In this cultural heritage, hardworking Shanxi people express their inner spiritual world and good wishes for life in another way of making pasta, which is Shanxi dough sculpture.
Dough sculpture-commonly known as "dough figurine", "dough sheep" and "flower steamed bun". Different places have different names and different forms. Most of them come from housewives in rural villages and towns of Shanxi Province. They are made of flour through kneading, modeling, steaming and coloring. Most of them are exaggerated, concise, simple, with distinctive folk and local characteristics, and then continue to the city, developing into an inedible, antiseptic, crack-proof and easy-to-preserve proportion, kneaded by the artist's skillful hands.
Shanxi noodle people are mainly divided into Huozhou noodle people, Xinzhou Dough Statues noodle people and Jiangzhou noodle people.
Huozhou Mianren is called "mutton bread in soup" by local people. In ancient times, the word "sheep" meant "exotic" and had the meaning of "auspicious". Usually, with the approach of the Spring Festival holiday, peasant women will make kittens, puppies, tigers, jade rabbits, chickens, ducks, fish, frogs, grapes, pomegranates, eggplant, "bergamot", "house full" and "skillful husband and clever mother" according to local customs. Huozhou dough figurines are simple in shape and rarely decorated, and they are often colored only with red dots.
Xinzhou Dough Statues is a traditional folk art circulating in this area, which is deeply hidden among the people and has become one of the local handicrafts. In Xinzhou area, during the Spring Festival, people should offer sacrifices to the gods and steam offerings. Before the festival, knead the dough into "bergamot", pomegranate, lotus, peach, chrysanthemum, horseshoe and so on. And all kinds of offerings are commonly known as "flower buns".
Xinzhou steamed buns, often with red dates in the middle, are both decorative, nutritious and seasoning, and are very popular. There is also a large local sacrifice called jujube hill. This kind of jujube hill is made of rolled red dates and spliced into an isosceles triangle. The corner top is often molded with wishful patterns, on which three or five dough sculptures "small ingots" are added, and at the same time, a "dry dragon" that bites "copper coins" is molded. Jujube hill can change color after steaming and become a beautiful folk art. ..
Jiangzhou is Xinjiang County. Every holiday, every household here will grind flour and make various dough sculptures to celebrate the holiday. Because the dough sculptures here pay attention to color stippling and bright colors, the locals call them "Hua Mo". Jiangzhou steamed buns are exaggerated in shape, especially animals.
In urban and rural areas, most housewives will knead steamed buns, and generally knead steamed buns of various shapes. Because it is for personal use, although the level is different, it does not affect eating.
This kind of folk activities that every household has to carry out has created a large number of skilled craftsmen who knead steamed buns and passed them down from generation to generation.
However, with the rapid development of science and technology, mechanized production has gradually replaced handicrafts, and many folk handicrafts, including dough sculpture art, have less and less space in the market.
To develop Shanxi dough sculpture art, we must innovate.
According to the spirit of "supporting the protection of important cultural heritage and excellent folk art" put forward in the report of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the national folk culture protection project was started in early 2003, and folk art was included in the protection scope, which is a gospel.
Shanxi pasta enjoys a high reputation in the world, which is well known. Pasta and dough modeling are inextricably linked. In the process of innovation and development, dough sculpture art will get the brand effect of Shanxi pasta advertisement more or less. Shanxi dough sculpture art promotes Shanxi dough sculpture to the market through different forms of exhibitions, tourism promotion conferences, tourist attractions exhibitions or handicraft fairs, so that the market can gradually understand Shanxi dough sculpture art through the brand of Shanxi pasta, thus expanding its influence. In the 2003 Shanxi International Noodle Sculpture Festival, there was a window to display dough sculptures, with animals and plants as the creative themes, which fully demonstrated the close relationship between pasta and dough sculptures, and also fully reflected the effects that brands like Shanxi pasta would bring to dough sculpture art.
Shanxi dough sculpture has a good mass base in various regions, which makes the art of dough sculpture reach a higher level and improves the connotation and quality of dough sculpture to a new level. It is also necessary to cultivate or bring up a group of professionals who have certain professional knowledge, love folk art and devote themselves to their careers.
The expression form of dough sculpture art is relatively simple, with figures or animals as the theme. Sculpture is generally based on the zodiac and Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon, which is only suitable for children to watch. It has not changed for many years, and it lags far behind the aesthetic pursuit of modern people. This single form of expression hinders the development of dough sculpture art. ..
Shanxi has a history of civilization of more than five thousand years. On this fertile soil, dough sculpture art has inexhaustible cultural themes of Sanjin. In the glorious history, a large number of historical figures have emerged in Shanxi. The all-powerful man in the Spring and Autumn Period has a noble character. He would rather die than be at the mercy of Lu. He was a great thinker and veteran in the Warring States Period, Lian Po, a famous Wei Qing and Huo Qubing in the Han Dynasty, Guan Yu, a scholar in the Jin Dynasty, Pei Xiu Faxian, an international religious traveler, Empress Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei and Liu Zongyuan in the Song Dynasty, great poets Wang Bo, Wang Zhihuan, Wang Changling and Bai Juyi, and statesman and historian Sima Guang. They have all made special contributions to the prosperity of the Chinese nation and are the pride of Shanxi. Each character will have a vivid story as the theme of dough sculpture.