Chinese Crafts

Crafts depend on skills, as the weather relies on seasons, the earth on the weather, and the material on appearance. Traditional Chinese arts and crafts have won good reputations in the international community in the history of material culture. Since Zhang Qian's diplomatic mission to the West (?-114 BC) in the Han Dynasty and the gradual advent of the Silk Road, China's traditional arts and crafts have been continually exported to the Central Asia, the Western Asia, the Middle East, Europe and other regions across the world. Chinese craftsmen in the bygone ages often lived on their craftsmanship when civil war or foreign invasion broke out, and they inadvertently served as cultural popularizers. In addition, arts and crafts often have a close relation with China's traditional philosophy. Around the first century A.D., ideologists in ancient China used to describe or interpret their thoughts about national governance and people's life by resorting to crafts and craftsmanship as metaphors.

All this has much to do with China's unique geographical location and its long and continuous farming culture.

In China's traditional moral philosophy prevails the maxim "Excessive attention to trivialities saps the will." What it denounces is "exquisite, but useless skills and products" and the overdevelopment of unpractical skills. Such thought unconsciously influences China's craft to develop towards functionalism in thousands of years and it causes manual skills to develop the most in the agricultural society without any waste of social resources. This also makes it some what conservative. When technology accumulation reaches a certain level, it will limit and delay promotion of social and scientific progresses.

Generally, however, China's traditional arts and crafts are laudable. They are rich cultural heritages left to us, containing people's creation and wisdom in life.

"Arts and crafts" are not common artificial articles. Especially for Chinese "arts and crafts," they are the live geographical specimens of the culturally unique Asia, and the "prototype" of China's unique life style, reflecting the relationship among land, human and production activity in an implicit way. They as gifts or goods are passed on or exchanged in history and life. It is exactly for this reason that "arts and crafts" are everlasting, and that they are inseparable from Chinese people's life.

Characters of China's Traditional Arts And Crafts

China's traditional arts and crafts are a manifestation of wisdom, which is presented from the following perspectives.

The first is "valuing human being itself and exploiting goods," namely, valuing individual life and controlling artificial objects. It emphasizes that all technologies shall be based on human, that is what we call "people oriented" today, which is critical for development of China's traditional craftsmanship. Someone may question that, as technologies are used by men, it is sure and no wonder that they are people oriented. However, Europe went through a tortuous route in terms of understanding of such simple issue. After the industrial Revolution in Great Britain, mass production of machines reduced costs and brought cheaper products, making numerous people praise machine-based production and cheer for achievements of industrial revolution. However, soon after, they found that products manufactured by machines are always manufactured in a rough and same way and therefore they were dissatisfied with such products and considered that it obliterated personality and use of the same rough product by people meant obsession with life style; on the other hand, from the point of view of manufacturer, in the course of mass production of the whole industrial society, tasks along the assembly line were divided in more pieces, human became a part of machine, and unlike traditional hand labor which could make you touch natural materials and work while thinking, there is no fun in the whole course. With the pace of agricultural economy, there is a kind of rural natural fun. Consequently, in nineteenth century, there were Utopian socialists such as William Morris (1834-1896) and idealists of design in Europe.

From the very beginning, products including traditional Chinese crafts were manufactured based on human needs. The crafts industry already took shape to a certain extent at the earlier stage of machine-based production, especially in the late Ming Dynasty when capitalism sprouted. At that time, in Shengze Town, Songjiang (now in Wujiang, Jiangsu), weaving industry was highly developed, quite a few families had 5-10 looms and employed workers to operate them, and there was clear division of labor between processes. However, this production mode close to mass capitalist production didn't run from quantitative development to qualitative development. Unlike the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, it didn't significantly improve outputs, generate the most surplus value and input such value to reproduction thus to cause revolutionary change of the weaving industry. Employers in weaving industry in Ming Dynasty who were inextricably linked to the countryside re-invested their earnings from weaving industry to agricultural production or family building, such as house building, land purchase, getting married and having children, which not only naturally included backwardness of agricultural economy but also reflected that Chinese traditional society valued nature of human's life and didn't push development of machine-based production to the highest level. It is closely related to such technology thoughts as "value own self and use things" and "people oriented."

