BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HADC 2023 Volume 22 (2023) 63 Semanticized Visual Representation of Harmonic Auspicious Patterns Zhenzhen Wan, Linlin Wang * Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan, Hubei 430000, China Abstract. Harmonic auspicious motifs are an important part of the auspicious culture of praying for good fortune, which has been widely circulated since ancient times. With the continuation and development of the culture, the traditional harmonic auspicious patterns are combined with modern and novel ways to show a richer visual expression. In this paper, we try to explore a more innovative visual expression of harmonic auspicious motifs in modernized semantics from three aspects, such as the way of thinking, cultural connotation and expression of harmonic auspicious motifs. Keywords: Auspicious Patterns; Harmonic Auspicious Patterns; Visual Representation. 1. Introduction As one of the expressions of traditional auspicious patterns, harmonic auspicious patterns present the visual effect of patterns expressing the meaning of words by the association between "picture" and "sound". It uses another pattern with the same or similar pronunciation to express the good intention that it wants to convey, which is not only a kind of understanding and application of the harmonic sound, but also can reflect the way of thinking and cultural psychology of the users of harmonic auspicious patterns. Harmonious auspicious pattern is divided into two kinds of bright harmonious and dark harmonious, the so-called bright harmonious, is the name of things and auspicious pattern between the direct harmonic relationship, with such things in a symbolic and metaphorical way to express the will of seeking auspicious.[1] Such as "sheep" and "Yang", "fish" and "Yu", "monkey " and "Hou" are all explicitly harmonious relationship. The so-called dark harmonic is that there is no direct harmonic relationship between the name of the thing and the auspicious pattern, but there is a harmonic relationship between the name of an attribute or feature of the thing and the auspicious pattern, and this twisted harmonic relationship is used to euphemistically express the auspicious meaning. For example, "pills, dumplings" and so on, because of its shape, the delegation round, "pomegranate" because of its many seeds represent many sons and many blessings, etc. In a sense, both explicit and implicit harmonics are a major feature of harmonic auspicious patterns, and from this feature, more harmonic auspicious pattern artworks can be created, while bringing richer visual expression. 2. Overview of Auspicious Patterns 2.1 Auspicious Patterns The auspicious pattern, also known as Rui Ying Tu or auspicious figure, is an important category in China's ancient decorative art, which has a long history of auspiciousness and reflects people's desire for goodness. Chinese auspicious motifs originated from the Shang Dynasty, began in the Qin and Han Dynasties, developed in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and matured in the Ming and Qing Dynasties with the use of a combination of two auspicious characters. It is thought to have first appeared in Zhuangzi - The World of Man, and the Tang dynasty's Cheng Xuanying has a commentary on it: "The auspicious is a matter of good fortune; the auspicious is a sign of celebration." This explanation is used to explain the generation of many auspicious patterns, that is, the good things and signs of celebration painted into patterns, used to express the concept of seeking good luck to drive away evil, can be their own prayers, but also mutual praise, it is a wide range of subject matter, and therefore widely used in daily life and festive occasions. [2] BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HADC 2023 Volume 22 (2023) 64 2.2 Harmonic Auspicious Patterns In the process of long-term development and evolution, the auspicious motifs are integrated with religious beliefs, historical stories, customs and traditions, and deified legends, forming a distinctive expression method. The auspicious patterns have harmonic, analogy, symbol, table number and text composition methods. Among them, the harmonic method has the most linguistic characteristics, and the harmonic auspicious pattern is usually combined by one or several elements, with the help of some auspicious statements in the elements in harmony, to express the good moral meaning. [3] And generally do not consider whether the combination of elements is together under natural conditions, nor whether there is an inherent connection between the elements, but only consider whether several elements combined together have auspicious moral meaning. For example, in "The Five Blessings of Longevity", five bats surround the longevity peach or the word "longevity", forming an encircling and rotating trend, signifying many blessings and longevity. Such a scene is unlikely to be seen in reality, and the combination is only to pursue auspicious symbolism. The harmonic association between "figure" and "word" is one of the characteristics of harmonic auspicious patterns, which use the figure to present the visual effect of the meaning of words. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, harmonic patterns have been widely spread among the people, mainly in two types of "popular culture" and "elegant culture". The "popular culture" is mainly reflected in the traditional auspicious patterns, New Year paintings, paper-cutting and three-dimensional art carvings, furniture and decorative ornaments with decorative function effects. The "elegant" culture is mainly reflected in various works of painting and calligraphy, such as flowers and birds, landscape painting, etc. Harmonious and auspicious patterns are appreciated by both the common and the common people, and the harmonious and auspicious relationship is constructed by "bright harmony" and "dark harmony", so that more and richer works of harmonious and auspicious patterns can be created from different angles. 