Study On Decorative Patterns Of Lacquerware In Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty(1644-1912)was the last imperial dynasty in Chinese history and it was the summit of feudal autocracy too.Decorative patterns of lacquer,during this period mainly inherited characteristics from the Ming Dynasty and they also were influenced by religion to an extent.On the basis of them,decorative patterns of lacquer were actually under great influence of rules of the feudal dynasty,especially during"Prosperous Era of Kangxi and Qianlong".Under such a background,lacquers produced with court style exerted a great influence over France and even the whole Europe in the 18th century.For example,Rococo art in France in the 18th century which was popular throughout Europe also was affected by decorative patterns style of Qing court’s lacquers which were so exquisite that it formed characteristics of floridity and gracefulness.Japan had been learning lacquer art from China since the Three Kingdoms period while it has a better preservation of its national crafts.By the time of the Edo period(approximately in Qing Dynasty in China),it had reached a high degree of self-development to establish a new genre in lacquer art.At that time,Japanese lacquers were transported through maritime trade to China which provided some significant references for lacquer art of both countries no matter in crafting techniques or in decorative patterns.The paper,by a systematic conclusion,induction and classification of decorative patterns of extant Qing lacquers,is to conduct an analysis of their modeling features and from the perspectives of history and art history,it makes a longitudinal study and comparison on kindred patterns from different periods,combining extant lacquers to carry out an in-depth study to correct predecessors’ mistakes in their studies,put forward a conclusion on the development and changes in decorative patterns of Qing lacquers and make a contribution to supplementation on the study of decorative patterns of Qing lacquers.According to the conclusion of the study,decorative patterns used in Qing lacquers basically could find their origins in arts and crafts of the former dynasty.The paper deems that Qing lacquers are great because they adopted various lacquer techniques to express decorative patterns with court style and drew Chinese traditional patterns with aesthetic charscteristics of Qing dynasty by profound national crafts.It also concurs with the argument that lacquer was from China and Japanese Maki-e craft came from Chinese lacquer art.What’s more,the paper,combining extant lacquers with literary documents to develop an overall analysis of the interrelation between Qing lacquer,Rococo and Japanese Maki-e craft and Tibetan Buddhism’s culture and art and Taoist culture embodied in Qing lacquers.