Qinghai lies in the west of China. It's the hinterland of QingZang Plateau. There are a lot of mountains and rivers on the Plateau and the area is wide.

The special geographic circumstance forms a long history and the splendid national culture. Qinghai becomes mysterious and holy. There are many minorities in Qinghai :Tibetan, Mongolian, Tu, Sala, Hui, Han and other nationalities.

In human history, the different nationalities in Qinghai dedicate their lives to the development of Qinghai, adding an illustrious chapter to the annuals of Qinghai history, enriching the national culture. Folk art is an exquisite art works wonder in Qinghai national culture.

It plays and important role in people's daily life and reflects the deep love to the life and beauty. Art is one part of the cultural and idealogical progress. Men create the folk art which has been spread everywhere.

Folk art has different kinds, such as folk song, folk instrument, folk dance, folk drama, folk painting and so on. The main idea of this essay is about Qinghai folk painting.

To get more people's attention, this essay is titled "Qinghai Folk Art". The history of Qinghai came into being at the Neolithic, going though Qing, Xianbei,Tubo and Han cultures. It forms a distinctive culture with national features and pluralistic structure.

Folk art has been developed from lower stage to higher stage, from superficies to profundity, and from low lever to high lever accompanied with the trail of the development of the human history culture.

In ancientness because of the mysterious about the nature, the ancestor showed the worship to the nature and the yearning for the reproduction of the man, so the primitive aesthetic standard emerged.

With the development of the society, folk art comes to a mature period of complex creative decorating structure from the hard imitation of nature. This is a great leap in human aesthetic standard.

Many folk artifacts with the characteristic of the history reflect the history of the nation.We can trace the designs of the folk art to the ancient time and find the answer: when, where, what and others, because each artistry is a symbol of recording human evolution.

From the ancient painted pottery of the Neolithic and the bronze Age excavated from Qinghai, we discovered such different designs as net,round net, wave, vortex, sawtooth, rhombus, circle,"*","+",etc.

These designs are existed in Qinghai contemporary folk art. Surprisingly, we discover the men who lived in the inner mountain, grassy marsh and remote place could maintain and use the ancient designs.

And the designs also form a certain basis for our study of the history of Qinghai and the Yellow River Basin-the birthplace of Chinese's ancient culture.

As a result of the geographic location, Qinghai folk art passes on from generation to generation by the mouth and the hand of the common people . It evolved along with the multiplication of the Chinese generation nation and contributed to probing into the difference between the contemporary and the traditional ideas of art.

Folk art is from the folk and it is used and appreciated by the common people. It formed the distinct characters by the continuous developing and enriching of the common people: the regionalism of the art style, the pragmatism of the life, the convenience of the source material the mass participation of the artistic technique and the popularization for its cheap cost.

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau gives Qinghai folk art the independent character: the first, region, it includes the culture of Qinghai Plateau, and the land culture and Hehuang culture in Qinghai .

The second, nationality, Tibetan as well as Mongolian, Tu, Sala, Hui and Han nationality has not only the right of independent, but also the unity.

The third is religion . Although religion does not belong to the folk art, it comes from the folk and exists in the Tibetan temples and the Islam mosques extensively in Qinghai, and many minorities in Qinghai believe in religion.

So religion influences the people's appreciation of the beauty and the social behavior. Qinghai folk art developed in an all-round way. It has formed some influential countries on a large scale: Regong Art in Tongren County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Nianduhu, Guomari,Gasairi,Shangwutun and Xiawutun are the five typical villages of folk art, which has been known as the famous folk art villages, including painting, wood engraving , clay sculpture, embroidery and painted building .

The Three Wonders in Kumbum(Ta'er )Monastery in Huangzhong, fresco, stack embroidery and butter flower, is well known as "Three Wonder Artifacts", made by the lamas of Kumbum Monastery and the artists of Regong and other countries.

LuSha'er Town, Huangzhong County and Anchong Town , Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture are the two centers of making silver artifacts. There are thousands of family workshops have been making the exquisite artifacts years and years.