3. "Meaning Beyond Words" - Exploring the Way of Thinking of Harmonic Auspicious Patterns Thinking is a uniquely human mental activity, a system by which the ego acquires, stores, interprets and creates knowledge. Likewise, it is itself a practical and cognitive activity. Thinking is initially an image produced in the mind by the forms and movements that the senses are exposed to, and then reaches an advanced stage of cognition by exploring the essential connections and objective regularities within things, internalizing the process in practice. Design thinking will be color, sound, smell, taste, touch and other perceptual images to analyze and synthesize, to obtain the concept, principle or law of each type of things, in the design practice continue to accumulate, and finally become people's design understanding of the stereotypes.[4] 3.1 Plum Substitution The harmonic auspicious pattern has a high degree of consensus and is a popular art symbol in traditional society and even today. It is a product of the combination of traditional Chinese way of thinking and visual expression, combining religion, Chinese characters, folklore and regional environment, forming a fixed meaning between the essence and the carrier. "The spider in the rain still has a web, and the only way to think of clear (love) is to have silk (thought) in the dark." There are also many cases in the folk art of paper-cutting in which the peculiarities of harmonics are used to convey concepts that are not easily expressed directly. For example, "the year of the lotus has fish (even the year has surplus)", "leaf leaves produce wealth (industry produces wealth)", "all persimmon smooth (all things go smoothly), these paper cuttings use more explicit images, such as "even " to "lotus", "Yu" to "fish", "industry" to "leaf", "matter" to "persimmon", to show the vocabulary that is difficult to express on the screen. In addition, the graphic parts of folk woodblock print also use harmonic ideograms. Just like the auspicious patterns of the Ming and Qing dynasties, most of the graphic parts of folk woodblock prints also have a good meaning. People are often able to read out BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HADC 2023 Volume 22 (2023) 65 the motifs in the pictures and appreciate the good meanings at the same time. In the Yangliuqing woodblock print "Jiqing Youyu", shown in Figure 1, a child is shown holding a carp in his hands, and the size of the fish is almost as large as the child, which means happiness and abundance in life. These works are all part of folk art, using harmonics as a medium to establish a relationship between the visual image and the cultural connotation of the symbol and the symbolized, and to express metaphorically the desire to pray for good fortune and good fortune. Figure 1. Ji Qing You Yu 3.2 Word Sound and Picture Meaning The ancients usually created a set of fixed procedures to create a harmonious and auspicious pattern by combining one or several harmoniously auspicious objects with the agreed semantic meaning of Chinese characters, and the whole painting alludes to an auspicious statement by borrowing the harmonious sound of the object. [5] In the creation of the painting, only the content of the whole work can be composed of auspicious statements in the harmonics, regardless of whether there are interrelationships and connections, or whether they are in line with reality, forming a specific mode of thinking and creation. For example, in the picture "Hanging the Seal of a Marquis", a monkey is held up on a tray by a man in official uniform, and the monkey is holding up the seal with butterflies flying around. The picture is composed of a monkey picking a hanging seal, using the same sound as "monkey" and "Hou" as a metaphor for high promotion. The combination of the content elements of the picture is interlinked by the harmonic sound, and in real life, this situation mostly does not occur. Another example is the picture "Peaceful with Elephants", in which three children embrace an elephant, while the elephant carries a vase and walks, which is also not the case in reality. In the Hanshu - Wang Mang biography In Hanshu-Wang Mang's biography, it is stated that "the world is peaceful and the grains are ripe". Bottle" and "Ping" homophonic, "Taiping has an elephant" that the world is peaceful, the meaning of abundant grain. In addition to the above, there is also "A Class of Integrity", "Lotus" is also called "Green Lotus", there is a Buddhist saying that "there is a green lotus in the fire pit", the lotus is usually a metaphor for The lotus flower is usually a metaphor for "integrity and honesty", and folk people use a lotus flower to symbolize "one class of honesty", hoping that those in politics are clean and honest.[6] 4. "Harmonic Meaning" --The Cultural Connotation of Harmonic Auspicious Patterns The harmonic method is usually used when people use the pronunciation of a word and associate it with another word with the same or similar pronunciation, and then use this way to adopt the meaning of the word. Harmonics not only reflect the language phenomenon, but also the way of thinking and cultural psychology of language users. Because of the characteristics of Chinese characters with many words and few sounds, the harmonic method also has more room for expression, resulting in the emergence of more and more harmonic cultures, which can even be called the art of BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HADC 2023 Volume 22 (2023) 66 harmonics. In Chinese, the harmonic method has been given full play, and there are familiar phrases such as "the eagle hunts for food", "the