The art of traditional architectural ornaments in northern China

This dissertation provides a folkloristic account of the living tradition of architectural ornament art in northern China based on fieldwork conducted in Beijing, Chengde, and Yulin. The study examines the traditional architectural ornaments as material culture and artistic communication, focusing on the adaptive change in the practice of creating the traditional architectural ornaments in the current social and economic development of the Chinese society in rapid globalization. The study also examines the dynamic interactions among the classic tradition, the vernacular tradition, and the popular culture.; The architectural ornaments include architectural painting, carvings, structural and constructional members with ornamental qualities, and the sculpted pieces. These architectural ornaments are found in many different types of buildings of very different scales. They include ancient palaces, temples, public buildings, commercial buildings, and houses.; This dissertation discovers that the architectural ornaments obtain meanings through decorative motifs, following a set of special principles based on a common Chinese cultural tradition. Through three major mechanisms, symbolic meanings are assigned to decorative motifs: the direct graphic depiction, an ideographic implication, and the phonetic association. A new typological system dividing decorative motifs into three major types---natural and realistic, stylized and abstract, and textural---is devised to make the complexity of the Chinese symbology comprehensible.; The architectural ornaments are created by different craftsmen and appreciated by a diverse population in the dynamic and transient social and economic development in China. The dissertation argues that the design process and ornaments' performances are dynamic and vary from place to place and from person to person. The cultural fusion has been made possible by the increased mobility of the artisans and their knowledge about other contemporary cultures. The interaction of classic and vernacular styles mediated by popular applications has created great diversity of the vernacular styles over space and they cannot be explained by using a linear historical method.; The dissertation reveals the ultimate meaning of the architectural ornaments. Artisans use their artistic creation to communicate with beholders by visualizing imagined worlds for people living in the real world to induce the spiritual delight from the bottom of their heart.