An investigating on the ritual elements influencing factor of decorative art: based on Guangdong's ancestral hall architectural murals text mining

Abstract

The gradual loss of certain good cultural genes in the traditional ritual system is, to some extent, driven by the value orientation of the art of ancestral hall decoration. This article uses wall paintings as a medium to uncover significant variables affecting the decorating of ancestral hall murals and to analyze the culturally formative relationships underlying their art from a ceremonial perspective. It depends on textual excavation. The analysis demonstrates that: (1) the 521 murals generally transmit positive content; (2) the shift in the painted figures’ seating and grooming from formal to casual represents the fading of ceremonial concepts; (3) The control of economic costs may be a possible explanation for the large number of figures in crouching, skirting, and side-lying postures in wall paintings; (4) The fact that the colors employed in the garments of the figures from the Ming and Qing dynasties don’t follow the folk color scheme demonstrates that the creative production at that time was not constrained by a lot of ritualistic considerations. The study concludes that the absence of an educational component in the arts is a contributing factor to the diluted nature of traditional rituals in modern China.