Folk Art: A Splendid Gem
Chinese Folk Art (Han Ethnic Group) Chief Compiler: Feng Jicai Translated by Chen Xia & Huang Shan
Price: RMB 1,198 Hardcover, 478 pages Published by Sinolingua Press
FOLK art has a vitality that lasts through centuries, and the aesthetic pleasure aroused by the art can be felt for generations. The book Chinese Folk Art presents readers with magnificent pictures depicting the folk art of China’s Han people accompanied by a concise introduction. The book, of great artistic and cultural value, provides comprehensive, systematic, and authentic information about Han folk customs and culture, some of which are currently in decline.
Feng Jicai, chairman of the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association, as well as a famous writer and artist, served as the editor-inchief of the book.
The book has four parts: Solar Terms and Festivals, Rites of Passage, Culture in Daily Life, and
Belief and Worship. It contains 851 pictures, which span a time period from ancient to modern times, showing the richness of the Chinese Han folk art in a systematic way.
The book starts from the 24 solar terms and the Chinese festivals people are familiar with. China’s 24 solar terms and various festive customs date back to ancient times. Their origins are closely related to ancient people’s farming activities and their observation of climatic and phenological changes. In ancient times China was an agrarian society, its people attached great importance to meteorological observation. More than 2,000 years ago, they designated 24 solar terms based on the lunar calendar. People arranged agricultural activities and their daily life following the order of solar terms.
In ancient times, various acts of worship based on primitive beliefs often developed into cultural events. Whenever a special occasion came, there would be specific rituals to mark it. For instance, every year when crops grew ripe, people would perform ritual ceremonies to celebrate the harvest and pray for another bumper harvest for the following year. When society entered the civilized era, some rituals related to primitive beliefs were preserved and handed down from generation to generation. Meanwhile, many new ideas were incorporated into old practices. Eventually, China’s rich and colorful festive customs came into being, such as a game to guess riddles during the Lantern Festival, dragon boat racing during the Dragon Boat Festival, and eating moon cakes during the Mid-autumn Day.
China is known as a country of etiquette. In the second part of the book, “rites of passage” refers to ceremonial activities for important events in a person’s life, such as birth, coming of age, marriage, childbirth, and death. Major rites of passage are performed in China to celebrate all these important occasions.
A wedding is both a religious ceremony and a legal recognition for newlyweds to gain blessings and acknowledgement from their relatives, friends, and society. It also means a new beginning of assuming social responsibilities as a couple. The book introduces various folk customs during traditional Chinese weddings, including those related to sedan chairs, dowries, bridal chambers, and flower buns. Flower buns, or huamo, are a popular dessert in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces. They are hand-made wheat flour buns crafted in various shapes and artistically decorated with different colors. Today, many people still like to express their aspirations and best wishes through “flower buns,” turning them into an artwork and an embodiment of Chinese folk etiquette.
The third part of the book talks about customs in people’s daily life. Chinese folk costumes introduced in this section include baby bibs, belly-bands, hats and shoes decorated with tiger head patterns, purses, and so on. Toddler caps with ear flaps of tiger head patterns are generally made of silk or cotton. There are different styles of tiger hats throughout China due to different customs and aesthetics in different regions. In the Central Plains Region, the main colors are yellow, red, and green, representing a festive spirit, and showing the tiger’s bravery and power. It also expresses the ardent love of mothers for their children, hoping they will stay away from evil viruses and have a healthy childhood and adult life.
The diversity of Chinese domestic architecture is also introduced in the third part. Typical Chinese residential dwellings include courtyard houses in Beijing, cave dwellings in northern Shaanxi, Huizhou dwellings, Sichuan’s bamboo houses, and earthen buildings in Fujian.
The fourth part of the book focuses on Chinese people’s beliefs and forms of worship. Religions have their own functions. Meanwhile, they represent many Chinese people’s wish for a better life. The practice of worshipping the Men Shen, or the Door God, has been preserved since ancient China.
In the book, there are records of people putting up posters of two gods on their doors to ward off evil spirits. During the Tang (618907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, the invention and wide use of woodblock printing techniques helped extend the custom far and wide. During that period, door gods gradually lost their role of expelling evil spirits, and more emphasis was put on them providing good luck in response to people’s prayers. With the flourishing of literature and opera, more door-god figures emerged. Patterns associated with auspiciousness can also be found, such as those depicting the three gods of happiness, prosperity, and longevity.
The book is not confined to those familiar customs, but extends to some art forms that are gradually passing into obscurity. The wedding of the mouse bride used to be a popular subject of New-year papercuts in rural China. Artwork on this theme vividly portrays a full-scale wedding of two mice, as grand as a human wedding. In the artwork, the mouse bride’s sedan chair is followed by a procession of mouse attendants holding banners and lanterns, musicians playing horns and drums, and servants carrying all kinds of ceremonial items. The theme expresses people’s strong wish to rid their homes of vermin in a humorous way.
Some folk events recorded throughout this book have gradually disappeared with the development of society, making this volume more like a precious “book museum,” in which a collection of classics from the long history of Chinese folklore is displayed. It thus helps readers better understand the life course of the Chinese nation.