Tibetan Theme Of Creative Arts And Contemporary Image Of The Country

Artistic creation about Chinese ethnic minorities constitutes an integral part of China's contemporary fine arts. Throughout the history of fine arts since the establishment of P.R.C., there is never short of significant classic artistic products on the theme of Chinese ethnic minorities. However, there is little systematic theoretic research in this field, particularly those about the theory and practice of artistic production about ethnic minorities. On one hand, current domestic ethnology and artistic studies on ethnic minorities mainly deal with artistic existence of ethnic minorities, and pay little attention to artistic creations on this subject. On the other hand, as a hot topic of domestic theoretical studies, the National Image Theory is of great importance for current studies on the theory and practice of artistic creations on ethnic minorities. Under such academic circumstances, this thesis tries to connect artistic studies on ethnic minorities with national image studies. It represents an attempt to use ethnological methodologies and academic results to interpret China's image as a multi-national country from the perspective of artistic creation. This study is of theoretical and practical importance for the expansion of the connotative image of a contemporary China, the application of ethnological studies, as well as historical studies on and production of ethnic minority arts. Moreover, the perspective of national image building represents a beneficial dimension and self-realization for future studies on artistic creation about ethnic minorities from ethnological perspectives. This thesis is a profound study on artistic creation about the Tibetan people, exploring the theoretic significance and methods of Tibetan-topic artistic creation in building the image of a nation and its fine arts.This thesis focuses on reviewing literary works with multi-disciplinary theories and methods such as fine arts, iconography and ethnology. It is divided into four parts. Chapter 1 introduces the National Image Theory, the theoretic foundation of this study, related concepts and previous studies on ethnic minority arts, and starts this thesis with discussing national cultural strategy and the need of artistic creation. Chapter 2 introduces basic theories of Tibetan-topic artistic creation, and points out the generalization of Tibetan-topic artistic creation after reviewing previous artistic creations on Tibetan themes. Thus, it is advised to highlight the ethnological and social concept of "Tibetan-topic". Chapter 3 talks about the relations between the theme of Tibetan-topic artistic production and national image, and stresses that studies on the theme of artistic creation are needed by ethnological studies and national image building. Chapter 4 discusses concrete measures to build China's image with distinctive national features and national fine arts through artistic representation of Tibetan images as well as corresponding artistic languages.The conclusion of this study is as follows.1. This study avoids the usual model of artistic researches, and takes a new starting point of ethnology and national image building, which provides new perspectives and ideas for practices and studies of artistic creation on ethnic minorities. It is also a beneficial attempt to apply the National Image Theory to artistic creation on ethnic minorities. Thus, this study is innovative in the perspective and methodology of research.2. As far as the generalization of Tibetan-topic artistic creation is concerned, this thesis proposes to take "Tibetan-topic" as a special term to differentiate Tibetan-topic artistic creation from those on Tibetan themes in a general sense. This proposal may serve as a guide to deeper understanding about and clarify the positioning of artistic creation.3. This thesis focuses on discussing the contribution of Tibetan-topic artistic creation to building China's national image and Chinese magnificence through the subject matter and artistic representation. It sets up an example for applying the "National Image Theory" to artistic creation.