Research On Folk Art Spirit And Contemporary Chinese Design Culture Consciousness

The development of the contemporary culture of design ascends rapidly.The culture trait expression,which highlights localization and tradition,has become the consensus of Chinese design community.However,along with the acceleration of the process of globalization and modernization,and the contemporary variation of folk art and the waning of spirits in life style,aesthetic ideology and art form,the contemporary Chinese design as a whole,which draws lessons from the modern Western design ideas and originates from the folk art,has not yet formed its own design situation corresponding to its long history.Under the context interwoven with tradition and modernity,the native and the foreign as well as value rationality and technology rationality,the Chinese design is facing an unprecedented confusion and loss.How to make this design culture imbued with distinctive Chinese implication is not only about the speech right of the Chinese design,but also about its development direction in the futureThe development of the contemporary Chinese design culture should bring about the promotion of design culture consciousness as the leader.With some exposure to the Western design culture,we do need a deeper understanding of the Western design ideas,and what we need more is to accept the tradition of our own design culture and to face the pursuit of the contemporary design values and its development direction in the future.The cultural consciousness refers to the consciousness in our own culture,in other cultures' influences on us,as well as in the future trend of human culture.The key of culture consciousness is the consciousness in cultural spirits,for which consciousness in values is crucial.The cultural spirit can be explained from two aspects,that is,the understanding of basic concepts of culture and the construction of its future trend.The culture of each nation in each form is built and developed based on the core values of seeking truth,goodness,and beauty.The spirit of folk art,as a manifestation of the cultural spirit,exactly represents a nation's adoration for the content of the core values and a nation's inner experience and spiritual heritage in the forms.It carries the formation and guidance of the meaning of the principal part's life.As the original tradition of design culture with most nationality,stability and initiative,spirit of folk art takes root in the past,present and future of design culture because of its originality and participation.Based on the spirit of folk art,the contemporary design culture consciousness aims to explore,review and inherit the folk art spirit in the origin,comparison,and innovative practice of culture.It further explores the construction of the design values and its aesthetic expression and is condensed with China design implications of sharp nationality.It is the acknowledgement of the Chinese design culture spirit to explore the spirit of folk art in the cultural origin,that is,to explore the spirit meaning of cultural values of the folk art and its performance in the nation's traditional philosophy and the mode of thinking.In the long history of China,animism and Yin-Yang are the most sacred collective consciousness,forming an eternal theme in the folk art and deriving the basic concept of folk culture,a combination of truth,goodness,and beauty.The view of integration "human life being in a highly harmony with nature." as well as the thinking way of intuitionism endows the Chinese philosophy with typical philosophical and ethical color and also governs the epistemological development,making "truth" in the epistemological category fall into the "goodness" field of value category.The goodness-centered traditional ethics philosophy not only governs perception,but also guides aesthetics.Under the collective consciousness and philosophical accumulation,such as "animism","Yin-Yang and the five phases" and "oneness of man and nature",the folk art creation focuses not only on the external form,but also on the life force of the subject contained in the form.Humans with the nature of living beings as a connection between heaven and earth achieve a perfect state of "life perfection" and"oneness of man and nature".The life force of perfection which yearns for the prosperous life and the peaceful world forms a unique understanding of the contents and forms of truth,goodness,and beauty and the relationship between them from the perspective of folk art.The unity of truth,goodness and beauty centering on life consciousness here appears the traditional folk creating values which upholds of the oneness,goodness and beauty in the folk art and thought tradition of overall intuitive experience.The upholding of the oneness is folk "truth" based on art,"the unity of mind and world" where the exploration of laws complies with value judgment and it also refers to the domination of the truth by goodness.The advocating of goodness is considered as the folk "goodness" rooted in life,the real change of life purpose oriented by seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages,praying and blessing.It is the pursuit of "making use of things","being as lucky as desired",namely,accommodating the beauty founded on goodness.The upholding of beauty,based on the folk aesthetic of "beauty" means "beauty in the imaginary".It represents the beauty of the craft and the images combined with susceptibility and life spirituality.Folk art spirit starts from main part of people's life consciousness and survival experience,accumulating through the history of folk art life,aesthetic and craft area,displaying its rustic and sincere inherent character as well as innate simple and beautiful temperament in the upholding of oneness,goodness and beauty.It focuses on the basic value judgments of the upholding goodness which accumulates in the form and implication.Based on the combination of its ultimate value factors such as beliefs,feelings and so on,folk art spirit constitutes the tradition of pursuit of goodness and beauty in the folk art originated from "oneness of man and nature" and becomes the most distinct culture tradition,stable and dynamic cultural spirit lineage.As a result,it formulates culture awareness of the contemporary design founded on its folk art spirit.The reflection of the folk art spirit in cultural comparison refers to obtaining a deeper cultural identity and a higher cultural consciousness through cultural comparison,based on the understanding of its own traditional culture,that is to say,an introspection via the conception of the modern Western design culture and a deep understanding of the spirit of goodness and beauty in comparison with the truth and beauty spirits of the modern design culture.The ancient Greek philosophy emphasizes the understanding of the subject(people)to the object(the objective world).Its philosophical totality is the theory of knowledge.The traditional Western ideology up to the European classical philosophy can be regarded as a history of the separation consciousness