Birthday Images In The Perspective Of Folk Arts Research

Birthday Image is a sort of primitive art style which is rooted in the fertile feilds of Chinese traditional culture and has long been applied to human lives in ceremonial manners. It is obviously that people’s beliefs together with the rich traditional culture connotation worked together to bring the Birthday Image into existence. The Images not just reflect that Chinese people are longing for, praying for and pursuing longevity. But from a certain point of view, it is also closely in relation to tremendous traditional customs concerning people’s life faith and view. While judging from the phenomenon of folk culture itself, the Images possess several valuable characteristics, including custom properties, applicability, typicality and symbolic functions etc. Thus, we may conclude that its cultural forms are of visual art, the culture’s nature is of folk cultural property. In terms of the Birthday Images’ connotation and significance, although the signified theme is to pray forlongevity, essentially, it is integrated with the life ethics and the folk beliefs of multi-cultural meaning. So, these kind of images pass good wishes concerning happiness and longevity from one to the other as well as render the traditional birthday ceremony’s’ atmosphere. In the mean time, itenriches the artistic features, the reasons and interests of social customs including life rite. The Birthday Celebration Images are originated from the people’s earnest pursuit of longevity and dedication and love of the secular world. With the development of Birthday Celebration Images, culture factors such as country-defend and the Confucian filial ethics were added. Especially the longevity-view and the many-children view and the rich view of common customs’ pervading, the important clues of that how this Image’s get birthed and developed got clear. From the characters of Birthday Celebration Images we can see that it varies from people, animals, plants and inorganic things. The application of these things implied that they were gathered from history, ancient astronomy, folk and fairy tales. They were also the result of a combination of the false or true which is a symbolic character of Birthday Celebration Images. As for the theme and the motivation of the Birthday Celebration Images, they actually followed the old routine which is a tradition of image thought in Chinese ancient culture and they gave expression to a thinking model of traditional Chinese art form. The theme of Images mainly focused on longevity. Weather the main part such as Shouxing(an old man who is the symbol of longevity) and Xiantao(peach that represent longevity) or the supportive part such as cat, butterfly, peony and sweet-scented osmanthus, or the characters with strongly symbol meaning such as mountain, stone, sun and moon, they are all keys to researching China’s longevity phenomenon. Especially, since the literary man got the field of Birthday Celebration Images, plum blossom, bamboo, chrysanthemum and pine and cypress which are symbols of getting away from politics and material pursuits got being used to Birthday Celebration Images. They created poems attached to the Images that even more raised the spiritual taste and enriched the cultural connotation from a side aspect as well.As for its cultural application, the Birthday Celebration Images tended to a type. It concerned the function of public customs and the cultural application. We should analyze them varies of factors including cultural background and the social system. The types vary from a man’s social stratum, knowledge level, occupation, sexes and appreciation of the beauty. So it is necessary to classify the distinguishing feature and the application of Images, for that it not only helpful to going deep into the research, but creates a new aspect to analyze the characteristics and the meanings of Birthday Celebration Images.The study on birthday-congratulating image is actually an effective way to inquire and realize Chinese cultural psychological structure of deep level. Synthesizing the interdisciplinary view and methods to go deeply into the research of the Birthday Celebration Images’evolution is also highlights and reflects the colorful beauty of Chinese life etiquette and auspicious culture. What’s more, its cultural connotation deserves deep thinking, pondering and exploring. In a word, as an artistic form with strong applicability, distinctive features, styles and folk connotation, it not only enriches and enlarges Chinese art form, but also expands the content of folk culture.