nephew plays the lantern", "the boat boss takes his pupil", "the boat boss takes his pupil", "the boat boss takes his pupil", and "the boat boss takes his pupil". In literature and art, there is Wen Ting-geun's "The light at the bottom of the well is a deep candle, and the long walk with the boy is not a chess game (against schedule)" and Li Bai's "The spring breeze knows the pain of parting, and does not send the willow (stay) green". Similarly, the art of harmonizing in auspicious patterns is also the use of homophonic language connection, regardless of the properties of the object itself, it is always possible to link the thing with the auspicious blessing, as a beautiful symbol to use, such as the bat and "blessing" together, the carp and "Yu, rich "etc. Using the harmonics in the art of pronunciation to give the auspicious pattern a deeper level of good meaning is not only a creative idea of the harmonics auspicious pattern, but also the cultural connotation of the harmonics auspicious pattern. 4.1 "Bat" is the Best When it comes to bats today, people mostly respect and stay away from this animal, which looks like a bird and is generally active at night. In folk tales, it also acts as a typical "wall-rider". However, in Chinese auspicious reverence customs, because the bat resonates with the Chinese character "bian fu", that is, "everywhere is fortune", it can express the meaning of praying for good fortune and is regarded as a symbol of "fortune", and is considered to be the It is considered to be the most auspicious object in China for praying for good fortune. According to the records, the earliest image of bats as an auspicious symbol can be traced back to the jade bats of the Red Mountain Culture in the Neolithic Age. The development of the bat as an auspicious object of "blessing" in the Ming and Qing dynasties was already very popular, and the auspicious designs created based on its image were common. For example, "Nafu Yingxiang" is an auspicious design of two children putting bats into a jar, a pair of bats is called "double fortune", and five bats are called "five fortunes and harmony" and "five fortunes and harmony", Five bats are called "Five Blessings and Harmony", "Five Blessings and Longevity", "Five Blessings and Long Celebration" and so on. If bats are combined with other auspicious objects, many other auspicious patterns can be created. For example, in Figure 2, a bat is combined with a longevity peach, and a peach tree with fruitful branches surrounded by bats flying on wings. Peach in China is often equated with the longevity of the peach painting, "the divine difference": "the East has a tree 50 feet high, named peach, its son diameter of three feet two inches, and soup eaten by people benefit life." Said it is the Western Queen Mother's peach can prolong life, with the flow of time the peach has become a representative of longevity. Figure 2. Fortunate Life In addition, the combination of bat and seawater cliff pattern means "longevity, mountain and blessing"; the combination of bat and spring flowers means "blessing and spring"; the combination of bat and peony means "wealth and good fortune". ". The combination of bats and different auspicious patterns is amazingly varied. BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HADC 2023 Volume 22 (2023) 67 4.2 "Fish" in Every Year Since ancient times, carp has been regarded as an important auspicious object in our traditional culture. There are countless legends about the carp, the most famous of which is "The carp jumping from the dragon gate", as Li Bai poetically put it: "The three-foot carp of the Yellow River was originally living in Mengjin. The carp did not become a dragon, but returned to accompany the mortal fish." With the help of these wonderful legends, the auspiciousness of the carp became more and more profound. The carp became a symbol of diligence, beauty and good fortune. As a result, auspicious designs with carp as the subject matter abound in our folklore. In traditional New Year paintings, the carp is often held in the arms of a doll as an auspicious object, with the meaning of "prosperity for people", while some have the doll sitting in the middle of a lotus flower or holding a lotus flower to signify "surplus for many years". The symbolic meaning of the carp is mainly the following: (1) "Fish" and "Yu" are harmonious, so the carp has many children and strong reproductive ability, so it is often used to express the meaning of surplus, abundance and the hope of prosperity. (2) "Carp" harmonizes with "profit", so carp are often used when eating or painting fish for the Chinese New Year, taking the auspicious omen of "gaining profit every year". There are many auspicious carp motifs with the theme of "gaining profit", such as two carp leaping up facing the sun, which means "carp leaping to the dragon gate" and "gaining profit". If a pair of carp is suspended from a concentric knot, it has the symbolic meaning of "gaining profit with one heart". 5. "Thinking of Movement in Stillness" - Visual Expression of Harmonic Auspicious Patterns The process of human history has repeatedly proved that to know and understand the objective world is the development process of people going from practice to knowledge and from knowledge to practice. "The innovation of the traditional harmonious and auspicious patterns is to make changes based on the inheritance of traditional culture, to absorb and unify new ideas and concepts, and to incorporate and incorporate the old and the new. By combing the already existing harmonic symbols in history, combining them with new vocabulary and new ideas in the general environment of the new era, and integrating the essence of traditional culture with modern concepts under the unchanging harmonic symbolism, we search for a more innovative visual representation of harmonic auspicious patterns. 