The emotionalized design of intangible cultural heritage: The case of Zhuanqiao paper-cut

Abstract

The intangible cultural heritage, as the cultural treasure, inherits the Chinese unique spiritual and cultural connotation and has a wide mass base and an affinity that suits the needs of the Chinese people. The folk paper-cut art is one of the Chinese traditional folk arts. Some kinds of the paper-cut arts have been incorporated in the list of intangible cultural heritage and imply wisdom and sincere emotions deposited by the Chinese nation for thousands of years. The Zhuanqiao paper-cut is analyzed in the paper. The Zhuanqiao folk paper-cut art originated from the beginning of Ming dynasty runs a long history with focus on theme expansion and pursuit of the spirit of the times, forming a series of works such as Jiangnan Watertown, Town Feature and Natural Ecology. The art is the featured brands of Zhuanqiao paper-cut full of local flavor and modernity and has become one of the representatives of Shanghai paper-cut. Currently, people are facing a world of extreme abundance in substance and information. Lots of designs have transitioned from pure Configuration Discussion to Emotion Discussion, while the emotionalized design has become one of the relatively common design philosophies in modern design. The emotionalized design is interpreted as the design featured by emotion and is a kind of concept originated from design psychology. In the current society, people are no longer content with functions and values brought by design itself, but start to pay attention to emotions endowed in design works. People’s demands can become the start point for design, while their emotions can also do. At present, China is increasingly focusing on intangible cultural heritage, and is constantly intensifying the protection and spreading thereof. The design of derivatives of intangible cultural heritage is one of the vital means to develop and inherit the intangible cultural heritage. The design of the derivatives enriches the pattern of manifestation of paper-cut, and makes it possible not to be limited to original manifestation state but to have more spreading forms. The strong emotions revealed in rich forms and various uses of paper-cut art have to be learned in the present emotionalized design of derivatives of intangible cultural heritage. Research methods such as bibliographic retrieval and field interview are used in the paper. On one hand, such methods are used to collect data relating the Zhuanqiao paper-cut so as to understand the developing history, artistic features and cultural connotations, and on the other hand, to collect and analyze the design of derivatives of current Zhuanqiao paper-cut with the aim to understand the application state in design of derivatives of intangible cultural heritage. In this paper, the sustainable developing trend is needed to be explored to provide the development and inheritance of the Zhuanqiao paper-cut with a kind of emotional expression way endowed with fickleness of human nature.