The Grassroots Factor In Traditional Arts And Crafts

As a component of traditional Chinese arts and crafts, grass weaving enjoys a long history. And as an important carrier of traditional Chinese culture, it is originated in the basic production activities and life of labors and developed into various grass woven products that satisfy the multiple demands of practicability, aesthetics, and spirit and so on. For its closeness to the primitive and its involvement in life, it is widely recognized as an original handicraft and the parent form of traditional folk arts. Rooted in the lower classes and containing grassroots ideology, it is an important material foundation for studying the ways of living, life and mental states of folks. The traditional folk creation concept that is constant even in modern materialistic life offers important inspiration for modern design. The strong and plain taint of nature and countryside intimates people with nature.As a realm of arts and crafts, Shandong province has unique advantages in developing grass craft. The thesis makes a detailed introduction and analyses of the general state, limitations and development of grass weaving industry of Shandong province in the multiple respects of concept, scope, origin, development and application and so on at multiple levels, and provides an in-depth analysis of its cultural and artistic connotation generated against the economic, technological and social and other backgrounds. The conclusion offers inspiration to modern design.The thesis has five parts. The first chapter is an introduction of the concept and classification of grass weaving craft. There are two sections in this chapter. The first section introduces the concept of traditional grass weaving craft in a broad sense and a narrow sense by taking the coverage of this craft as an example. The second section is an elaborate classification of it on the basis of that of traditional arts and crafts. The second chapter outlines the general state with regard to the differences in origin, development and application etc of traditional Shandong grass weaving craft. Therein the first section is a brief introduction of the origin and development of Shandong grass weaving based on the historical classification. The second section is a close examination of the art form of different categories with different functions and applications as examples, thus presenting its origin and history from multiple perspectives. The third chapter elaborates on the state of the handicraft in contemporary and modern time with the first section recounting the contemporary development of grass weaving by taking the contemporary development of grass weaving industry in Laizhou as an example and from multiple viewpoints of overall personnel structure and geographical distribution etc of Shandong grass weaving. The second section analyzes the conception and ideology of it in the respects of practicability, aesthetics and spiritual fulfillment etc. according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The third section summaries the limitations and problems of the industry on the basis of investigations and predicts its development. The fourth chapter discusses the cultural and artistic connotation of traditional grass weaving of Shandong province by taking the research of traditional arts and crafts and other relevant disciplines into account. Therein, the first section briefly discuses the cultural and artistic connotation of traditional grass weaving in Shandong province. The second section is a theoretical analysis from the perspectives of economy or consumption, technology, society and culture etc that influencing the connotation generation, whiles the third section offers inspiration to modern design in the aspect of creation concept of this handicraft. The Appendices part consists of a distribution map of Shandong grass weaving products, exemplar pictures of wheat and grass braiding, a Blue Book of Shandong grass weaving industry and a table of Shandong grass weaving enterprises, which are collected in thesis preparation and complement related discussions in the thesis.