Study On Arts Of Design Of Vehicles In Kao Gong Ji

<Kao Gong Ji> is the earliest ever known ancient book on handcraftarts and technique in China. The scientific, aesthetics and handcraft-artsknowledge implicated in the book is abundant and profound, and closelyrelated to daily lives of human. The paper starts from ‘Travelling’among‘Dressing’,‘Eating’,‘Dwelling’and ‘Travelling’. Travelling is inevitablyrelated to ‘vehicle’. For thousands of years, vehicles have playedsignificant roles in social life, which is indicated in the following Chineseancient poem,‘Wheels rotate glorious hegemony for generations, Spokesgather elites and heroes over the land of China’. Vehicles, do not onlyrepresent the power of a country, but also closely relate to the destiny of acountry.First, this paper conducted textual elaboration of ‘Vehicles’in <KaoGong Ji>, thus to make clear the vehicles’place in history and developmentat that time, trying the best to restore the type of work of ‘vehicle’inproduction and structures of them. Then,a description of manufacturingtechnique and principle of design of vehicles is made in the second part,which will mainly be illustrated from three aspects: material selection,manufacturing process and inspection. Material selection is the first step inmanufacture of vehicle. The timber needed for vehicle should not only be obtained at the right time and right weather of the year, but also should beobtained at the right site, assuring integrity and quality of the timber.Craftsmanship is the second step and also the most critical one. It directlydetermines whether a product can be a quality one. Thus, in <Kao Gong Ji>,two design principles are proposed to manufacture a vehicle: one is‘Moderate’and the other is ‘Appropriate’. The two principles should beused coordinately to deal with the relationship between people, things andproduct, laying the foundation for ‘Harmony’. The last is inspection. It doesnot only require to judge the quality of the product, but also to makejudgements on craft of the craftsman, trying to make the best through thealtitude of ‘Simple, Subtle’.The third is analysis of aesthetic characteristic and principle of designof vehicles in <Kao Gong Ji>.The principle of design of vehicles includesfour aspects: rule, ingenuity, ceremony and harmony. These four aspects donot only include constraint of rules and requirement of ingenuity, but alsoinclude admiration for ceremony and harmony, which is reflection ofthinking of so many ideologists in the Pre-Qin period. The aestheticcharacteristic places emphasis on the presentation of integrity and solidityof the products, including ‘unification’,’imitation’,‘Integrity, Solidity andConvenience’. Inspiration is found through imitation,thus to obtain junctionof ‘Technique’and ‘Aesthetics’, finally making a quality product.The last is derivation of aim and significance of the research done in the paper, which is to trying to find innovative thinking for development ofmodern design, continuing the point of view of ‘Elaborate it, follow it’ofancient people, boosting the development of traditional culture of Chinaa.