Graphic Application & Heritage Value of Traditional Chinese Art of Architecture.doc

1、1Graphic Application architectural ornament; graph; totem The original religious idea refers to the worship to life, the universe as well as all thins on earth, which profoundly implies primitive peoples aspiration on the life in the universe. The original religion is the reaction in the early stage

2、 of the process of cognition of humans practice, it 2plays the decisive role featuring in “first impression is strongest” on aspects of formation and development of cultural tradition and artistic characteristics of various nations. The original religious idea, as the crystallization of national spi

3、rit, passes on from generation to generation. 3 Along with the social progress and development of human civilization, peoples concept and consciousness together with appreciation of the beauty realizes constant development and change, and corresponding various artistic forms print distinct stigmata

4、of times. Auspicious art, as a kind of artistic form, also reflects humans thought and ideology, which should have a process of occurrence and development. The auspicious graphs root in humans original religious idea, which are various kinds of beliefs on gods generated naturally under condition of

5、thought in chaos. The way people pray for luck can merely process accumulated experience in the imagination through the method of analogy to form a set of a method conducting exchange with the nature and the heaven and pray for protection given by gods in the exchange. 1.Origin of Auspicious Graphs

6、in Traditional Chinese Architecture In terms of nature worship, in the early stage of human 3society, primitive man suffered extremely hostile survival condition, they not only suffered hungry perplex, but also the threat brought about from beasts, diseases as well as natural disasters, threat of ex

7、tremely low productivity as well as ubiquitous death, so survival became the matter of primary importance of human beings. They took proactive measures to withstand external invasion, and meanwhile the spiritual expectation had become the communicative bridge between human and nature, life and idea

8、as well as reality and future, and also very vital unreal means in the ideal reality. For this reason, the auspicious awareness of luck praying and calamity avoiding became the spatial ballast for human in the early stage under circumstance of specific life environment and survival condition. Unpred

9、ictable natural phenomena make immature human feel nervous and terrified, this kind of double-minded state forms the worship on the nature as time passes. People make these natural phenomena mythological with personification and endow them with divinity and supernatural capacity to bow in worship. I

10、n traditional folk sacrifice activities, those worshiped supernatural beings gain visualization and personality in the folk art, as the natural celestial body, these supernatural beings exist together with 4human and human form a kind of worship psychology to the nature. The totem worship stems from

11、 “totem”. In the clan concept, totem usually refers to a kind of natural true matter, but when it is drawn as an image, it is added sacred change and aesthetic awareness, they are the compound of various natural matters such as images of dragon, phoenix, tiger and frog with profound influence in Chi

12、na. 2.Auspicious Graphs of Four Gods in Traditional Chinese Architecture 2.1 One Auspicious Graph in Traditional Chinese ArchitectureDragon Four Gods refer to Green Dragon, White Tiger, Red Phoenix and Black Tortoise, which are four gods in the four corners of the world. In the era prevailing the fi

13、ve-element theory, experts in the five-element theory accord with five elements in yin and yang to paint five colors to the East, South, West, North and the Middle, and equip every color with one god, that is, the East is colored green equipped with Dragon, the West, white with Tiger, the South, red

14、 with Phoenix and the North, black with Tortoise, and the Middle is colored yellow. In the Remote Ages, the ancient people divided the heaven into four directions in the form of east, west, south and north and name them as Green Dragon, White Tiger, Red Phoenix and Black 5Tortoise respectively to ma

15、ke them four Gods guard four directions in the heaven, and these four Gods are responsible for warding off evils and adjusting yin and yang. Afterwards, they are mainly treated as the Gods to ward off evils, and their images often appear in the imperial palace, temple gate, city gate, tomb architect

16、ure and its implements or even the folk paper-cut, particularly, the dragon is treated as the symbol of the emperor, and therefore, four Gods express incomparable role in the traditional Chinese architectural ornament. There are many legends of the Dragon with many versions of the derivation of it,

17、some say it comes from India, and some say it develops from Chinese constellation. There is the version of Dragon in India in itself, but Dragons state is low in India, which has the real objectboa. Since Dragon is the god in China, which is the sovereign symbol of the emperor, and meanwhile it is a

18、lso the representative of the East. The East in the five elements belongs to wood, and green also belongs to wood, so there is such a statement of Green Dragon on the left and White Tiger on the right. Dragon, as the symbol of Chinese nation, can be traced back to the totem worship in the ancient ti

19、mes. Totem, the Indian, means “his members of 6the same clan”, it is a kind of primitive religious belief in the primitive society. For the reason of the evolution of Dragon to totem, it should be that people consider all things on earth have the soul and think Dragon is the Mascot in some tribe, wh

20、ich should be protected. In view of cultural intension, the primitive totem is provided with three implications, namely, ancestorrelativesguardian angel, and essentially, its cultural foundation is the genetic connection in the clan, while the substantive characteristics of the Chinese Dragon lies i

