The Art In A Little Square

Chinese animal sign is a system that uses 12 animals as a symbol to represent the year, which is inseparable to the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches method. It sprouts out in the Shang and Zhou dynasty, and gradually established in the Qin and Han. With the widespread in the two thousand years, it is loved and respected by the laboring people, and gradually affects all aspects of people's lives. It is no longer a simple symbol that records the year, time has infused it with abundant connotation, which forms Chinese unique animal sign culture. And the art grows upon it fully demonstrates the characteristics of its folk-custom, which is the team works of the intelligent laborers, who is not only the creators of it, but also users, disseminators and admirers.In the digital time, people use various traditional and non-traditional forms to display the Chinese animal figures, and further promote and enrich the culture of the Chinese animal culture, and the Chinese animal stamp is one of the most representative one. In the mainland, a set is issued every year, 12 years a round; all has continuity and regularity and has its separatism and creativity. Each set reflects the designer's understanding of life and aesthetic taste. The other hand, the stamp design is different from other graphic design, it is a concentrative art, which expresses plentiful contents of politics, economics, philosophy, ideology, science, technique, culture and art in a little square, and reflects the progress and development of human society. The Chinese animal culture is the co-product of traditional culture and time characteristics. The Chinese animal stamp design includes not only the animal sign, but also the essence of a variety of other folk custom and folk art, as it says: of the nation, of the world", the Chinese animal stamp has a good command of it, which retains the traditional theme of national characteristics, but also infuses the display of other Chinese culture, so as to the time characteristics of the developing and enriching of Chinese animal culture. It is the excellent template that traditional culture is applied to modern design, which is worth of our consideration and study.Since the birth of our country's first Chinese animal stamp in 1980, until the "Jichou year" issued in the January 5th 2009, it has lasted for three rounds, with a total of 30 sets (not including the annual small pieces and souvenir sheets, etc.). This thesis mainly compares in horizontal (different Chinese animal in the same round) and vertical (the same Chinese animal in three rounds) ways, and the comparison of the animal stamps in the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and other countries, and the animal figure in the stamps and other forms, in order to explore and research the evolution of Chinese animal culture and art, to excavate the cultural intention and artistic value, and in the next step to summarize the prospects and trends of Chinese animal stamp design, as well as the method that how to use traditional folk culture in the modern design.