or extract the colors of traditional decorative patterns and apply them to the design of fabric soft furnishing products. [10]

2.3 Style simplicity

The more complicated auspicious patterns are not suitable for large-scale use in the interior fabric products on the surface, too complex lines often give people a sense of exaggeration, but simple to delete the elements and let the fabric products are full of deliberately dull taste. [11] Designers simplify the traditional elements, retain their own meaning, refine and recreate the traditional elements, and then integrated into the design of fabric products. [12] This approach allows the design of products that express the unique cultural characteristics of China, but also to meet the pursuit of simplicity of style. [13]

3 Application of traditional elements in fabric products

3.1 Direct selection

There are many kinds of artifacts passed down in ancient China, and there are countless decorative elements, so you can directly select traditional patterns from a variety of ancient artifacts, furniture, clothing, and other physical objects, and make subtle modeling, color changes, or directly apply them to the design and manufacture of home fabric products. the design and manufacture of household fabric products. [14] In ancient times, people often gave some things unique character, temperament, and symbolism, and then in turn used them to express their own nature of mind. Take the cushion for example, plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum four images known as the "four gentlemen", and mostly for the literati favorite, but also often appear in the literati's drawing paper and poetry. [15] In the design of the surface pattern of the cushion, you can look for depictions of plum, orchids, bamboo and chrysanthemum literati paintings, or "four gentlemen" as the imagery of poetry, they will be extracted and directly applied to the surface of the cushion as a decorative pattern. [16]

3.2 Reconstruction with

Single elements sometimes can not meet people's emotional needs, so the collection of multiple patterns of the same kind, the overall shape of their effective extraction and generalization; and combined with the aesthetic tendencies of modern people, to delete or add to the pattern, decomposition or reconstruction, or highlight the most characteristic part of the pattern, which has become an important design! This has become an important design method. [17] For example, the original complex peony decorative pattern is extracted for simplification, weakening or deleting the surrounding plant patterns, highlighting the lines of the peony, and then selecting the appropriate colors and materials with which to match, used in the interior soft furnishings of fabric products, which is also in line with the current trend of the new Chinese style.

3.3 Color Extraction

Traditional decorative elements are mainly found in ancient handicrafts, clothes and furniture, which must have matched the colors in the process of use. The form, color, and pattern of fabric products and the overall tone of the interior need to be coordinated and matched with each other in order to make the room interior look consistent and comfortable as a whole. [18] Therefore, in the design of home fabric products, you can extract the ancient utensils, clothing on the color, to match, to achieve overall harmony. For example, when designing wall coverings, inspiration is drawn from traditional Chinese ink paintings. Chinese traditional ink painting in the writing is relying on water and ink mixed in different proportions to achieve a different mood, design wall coverings can simply choose a few traditional colors, and its different concentrations, different shades of combinations, to achieve the indoor mood of the user needs.

4 Conclusion

Traditional decorative elements rich in Chinese traditional meaning after thousands of years of precipitation can still occupy a very important position in modern home design, not only because of its high artistic value, rich cultural connotations, but also because of its own ability to bring inspiration to designers. Designers want to design to meet the modern aesthetic and the traditional meaning of the Oriental Chinese modern fabric products, can not just copy the traditional decorative elements, floating on the surface, but should be more in-depth excavation of the traditional elements of the content of the reasonable "abandon"; and will be the designer's personal understanding of the traditional culture through the form of fabric products Expressed through the form of fabric products, and this is a better inheritance of traditional culture, protection of traditional culture, do not let it out of touch with the times.