From Agrarian Rituals to the Factory of the World: The Materiality, Aesthetics, and Sociocultural Transformation of Chashan Clay Sculpture

Yajun Liu

doi:10.63313/Art.8013

Authors

Yajun Liu Graduate University of Mongolia, Mongolia Ulaanbaatar 15141, Mongolia Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63313/Art.8013

Keywords:

Chashan Clay Sculpture, Lingnan Folk Art, Intangible Cultural Heritage, Productive Protection, Art Toys

Abstract

Taking Gongzai (Chashan clay sculpture) of Dongguan as the research object, this article explores the material aesthetics of the traditional craft and its survival crisis in the face of hyper-industrialization. As an important part of the agrarian and lineage-based ecosystem in the Pearl River Delta in ancient times, Gongzai has been neglected in the current global heritage discourse and is not recognized as an important part of Chinese traditional art or even as a local craftsman's representative work in the majority of the Greater Bay Area. Based on an art historical and sociological analytical model, this article in two aspects, namely the first aspect, decomposing the material aesthetic characteristics of Gongzai through taking local red clay as a medium and discussing its "hundred refinements" together with its highly saturated colour value and the dramatic change in the proportion of the form so as to express the perfect fit between local Gongzai craft and the material, spiritual and living conditions of the ancient Lingnan people. And in the second aspect, this article aims to discuss the social impact brought about by the global value chain in the process of Dongguan's transformation into a 'world factory'. The hyper-industrialization has not only eroded the production environment, time and spatial conditions and ecological system that is compatible to the survival of traditional Gongzai, but also caused severe intergenerational transmission crisis in the artisan community. In summary, this article explores the feasibility of reconstructing and enhancing the cultural identity of Dongguan Gongzai by not only excluding the traditional patina style which is incompatible with Gongzai in the framework of heritagization, but also in the form of "productive protection" integrating the iconography and imagery of the ancient Gongzai art with the high-tech "art toy" manufacturing capacity of modern Dongguan so as to promote Gongzai folk art to fit in the new era and develop its adaptability to the contemporary society and economy in the Greater Bay Area.

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