development of subject and object.The traditional thought based on the dichotomies of subject and object advocates clear and distinct logic thinking.And the aesthetic consciousness is attributed to understanding the relations between the subjective and objective bodies.Balance,symmetry,order and proportion form the basic principles of form beauty in the Western rational analysis.Beauty is the perceptual manifestation of truth;however,beauty is more fundamental.The mainstream of the Western traditional thoughts devotes to restoring beauty to truth.Modern Western design evolves relying on the development of technology in 16th century in European.And the industrial revolution prompted Western design to change from traditional handicrafts to modern design.After the Arts and Crafts Movement,Modernist Design Movement and Post-modernist Design and with the development of different design concepts varying from Form Follows Function to Rheological Form Follows Passion,but the Modern Western design's overall design concept follows the aesthetic principles based on an objective number of cognitive philosophy and tradition of thinking of Western culture.The design is highly functional and rational with concise style.This principle of seeking truth with technical rationality as a pilot in the design commands the beauty and goodness of the modern Western design,and gradually forms the truth and the beauty of Western design.In this way,different nationalities,different cultures at different times lead to different value and materialized expression of the true,the good,and the beautiful.These help form a different spirit of design culture.Different from Western modern design,which manifests the searching for scientific truth,folk art spirits manifest the human being's longing for goodness,the great passion for life and the great attention on surviving(experience).The folk art spirit focuses on the interdependence between human beings and the world,human beings' actual choices,and also human beings' morals and emotions.The overall values and design thinking in the "Unity of Man and Nature" are above the logic knowledge,and has intimate connection to values of life and both relative and imaginary thinking.This "unity" has advantage in bringing integrity and imagery into play and letting them unify the functionality of materials and spirits,with an emphasis on giving full play to the functionality of spirits.Western modern design has made great achievements with the support of technology and ration in seeking truth and beauty.But at the same time,there appears a growing separation in art and the nature of human.Materiality is alienated from spirituality of the design.In the contemporary context of increasing divergence of technical rationality and value rationality,re-comprehend the spirit of Folk Art has a unique role and charm in reflecting the intellectual genealogy of modern design,respecting and for the and technical rationality to play in a rational value.It is also an inevitable part through the cultural contrast,and reflection on the formation of a more consciously aspects of design culture based on the spirit of the Folk Art.Heritage of the spirit of the Folk Art in the cultural practice of innovation is the orientation and regression propulsion of the regression of Folk Art.The fundamental of design and innovation should base on the cultural innovation in the traditional inheritance.The innovation aims to explore the values of contemporary design,to explore the value of target selection,the value evaluation criteria,and the value in what ways the spirit of the Folk Art is to be built based on.The target of the contemporary design values should be based on the organic unity between "Truth Cherishes Goodness" and "Beauty Cherishes Goodness"."The true" based on the design of folk art not only should represent the latest developments in contemporary science and technology but also be more together in the design value judgments,which requires the organic combination of the inner value and the external objective scale.The unity of opposites of internal and external scale requires the fusion and unification of the judgment of the rational value.The exploration and application of any technology in design should be based on its association with and dependence on the material world and spiritual world,technical rationality integrated with the guidance of humanistic concern,and combination of "Truth Cherishes Goodness" and "Beauty Cherishes Goodness".The fundamentality of "goodness" in well-intentioned folk of the contemporary Chinese design should be concerned about the co-purpose functions.But the function is not only limited materially and practically,but should meet the evolving needs of the people.Design should concern about the survival of human desire and the ultimate pursuit of spiritual value of human life.The contemporary design of "beauty"based on folk aesthetic is based on unified susceptibility aesthetic identity of truth and goodness.The folk beautiful has the functional,material and technical constraints.But the pristine form is rooted in the heritage in Folk Art Image.Humanistic concern based on primitivism mixes with pure total perfusion of national survival and life vitality of the depths of consciousness and presents to the world the simplicity and trueness of the Folk Art.Also,it has organic integration of goodness and trueness.Thus,the basic orientation of contemporary design values of the value of the evaluation criteria is still good as novelty seeking good combination of focusing on the absolute and relative value of the evaluation criteria oriented unified design practice.An important way to achieve design values is to maintain and develop seeking goodness and beauty spirit,to develop Subject Object truth-seeking mentality under the guidance and intuition of the concept of the "Unity of Man and Nature",to explore the integrated design thinking of the contemporary design,to create rustic vivid design with beautiful form and structure,to convey the ultimate care on human's continuous development of the inner life and the life sense,to coagulate "good" meaning of Folk Art for the warmth of the "heart",and to expand the possibility of comprehensive ideal for the free development of the survival of the state for people as "complete human being".The core of contemporary Chinese design culture based on the spirit of folk art is the deep sympathy with the passion for the good and the beautiful within tracing back and comparing between cultures,as well as the effort in inheriting this passion while innovating in native design culture.One of the two essential focuses is on the unity of opposites in the relationship between modernity and tradition,and between nationality and globalization,while the other focus is on Chinese design implication which unites the functionalities of both material and spirit.It is not only a practical exploration in the formation of the coconsciousness of Chinese contemporary design culture,but also a plausible exploration in the emersion of Folk Art back into modern life.