The second is "attaining practical use and benefiting people," namely, emphasizing practical use and people's livelihood. During the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795), western missionaries or foreign ambassadors came to China and brought along with gifts most of which were playthings such as mechanical striking clock. It can be seen that most of products manufactured in the West were not entirely for practical purpose and for human's benefits. Products produced in ancient China always emphasized their functions. Guan Zhong (725-645 BC) who was an ideologist in the Spring and Autumn period once said: "excellent craftsmen in the ancient time didn't use their wisdom to manufacture playthings. Therefore, law-abiding people never produce useless things." This means that, the smart craftsmen in the ancient time didn't waste their wisdom to make useless playthings and they followed such rule and didn't go against it. Mo Zi (about 468-376 BC) in the Warring States time also proposed the idea that we should do what benefit us and shouldn't do what offer no benefit to us. Though it seems simple today, it was of great significance at that time. From this, in the feudal society of a history of thousands years, "exquisite but useless skills and products" in Chinese vocabularies didn't become the mainstream of the society and production of objects which emphasized functionality, was related to national economy and people's livelihood, and kept human care was exactly the mainstream of China's traditional craftsmanship.

The third is "considering different conditions and appropriately using the advantages," which discusses the relationship between crafts and specific materials and technologies. For this, there are various examples: such as, how to use different characteristics and textures of wood to deal with different structure in case of furniture making, how to use natural texture of stone to model in case of inkstone manufacturing, and how to use ingenious color of jade to produce things giving full play to characters of materials and reflecting functionality in case of jade carving. In such examples, different technologies are used according to different materials. At the macro level, traditional Chinese crafts attach great importance to materials and technical conditions and products are designed based on requirements for function. Li Yu (1610-1680), a famous litterateur in late Ming and early Qing dynasties, mentioned in his book Some Notes on Leisure Time that sound appropriateness and suitability were essential for landscape architecture, which was very important. It decides that, under the background of farming society, Chinese people didn't produce any articles going against the farming society and arts and crafts in different periods were basically harmonious with life style at that time. Design of lamps in Han Dynasty is just one prominent example in terms of traditional crafts. The representative one - Changxin Palace Lamp uses water to filter smoke and dust and keep tight, uses flue to discharge smoke, and use rotational structure to adjust light, showing extraordinary ingenuity.

The fourth is "learning from nature," which emphasizes creative inspiration comes from nature and human shall keep a harmonious relationship with nature. In the past, "creation" was often considered as a commonly-used term describing learning from the nature in terms of painting. Actually, it runs in every detail of traditional Chinese crafts, it means that we shall learn from nature and get inspired from nature and it requires that artificial objects shall be harmonious with nature. Especially in ancient China, for example, the saw invented by the skillful craftsman - Lu Ban (about 507-444 BC) was inspired by toothed plant leaf in nature according to legend; Zhuge Liang (181-234) in the Three Kingdoms period combined machinery and bionic shape and invented the trolley which called "wooden ox" to transport provisions and fodders via Shu road. There were numerous examples in the ancient time and even some astro-observation instruments such as Houfeng Seismograph invented by Zhang Heng (78-139) in the Eastern Han Dynasty were manufactured based on shapes related to nature. The lacquering technology treatise in the Ming Dynasty - Records of Painters and Lacquers clearly proposes that we shall learn from nature, lacquerware shall be shaped in a form of human's body and ornamentation shall be determined based on Yin and Yang. Many articles of luxury in the period of Emperor Qianlong were chinaware imitating nature. More examples can be found in folk articles, such as fish dish, sachet, moulage and door lock, whose imitation not only has function but also includes unique symbolism of folk culture in China.

The fifth is "using advanced technology while reflecting moral value." It means that technology goes together with ideological factors, that is, manufacturing activities like specific functional and technical operations shall advance together with metaphysical theory. This view came into being since the pre-Qin period, Taoist thoughts exerted greatest impact and Confucian also had similar thoughts such as "writings are for conveying truth." Though in China's history there is sometimes imbalance between idea and approach and the though that idea is put above approach is spread widely, spirituality doesn't overwhelm practicability from beginning to end in daily life of the folks.

The sixth is "balancing outward grace and solid worth," namely, appearance matches with essence. It emphasizes unity of content and form, and function and decoration, which can be found in many examples concerning China's traditional crafts. Decorative art is an important aspect of overall development of human's culture. Emphasis on unity of content and form, as well as function and decoration can help avoid formalism or the tendency that function is merely stressed, which is exactly the result from impact of Confucian thought of "balancing outward grace and solid worth. It requires us to always keep the value orientation attaching equal importance to form and content in terms of life style, rules of conduct and relationship between artificial articles and human.

All the wisdom concerning traditional crafts is presented above based on the mainstream thoughts of the nobility and scholars in the past. Compared to it, however, folk arts and crafts are even more diverse and brilliant. It has its own independent system which is often behind various creatures, formulas, legends and stories in the folk. Throughout ancient history of China, development of traditional arts and crafts is healthy and sound. Thought there were some over-elaborated interests at some points, from the angle of the whole history, it was compatible with productivity at that time, showing aesthetic characters of moderation and practical use.