Embroidery

Qinghai nationalities like embroidery very much. The embroideries can be divided into four kinds according to the usage.

1.Practicality: such as shoes, socks, belt, pigtail tube, pillow etc, are the main parts of the embroidery;

2.Ornament: the embroideries on the money girdle, collar, pouch, packet, gauze mask(worn over nose and mouth).

3.Etiquette: wallet, pen container, girth, pipe, belt, shroud, elegiac couplet.

4.Religion: embroider the image of the Buddha and decorate the temple.

A lot of embroideries are beautiful and practical. Different nationalities in Qinghai have different embroidery styles.

From the artifact design we can see the religious and cultural custom of the common people. Tibetan, Mongolian and Tu nationality believe in Tibetan Buddhism.

Most of their embroidery designs are Eight Treasures, good luck, gloriously radiant and fleeting clouds, also include animal, flower and plant, and geometric figure. The distinguishing feature is the use of decorating.

The twisting and the twinning designs reflect the unite character of the nations . Hui,Sala and Dongxiang nationalities believe in Islam,most of their artifact designs are flowers and plants, others are animal designs. In the embroideries of Han nationality in Qinghai all kinds of embroider designs is used by gaining all the techniques other nationality used.

From the whole area of Qinghai we find the embroidery of the herdsman expressing the bold and uninhabited character of the nation by the exaggerate models, solemn color, strong contrast, rough lines, simple and unadorned feeling .

The peasants are famous for the articles of excellent workmanship with great varieties, well organized, vividly depiction, simple and vigorous.

In Qinghai there are many embroidery techniques , according to the local customs, called surface embroidery, twine embroidery, chain embroidery, net embroidery , stretch embroidery, buttress embroidery ,plaint embroidery , stack embroidery, clip and paste embroidrery, etc.

The twine embroidery is the general way of embroidery used in Tibetan, Mongolian and Tu nationality.Qinghai folk embroidery in the daily life, from the top to feet and and from the apparatus to their house.

The embroidery artifacts exist in everywhere. It shows people's interests in beauty, especially the women of different nations.

Mask

There are three kinds of masks in Qinghai :QiangMu mask, suspension mask and Tibetan drama mask. QiangMu mask is used in the religious decrees.

Suspension mask is the image hung on the temple wall worshiped by the common people. Tibetan drama mask is used for performing the Tibetan drama.

In Qinghai, QiangMu is used widely, the suspention and Tibetan drama mask is less used in daily life. QiangMu is a sheer religious folk art.

There are some kinds of materials used in making masks: wood leather cloth paper and mud. The model is dimension and colorful. It is convenient for people to wear it on the face.

The contents of the mask includes: the images of King, Buddha, demon and ghost, fairy and animal. The realistic and the exaggeration are both used in the plastic arts of the mask.

Except a few kind-looked Buddhas, many masks embody "abomination" and "suppression"in the facial expression of prestige mystery indignation fierce and ferocious to reflect the majestic of the God.

This way is the special manifestation of "kindness"and "beauty" in religion art. Most Tibetan Budddhist Temples in Qinghai have QiangMu mask used in customary large-scale religious program.


Paper-cut

Embroidery and window-flower are the major paper-cut forms in Qinghai. Paper-cut is the important part of embroidery.

Firstly, draw the outline on the paper. Secondly, cut the designs with scissors( during the past time, incense was used). At last, fix the designs on the cloth to embroider.

Window flower is popular used in Qinghai during the festival in the holidays. It is clipped on red or green paper reflecting the joyous days. The contents of paper-cut are widely: traditional opera figures, folk legends, fairy tales, birds and beasts, flowers and trees, mandarin ducks and butterflies, mountains and rivers, and life style.

The artistic technique put shaded parts the first and bright parts the second; clipping the first and engraving the second in the instruments;single color the first and multiple color the second.

The artistic style of Qinghai folk paper-cut is full of strong plateau features:simple, rough, bold, lively, exaggerate and freely decoration.

The old paper-cut artists often clip the designs directly without paper and the designs are very beautiful and changeable.

