Thinking Jiang Shan Miao Folk Culture And Artistic Expression On The Right

Pursuing beauty, including the beauty of things and behaviors, is an eternal topic of humankind. And the power of beauty can change our perspective on ourselves and the things around us. During the creative experience of figure painting, a painter can personally experience this kind of change:at first, the painter focuses on character image and dress, while gradually the figure’s inner world will catch the painter’s attention. The ultimate pursuit of beauty is inherent in every woman of the Miao nationality, which is reflected in their distinctive dress. The dress of Shanjiang Miao, who is now living in phoenix county of Hunan province, is the main researching object of this thesis. Shanjiang Miao’s dress, as we see today, was transformed by the Man nationality in the late Qing dynasty. The Miao nationality never submits to assimilation, so they refuse to stitch the collar, in order to keep their national features. Therefore, when creating a figure painting, it becomes an essential requirement to reappear the figure’s outward form and moreover, to pay close attention to the evolution of the dress and the figure’s inner world.The dress of a nationality is the most direct identification of its national identity. Shanjiang Miao’s dress is famous for the bright color, the vivid embroidery and the silver embellishment. The aesthetic consciousness of a nation, as well as the changes in national culture history, can often be reflected in their costumes. For instance, the image of horse in Miao’s silver accessories records their migration status through the great mountains and rivers, while the embroidery pattern of butterfly mother records the cultural heritage of the nation.The Miao nationality has a rich historical background, who claims to be the descendant of ancient fire god Chiyou during their migratory journey, but is said to be the descendant of barbarian living beside five streams of the southwest China. The prolonged migratory life gave this nation the sense of urgency, while the psychological instability let this nation with an unconquerable, positive and optimistic personality. Women of Miao nationality have a strong pursuit of beauty, but meanwhile frustration and ambivalence is intertwined in their heart for the traffic inconvenience environment and the relative backwardness of the material conditions. Miao followed the matriarchal tradition of respecting woman, so Miao women play an important role in family life. And Miao is an egalitarian and humane nation, so women have a great impact onthe development ofthenation.Artistic creation comes from life. And the understanding of Shanjiang Miao theoretically enhances my creation. First of all, the beauty of appearance is ever-changing. The relationship of Miao women and their dress is the bloom of personality and the aesthetic awareness of national heritage. Although there is a fixed theme and pattern template of embroidery, but the shape and color varies from people to people, so every work is not the same. The exaggeration of shape and free collocation of different colors reflects personal understanding of the pattern image and their preferences. Therefore Miao embroidery is the expression of personal understanding of beauty. Secondly, during figure painting, we can travel from the appearance of beauty into the character’s inner beauty. The beauty of Miao’s dress originally comes from Miao women’s characteristic of hard-working, rustic and cheerful. Thus the grasp of the figure’s characters can be deepened through the understanding of the figure’s living environment, character traits, internalized ideology and mental processes.