The Hierarchical Study Of The Chinese Traditional Sacrifice Image

As an important part of the sacrificial ceremony, the sacrifice image is an important part for the formation and development of the human society and its history and culture. In the traditional society of China, the formation and development of the sacrifice image are affected by many element, including the worship for and belief in ancestors and immortals in ancient times, the formation of the feudal centralized political system, the guidance of the Confucian philosophy, the effect of human’s instinct, and the intuitive features of the image itself.This article citing the concept of "the great tradition" and "the little tradition" from the American anthropologist, Robert Redfield, taking the ancestors portrait that is a special art form as the object of study, and analyzing the difference in social function and artistic style between "the great tradition" and "the little tradition".The popularity of the worship for ancestor portrait is a top-down process. The sacrifice image in the great tradition displays a kind of power and authority. To a large extent, it represents social and political norms which centers on "the ritual". However, in the little tradition, the sacrifice image is a folk traditional sacrificial custom, which centers on "the common". The former has more political significance while the latter has more social function. Because of the difference in class, there are many difference between the great tradition and the little tradition in many areas, such as the creators of the image, the creative techniques and the creative ideas. Because of the strict feudal social system, the sacrifice image’s artistic expression embody the hierarchical characteristic in great tradition and little tradition.In the cases of the existing sacrifice image, they contain a large number of cultural information which formed in the process of the Chinese nation’s history. Meanwhile, it also contains different artistic laws in the different class in ancient society in China. It became one of the folk customs of people’s life in ancient society. The research in the sacrifice image has great value, not only historically, but also in its sociality, and artistic.