The Research On The Jingdezhen Ceramic Legends

Jingdezhen ceramic legends are legend-type works of folk literature, which are widespread in the everyday life of the Jingdezhen people. In the present thesis, we studied on all the literal and oral information contained in Jingdezhen ceramic legends and associated with the three essential elements (i.e., craftsmen, skills and works), and tried to find out the relationship between legend and craft as well as the esthetic thoughts of crafts in accord with the pattern of this relationship.We explained in this thesis the relationship between craft and legends, the generation of craft folklores and the spread of the legends, in a special point of analyzing the relationship between craft and art. In addition, we discussed the origin and development of ceramic legends and the corresponding reason, the main types of them and the evolvement of the ceramic legends. We then tried to comprehend the structure of Jingdezhen ceramic legends in a different way from the traditional craft aspect, following the Five Elements Theory . Based on the new comprehension about the legends'structure, we compared the ceramic legends of Jingdezhen kilns and those of other famous kilns, and found the key elements in ceramic craft, which are human, earth, fire, water, gold and wood. These key elements are well reflected in the representative folklores, such as the Legend of the Initial Teacher Zhao Gai, the Legend of Kaolin God and the Legend of Wind-fire First Division Tong Bin. Among the changing ceramic craft and the evolvement of ceramic legends, we tried to understand the interaction between craft and legend, to find out the relationship between ceramic legends and public lifestyle as well as folk culture, and to get the esthetic thoughts of crafts in the traditional ceramic production.Through the study on the widespread folk legends of the Jingdezhen ceramics, we can point out in another respect the unique aesthetic style and aesthetic ideals of the Jingdezhen general public, especially the vast porcelain kiln workers and ceramic craftsmen.