21、n: it surmounts the genetic connection in the clan culture fundamentally and develops to the national culture intension based on the geopolitics relation. There are many examples between emperors and Dragon in the ancient: for example, “The (Yellow) Emperor rides the dragon to the heaven.” “The (Yel

22、low) Emperor is going to die, so the dragon falls.” And in the brick-book in the Han dynasty tombs, the Picture of Yellow Emperor Touring the Heaven depicts that what the Yellow Emperor rode is the vehicle pulled by Dragon. All these indicate that at least in description made by later generations, t

23、he Yellow Emperor and Dragon have had closed relation before the 21st BC, and the emperor comparing himself to Dragon happened after the First Emperor of Qin. The Han 7Emperor (Liu Bang) was born of low extraction, so it is impossible to prove that he was the offspring of Dragon, and he called himse

24、lf “son of Dragon”. From then on, all emperors call themselves the real dragon and son of the heaven. As a kind of noble image, Dragon appears in the architecture ornament early, but since there is relation between Dragon and emperors, the image of Dragon is used in architectures on a large scale. I

25、n traditional Chinese architecture culture, Dragon symbolizes the imperial power or authority, and emperors residence is called “imperial palace”, only the imperial architecture can be decorated with Dragon. The typical architecture is the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City in Beijing. The dragon

26、 ornament in traditional Chinese architectures is mainly reflected in architectures such as the pillar, screen wall, caisson and ridge, most of which is taken as decorated function and prays for gods bless. Dragon pillar, also called Panlong pillar, is the unique architecture in the temple, symboliz

27、ing the dragon which does not go to the heaven, so it circles on the pillar. The dragon pillar is one kind of architecture and has ornament effect, it has different shapes along with the evolution of times. The dragon pillar in early days had short pillar diameter, and with respect to carving 8techn

28、ique, the closer the times, the larger the pillar and the more complex the carving ornament. The dragon pillar in early days is mainly carved on stone, there are also other materials in the form of jade carving dragon pillar, copper carving one, cement dragon pillar and wood one. Especially in the F

29、orbidden City, there are carving dragons on the watching pillar necking of the stone handrail. There is one wood carving dragon on both eaves pillars on the wall of the Chongzheng palace in Panyang Imperial Palace with the dragon body surrounding the pillar and dragon head and claws grasp the pillar

30、, constituting a scene of two dragons confronting each other in the center of the palace. Dragon wall: the screen wall in traditional Chinese architecture has profound cultural intention; Dragon well: also called dragon caisson, it refers to the arched ceiling, decorated as a kind of dragon pattern,

31、 its arched shape is just like a well; Dragon kiss: it is often carved on both ends of the horizontal ridge on the roof of ancient architectures including temple, palace and garden, but there are some in the vertical ridge and forked ridge, and there are also some on the eave to counteract evil spir

32、it and increase strength. In the architectures of imperial palace, dragon is the symbol of the emperor, so it takes the dominant position in the ornament. 9Dragons are ubiquitous in the Forbidden City and Panyang Palace. There are also various kinds of wood carving dragons in the ceiling and caisson

33、 within the palace together with the stylobate, screen and chair on the imperial throne. According to the statistics, there are around 12,654 dragons in one Taihe Palace in the Forbidden City, so people seem to stay in the world of dragon as soon as they enter into this palace. Now that the dragon h

34、as not been the animal in the nature, but an ideal image gradually created in the human history, so its posture and size can change without fixed form, which provides convenient condition for ornament. Take the dragon on the ornamental columns erected in front of Tiananmen in Beijing for example, it

35、s large and long dragon body winds round the pillar with its tail below and head above, which has the soaring image, forming unique dignify and magnificence of the ornamental columns. Since the dragon becomes the representative and symbol of the emperor, the emperor always wants to gain the exclusiv

36、e right of the dragon, especially after Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, the imperial court make repeated orders or draws up codes to make the regulation that the dragon is forbidden using in the folk as ornament. However, the emperor always fails to control this exclusive power in fact, because 10dra

37、gon is treated as the symbol of the whole Chinese nation, and this fact has already existed before the emperor and the dragon started to have association, for this reason, the image of dragon can be witnessed in wide China, in the temple, pagoda and ancestral temple in various regions or even in the

38、 garden architecture and private residence. Dragons in different poses and with different expressions decorate all kinds of architectures to make them more splendid. 2.2 Auspicious Graph in Traditional Chinese ArchitectureWhite Tiger, Red Phoenix and Black Tortoise In view of four scared beasts in C

39、hina, what is mentioned with the dragon is the white tiger. The white tiger possesses various super-human strengths including avoiding evil spirits, expelling disaster, praying for harvest, punishing the evil and praising the good, making the fortune and owning happy marriage. As one of the four sca

40、red beasts in China, the tiger, of course, turns out from the constellation. It is white because the tiger in the five elements belongs to metal, which is white. For this reason, it is called white tiger, not because the tiger is white but it is named according to the five-element theory. In the mind of the ancient people, the tiger is terrible but also honorable. People fear it as it eats people, while people