Most paper-cut artists are the women in the countryside. As a result of the need of the folk, the women learned how to make paper-cut when they were young. The paper-cut has developed with the development of the society by the multiplication of the generation.


Shadow Play

Shadow play is a kind of artistic modeling using the leather of cow or donkey. It is also called “Light Shadow”because the play goes on by the means of the projection of the light on a big white cloth.

The shadow play is passed on from other provinces. Existing in the plateau it forms the bold, simple, strong and rude characteristics .

The people who make shadow play has professional skill and the making procedure is complex: soaking , scraping, polishing, modeling, engraving, coloring, ironing, and etc.

According to the people’s aesthetic standard, the shadow play modeling emphasizes the features of decoration and summarization, and forms the designization of the figure and the color.

It expresses the charm of the plane art, the techniques, consciousness and pattern of the shadow play are the same as the folk paper-cut.

Shadow play reflects the marvelous performances by the shadow of the plane and profile of the figures. Shadow play is puppet show. Most of them reflect history stories, fairy tales and contemporary life.

In the 70th , Tibetan shadow play emerged. Shadow play is called “light show”because the projection of the light. So, light, shadow and color are the important parts of shadow play .

Sculpture

Sculpture is a stereoscopic modeling art including of carving, cutting and molding. There are different kinds of sculpture in Qinghai: mud modeling , stone carving, wood cutting and brick carving .

Mud modeling is an important part of Regong Art and it is popular in Tongren County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. People often make mud modeling by hand or model.

All the contents of Regong reflect Buddhist images, and the figures are lively, full and round , easy and smooth. The techniques is exaggerating to portray the characteristic of the figures. The works is sporting coexist with quieteness.

In recent years, Regong artists have baked the mud modeling Buddhist into pottery. Thus the new type of sculpture pottery art comes into being.

Stone cutting is widespread in Qinghai folk. In the plateau, people use locally available materials, such as: Kunlun Jade, Qilian Jade,Gaba Jade, Zhongba Jade, Hedi Jade, marble, granite, red sandstone and green stone.

The contents of stone cutting include: Buddha, Buddhist scripture, MaNi stone, Buddhist pagoda,, lion and yak ,etc.

The men who engage in stone cutting are the folk artists with superb skill and the stonemason. So the works style is vavious. Some are serious and solemn, some are fine and smooth, some are exaggerating and bold, some are simple and clear, some are true to life.

Mani stone piles

In Qinghai, the famous stone cutting is "HeRi Stone Buddhist Scripture Wall" in Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Big Tibetan Sculpture in Tibetan and a lots of Buddhas, Buddhist pagodas are cut on the wall which is made of millions of stones. It becomes the treasure-house of Tibetan culture, besides, MaNi Pile in Xinzai County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is called the biggest MaNi Pile in whole Tibetan areas.

Qinghai wood cutting is expressed from the Buddha sculpture, Buddhist scripture, building and furniture. In Tibetan Buddhist temples and the houses of peasants, exquisite designs are carved everywhere: lintel, dado, column cap, furniture and musical instrument used in Buddhist.

Tibetan Carpet

Tibetan carpet is a kind of Tibetan traditional handicraft. It is called Ka Dian in Tibetan.Qinghai is the place of production of Xining Wool, the finest carpet wool in the world .

With the plentiful wool resources, it owns the advantages of making carpet. Qinghai Tibetan carpet possesses these characteristics : elasticity, soft quality and bright sheen because of the excellent material and superb technique.

On the basis of the usage, Tibetan carpet can be divided into finished needle point carpet used in family, belly band carpet used in riding horses, tapestry and cushion used in lamaseries.

With the improvement of people's living standard, the usage of Tibetan carpet becomes more widely.

Because of the different usage, the content of the designs of Tibetan carpet is different: dragon and phoenix, Chinese unicorn, mountain and river, bird and flower, scenic spot and historical site, and geometric figure. All these embody the traditional style of Tibetan designs.

