" History Put Under Feet"

As one of constituent parts of clothing, the insole is a pervasive phenomenon allover the world. Chinese folk embroidered insoles act as one kind of traditional folk art.Design of motifs of insoles has irreplaceable cultural characteristics. Embroideredinsoles are mainly created by common people. They combine practicability anddecorativeness together and apply them in daily life. Motifs of insoles are designed“from the heart”. Implied meanings of motifs show people’s pursuit of satisfactoryand happy life. The insole culture in Chinese traditional culture possesses nationalityand epochal characters of culture simultaneously. In historic progress, insole motifs areevolved with development of the age and insole culture reflects situations about politics,economy and social life in specific periods through motifs of insoles.Insoles which have passed through thousand years of evolution have relativelystable shapes&structures and diversified&various motifs. Because of functions ofdesign of insole motifs put under feet, the design of insole motifs can be called a kind ofvisual art without visual purposes. Unique characters of the design are all reflected here.In all ages, material objects of insoles are hardly reserved, but the culture of insoles isalways inherited by a constant manner. The author takes “folk embroidered insoles”as research cases, collects more than400samples of various kinds of folk embroideredinsoles in provinces and cities such as Gansu Province, Shanxi Province, ShandongProvince, Henan Province, Hubei Province, Sichuan Province, Chongqing Province,Hunan Provinces, Guizhou Province and Yunnan Province, carries out systematicclassification, arrangement and conclusion, starts the research from motifs, mainlyapplies a literature research method, a field investigation method and a historic researchmethod, combines relevant subjects such as Art Theory, History, Sociology and Folkloreand applies research ideas including forward scanning and backward inference. Theauthor divides the research path into research on types of motifs, research on impliedmeanings of motifs, explanation of characteristics reflected by motifs, analysis ofreasons for motif evolution and following-up thinking about research space. The paperdiscusses needlecraft which is the deep level of embroidered insoles, uses details toshow whole features, analyzes evolved models of insole motifs under different historicbackgrounds and shows distinct characteristics of folk art of Chinese nationalities.Therefore, the research conduced on endogenous reasons for evolution of insole motifs has values of art. Moreover, extraction of this “creation idea with national wisdom”and the “recalling” and “interpretation” of national culture are necessity andcertainty of history, especially at present.