Guarding the gates of auspicious folk traditions

These folk images embody people's aspirations for happiness, respect for hard work, and wisdom in maintaining harmony with nature, serving as a vehicle for promoting innovative development in outstanding traditional culture, according to Pan Yikui, director of the National Art Museum of China.

The display reflects the wide spectrum of folk art housed at the museum — there are nearly 70,000 such objects — and the country's long, epic history in various forms that range from region to region, including New Year paintings, colored clay figurines, embroidery, puppetry, and masks, with symbols of home safety, fortune-making, and family prosperity.

The rabbit is another longstanding, well-received motif with wishes for fertility and longevity. China's first lunar rover was even named Yutu (Jade Rabbit) after ancient myths and folktales of a celestial rabbit grinding out elixirs on the moon.

This imagery has a variant in Beijing and Tianjin, where people buy and worship a clay figurine called the Rabbit God (Tu'er Ye) during the Mid-Autumn Festival. These days, the Rabbit God is also popular as a tourism gift and has been manifested in creative products.

The rabbit, small and quiet in reality, is "endowed with supernatural powers to be revered as a god by people, and has become a renowned tourism specialty. It clearly reflects people's special fondness for it", says Liu Ying, a member of the National Art Museum of China.

Pan says the museum has long been committed to protecting, preserving, and exhibiting folk art as a treasure of Chinese aesthetics. He says these folk symbols are mostly derived from real life and have been visualized and artistically refined through creative works. These works, with emotional sincerity and unadorned beauty, preserve the national memory and cultural identity well, he adds.

linqi@chinadaily.com.cn