The technique of expression is well-developed composition, bright color, primitive simplicity, solemn, tightly knit structure and graceful. It reflects the distinctive national features. In the past , family workshop made Tibetan carpet. So , the technique of expression, the composition of the designs and the color are different. And these fully express the charm of national folk art. Jiaya area, the neighbor of Kumbum Monastery(Ta'er Monastery) , is the traditional place of Tibetan carpet production.

Colored Building

In Qinghai , Tibetan Buddhist temples and houses are often decorated with different colors. The colored building becomes an important art form in Tibetan culture.

Colored parts of the buildings are mainly on archit, colomn cap, sunk panel, dado and other parts of the houses, and also used widely on furniture and other things.

The subject range of colored building is extensive: dragon and phoenix, birds and beasts, Eight Propitious Omens and Seven Treasures, geometric designs and Sanskrit pictures.

The organization of the designs is straight surface permutation, curved surface straight line permutation, malposition and inclined permutation.

The composition of the designs is particular about symmetry and plump. The numerous and complicated designs often compose the close single designs.

Colored buildings seek bright and strong color, and use the primary colors or contrast colors to form splendid effect .

There are two kinds of techniques and the usages of pigment in drawing : the drawing in harmonious with all kinds of paints; use mineral pigment to prime the paint firstly, then use varnish or tung-oil to fix it layer upon layer.

Colored Buildings also trace the designs with gold to make the building and other things splendid and powerful. They protect the building, reflect the need of national aesthetic psychologically and add luster to the building .

Tent Decoration

Tent is Tibetan generation's habitat on which they rely for existence . Tibetan devotes all their energies to tent.

They create rich and colorful tent art with their intelligence and wisdom. In general, Qinghai tents can be divided into long term-residence and short-term residence.

Long-term tent is woven with ox hair and it is for people living. Short-term tent is gorgeous and is made of cloth. It is mainly used in the grassland meeting and holiday.

The tent in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is well-known in Qinghai . It has different kinds of forms from simple tent to luxurious tent ( distinguished guests tent): big tent, lamaist tent, official tent, monk tent, cook tent, Mongolian tent and axe tent.

The most wonderful tent is big tent . It can be dance hall or meeting room. Tent ,as well as Tibetan building, is an outstanding sign of the design art.

Herdsmen express the feeling of beauty with their superb techniques and plenty reverie. The designs of tents use traditional lucky decorative designs: Eight Treasures, fleeting clouds, lotus, flower, etc.

Sometimes the same content is decorated in many ways. Heavy curtain is decorated at the edge of the tent. It has kinds of colors and patterns and it consists of three parts: on the top, white beads form; in the middle , red, yellow and green rainbow designs; at the bottom, long colored pleat.

The dazzling beautiful heavy curtains, like multicolored rainbow, decorate the whole tent groups.It forms gaily dressed maidens on the plateau.

Silverware

Silverware is one of the important artifacts and a practical article. Because of the great gravity, purity, wearability, oxidation and the luster, Qinghai nationalities like it very much and use silverware for dressing . Siverware is used widely among people.

There are four kinds of silverware in Qinghai:

1Articles for daily use: silver bowl, chopsticks, flagon and wine cup and kettle.

2. Jewelry: silver eardrop, hairpin, necklace, ring and bracelet .

3.Ornaments: tool , shield and hoop.

4.Religious articles: butter light, water treatment kettle, Buddhist temple, amulet and trumpet. The materials used in processing silverware are:silver, copper (white, yellow, purple and red), iron, wood, the horn of ox and sheep, bone, agate and coral.

The course of processing silverware need more than ten times from casting the forms to the care and precision work. The forms of expression have high relief, shallow relief, hollow cut and silverlaid.

The handicraftsmen create a great deal of lovely artifacts with their skilled techniques and elaborate engraving. Most of the designs of Qinghai Tibetan silverware reflect the national traditional theme: the lucky Eight Treasures, dragon and phoenix, lion and tiger, precious bottle, birds and flowers, and geometric figures.

On the composition of the designs, according to the different forms of the objects, the handicraftsmen apply the artistic quality of single, symmetry and complex agily to the beautiful modeling and exquisite design and maintain the traditional pattern throughout.