Chinese Arts and Crafts

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A Brief Overview of Chinese Culture

For centuries, Chinese have demonstrated their love and appreciation of nature, literature, painting, sculpture, and pottery. Most important museums all over the world take pride in collecting Chinese arts.

Painting
Chinese paintings stress harmony between humans and nature. Many beautiful works show mountains, trees, clouds, waters, and flowers. Many artists use simple black ink while others use color for flowers and people. Some artists spend their whole lives trying to perfect the drawing of one type of scenery, plant, or flower.

Chinese writing, or calligraphy, is also considered a form of painting, and is almost always done in black ink.

Sculpture and Pottery
China is famous for its pottery which can be made of clay, bronze, jade or cloisonne. Some consider the magnificent Terracotta Warriors in Xian, life-sized clay figures of soldiers and horses, as the ninth wonder of the world.

Music
Western music is based on an eight-note scale. The Chinese musical scale, on the other hand, consists of five notes. Therefore, Chinese music usually sounds very different to Western ears. However, with China's recent receptiveness to Western culture, many Chinese musicians know and play Western music and instruments.

Literature
Classical Chinese literature takes the form of poetry, history, philosophy, and ethics. Masterpieces of fiction and drama reflect actual conditions of living in the structured society of ancient China as well as characters and stories from Chinese mythology.

Chinese Opera
The modern-day Chinese Opera originated from the Sung Dynasty (960-1279). Chinese opera has many cultural and regional variations. However, it is always based on a historical tale and uses music, acrobatics, and dance. The actors in Beijing opera use much heavier makeup than those in the Cantonese or the Chiu Chow operas of the south. Makeup, movement, and specific colors of costumes signify the character's age, sex, and personality. For example:

Yellow clothing represents the emperor
Green clothing is for high-ranking officials
Purple represents a barbarian
A white face suggests an evil character
A red face shows courage
A black face is "normal"
Head dresses are also significant. The one worn by the most important character always has elaborate designs and decorations.

In future issues, we will explore Chinese art and culture in greater detail with pictures and illustrations.

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