Range of flowers（灶花） is the decorative pictures of kitchens in Nanhui regions. To paint various pictures and flower patterns in kitchen range is the folk custom of local people in Shanghai Nanhui areas. It is not only popular in Shanghai, but also spread to regions south of the Yangtze River.
The history of range of flowers can be dated back to Song and Yuan Dynasties. According to legend, people painted pictures on salt stove to wish for a harvest of salt industry. In the houses of common people, there is the kitchen god to bless the cooking. So people may paint pictures on the cooking bench to please the kitchen god.
As a result, people used to paint bamboo to wish for a safe life, paint fish to wish for a rich life, paint mountain and river to wish for a smooth sailing, paint eagle and pigeon to wish for an ambitious ideal. The range of flowers reflect people’s dream of life.
Although the range of flowers cannot ascend the place of refinement, and not be fond of poets and literary men, it has developed into a special flower of Shanghai Nanhui folk custom after skilled craftsmen’s sedimentary deposits through generations.
The origin of range of flowers still need to be find, but recent data shows that it cannot be later than the period of Qing Emperor Guangxu. At that time, there were many building workers who can draw delicate range of flowers.
In the past, almost every household in the country in Chongming areas lined with cooking stove to cook. In order to avoid soot produced when burning firewood, usually on the stove ascent a wall, this is the "stove wall." Craftsmen in the "stove wall" draw on a variety of characteristics of the times of decorative patterns, and it is called "range of flowers."
It is understood that Chongming range of flowers are the very personal works of art, reflecting the people for a better life, faith and hope for the future, the era of great features on selected themes, such as the early days, we have generally used the rising sun, the most glorious labor, learn from Dazhai and other patterns, and now ecological island and better for every year is the typical kind of "range of flowers". All these different types of rang of flowers reflect the improvement of people's material life, and need more on a spiritual and cultural level.
Add on: Bamboo Carving
Gu Embroidery
Shanghai Style Boxwood Carving
Trista
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