The Transmutation Of The Traditional Cultural Symbol In Contemporary Chinese Art

Ernst Cassirer said humans are animals of symbol. Our various cultural forms are centralized reflection of functions of symbols. The interpretation of symbols is inevitably based on objects and human life experiences. Symbols have new meanings while being used and thus interpretation of symbols by humans are constantly changing.The reason why traditional Chinese culture now appears in some contemporary art as a symbol is that this in certain sense satisfies some Chinese people's sense of belonging in terms of culture. The topic of the use of traditional cultural symbol in the production and creation of contemporary art is often mentioned in the fields of creation and design. Many Chinese artists have made attempts in this respect and were recognized for doing so. However, as the traditional cultural symbol in contemporary art has undergone complex changes in the global context, the whole cultural symbolic system is changing fundamentally. As a result, traditional cultural symbol will manifest new characteristics and meaning in this process. In contemporary artworks, the meaning of symbols will always develop and ferment because of context has changed in the new age. Be aimed at these phenomenons, the essay based on the theory of Pierce's Semiotics to analyse and explain.This essay consists of four chapters. The first chapter is on art symbols and their meanings. The essay first puts forward that symbols are carriers of meaning; secondly, based on Pierce's theories of Semiotics that symbols are constantly developing and that they are interactive with cognitive agents, the author sets forth the view that symbols are changing, it is the basic of our study . The second chapter is on the transmutation of the cultural connotation of traditional cultural symbol in the global context. Since 1980s, there have been many contemporary Chinese artworks in various forms featuring traditional cultural symbol. In these artworks, traditional cultural symbol is expressed in three aspects. The national traditional symbol inherits the national cultural spirit; it contains the national cultural information in the new age; it adhere to the cultural connotation of other nationalities. Through the reproduction of traditional cultural symbol in the works of artists, the challenges faced by the Chinese contemporary artworks are discussed. The third chapter is on different attitudes toward traditional cultural symbol in contemporary artworks. Through analysis of the three attitudes, namely attach importance to the Western cultural symbol in contemporary artworks, attach importance to the traditional cultural symbol in contemporary artworks and complete resort to traditional cultural symbol or Western culture, the author puts forward the view that the strong points of the traditional Chinese culture and the Western culture shall be combined and integrated while their weak points shall be discarded thus allowing the existence of multicultural development. The fourth chapter is on establishing a contemporary Chinese cultural symbol system. Based on the previous theoretic study and a basic understanding of the whole environment for the contemporary Chinese art, the author puts forward views on building a contemporary Chinese cultural symbol system from several perspectives. This essay, based on the theory of Pierce's Semiotics and through analysis of the transmutation of the cultural connotation of the traditional cultural symbol, reaches the conclusion that the meaning of symbols will change with the time and thus will express different meaning under specific historical background. It is aimed at building up confidence in setting up a contemporary Chinese cultural symbol system by combining the strong points of the Chinese and Western culture with an attitude of multiculturalism.