A Comparative Research On Chinese And Japanese Traditional Furniture Culture

As a part of social material culture, furniture culture reflects the history and cultural traditions of a country or a nation, and it is also an important witness of the development of human civilization. Generally speaking, traditional Chinese furniture has evolved through time from being simple and majestic in Shang and Zhou, realistic and concise in Qing and Han, well-developed and gorgeous in Tang, refined and gentile in Song to being elegant and restrained in Ming and sumptuous and elaborate in Qing. It didn't reach its pinnacle until the end of Ming Dynasty when Chinese furniture was famous for an aesthetic of simplicity, minimalism and elegance. Japanese traditional furniture, another typical kind of oriental furniture, is also noted for its simple and natural style. For some geological reasons, Chinese culture and Japanese culture interrelated for they inherit, absorb and incorporate. Traditional Chinese furniture and traditional Japanese furniture thus have much in common while each of them claims its own national characteristics. Though a comparative study of the two is significant, by far now this field of study has seldom been paid attention to.Furniture is a reflection of human life style. The nature of cultural communication is the approval and acceptance of life style. Cultural communication can be considered a key factor and a way of mutual furniture influence. Based on Sino-Japan cultural communication, a comparative study of Chinese furniture and Japanese furniture is carried out in terms of their classification, forms, materials, structures and decoration to find out the cultural origin of those traditional furniture and the historical and cultural causes to their differences. The methodologies of this study are parallel comparison and influence comparison. What's more, architectural historical theories are also used along with furniture historical theories in this study.After exploiting the development of each furniture tradition, three stages of Sino-Japan traditional furniture communication are phrased as follows:from Han and Wei to the end of Tang, from Song to Yuan, from Ming Dynasty to Meiji. The author proposes that Chinese traditional furniture has exerts three major impacts on Japanese traditional mat-level life style. The analysis of the materials for traditional Japanese furniture proves the principle of its use of material and the significance of crafts to Japanese furniture, which should also be paid additional attention to while Chinese furniture industry exports furniture to Japan.Various analysis and exploitation assert that traditional Chinese furniture has ever greatly influenced traditional Japanese furniture. Traditional Japanese furniture has its root in China. The relationships between the two are inheriting and incorporating. Finally, when globalization and nationalization are concerned, globalization should not be mistakenly equal to westernization and returning to tradition should not be simply regarded as the way to develop Chinese modern furniture design.