5.1 Transposition of Flowers Harmonious and auspicious patterns are ancient and simple in shape, rich in different forms, reflecting people's aesthetic interests while mapping the living environment of the time, and are typical representatives of traditional culture. The re-creation of harmonic auspicious patterns is to change the carrier of the patterns while not changing the good meaning of the patterns. By replacing the original carriers of these patterns with cultural connotations, people can better appreciate their profound cultural connotations.[7] Since the 18th National Congress, as the concept of cultural confidence has been emphasized many times, people are paying more and more attention to traditional Chinese culture, and the combination of traditional culture and modern design has become a new trend. For example, nowadays, in addition to western-style white wedding dresses, traditional phoenix crowns and capes and Chinese halls are also becoming the first choice of more and more young people. In Figure 3, "Many Sons, Many Fortunes", because of the pomegranate thousand rooms with the same film, a thousand sons as one. It is regarded as a symbol of auspicious fruit with many children, and "butterfly" and "fortune" harmonize, so pomegranate and butterfly together form the symbolic meaning of "many children and many fortunes". In Fig. 4, "The Joy of Being on the Top", the magpie is on the top of the plum tree, and the magpie is used as a metaphor for joyful events. The combination of magpies and plum blossoms on the top of the plum tree symbolizes the coming of happy events. The above two pictures BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HADC 2023 Volume 22 (2023) 68 are common decorations for Chinese weddings nowadays, either as ornaments in the wedding scene or embroidered in the couple's costume with patterns. Although the carrier has changed, the symbolic meaning has not changed because of the change of carrier, but has become more profound and long. Figure 3. Many Sons, Many Fortunes Figure 4. Joyful 5.2 Delighted and Forgetful In the modern evolution of the traditional auspicious pattern, the most important thing that cannot be lost is the "meaning" of the pattern, and the "meaning" is also the "god". "Only under the guidance of the "meaning" can the pattern be kept new for a long time. A line in the eyes of Westerners is understood as a point in the plane or space in the trajectory of movement, and even analytical geometry in a collection of points defined by the equation, the line has no width and no thickness.[8] For the Chinese tradition, lines not only have width, thickness, and direction, but can even express speed and power, and the understanding of lines is entirely based on subjective feelings. For example, in Figure 5, "Everything is as it should be", although the traditional harmoniously auspicious pattern has changed its external expression, the good meaning it implies remains the same. Two persimmons and a ruyi are used in the composition, and the words "persimmon" and "shi" are homophonic, meaning "everything". Figure 5. Everything is as it should be 5.3 Form and Spirit Harmonious auspicious patterns have a rich expression and national characteristics while having a very traditional cultural connotation. Integrating traditional culture into modern design is not only a redesign of traditional culture but also gives it a more profound cultural charm. In the redesign of harmonic auspicious patterns, not only the aesthetics of the external form is taken into consideration, but also the preservation of the profound cultural connotation is the most important thing for the designer when designing. In the work of Figure 6, "Peaceful Elephant", while retaining its cultural connotation, the outer form of the design is created and changed to a certain extent, presenting the BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HADC 2023 Volume 22 (2023) 69 roles of the elephant and the vase in the traditional auspicious design in a more dramatic and enriched form, and the bright colors and changes in the composition form also deepen the good moral expressed by the harmonic symbolism to a certain extent. So that the form appears in the fusion of the gods and the gods are elevated in the deformation. Figure 6. Peaceful with Elephant 6. Summary As the crystallization of ancient people's wisdom, harmonic and auspicious patterns contain the good wishes of the ancestors for life when they were created. In the context of the development of the new era, the design creators should not only follow the trend of the inheritance and development of the excellent culture of harmonic auspicious patterns, but also do something to create more excellent works of harmonic culture while grasping the harmonics and beautiful symbolic meaning, and strive for a richer visual representation of harmonic auspicious patterns in modern semantics. References [1] Li Li. The Application of Chinese Traditional Auspicious Patterns in Modern Graphic Design[D]. Beijing University of Technology, 2008. [2] Guo Shaoyi, Wang Yaxian. "The application of auspicious patterns in design class" [J]. Art View, 2011 (11): 159. [3] Duan F. H., Wang C. H., Song W. L. Expressions of harmonic auspicious patterns and their cultural connotations [J]. Journal of Kaifeng College of Education,2016,36(03):252-253. [4] Xie Mengjiao. An introduction to the influence of Zhu Guangqian's aesthetic view on artistic creation[J]. Popular Literature and Art,2017(11):100. [5] Huang Tao. Harmonic symbolism and auspicious folklore[J]. Journal of Hebei University (Philosophy and Social Science Edition), 2006(02):14-19. [6] Xunhua Guo. Ethical Implications of the Carvings of Shanxi Houses in the Ming and Qing Dynasties [D]. Nanjing Forestry University, 2011. [7] Hu Zhenjiang. Innovation and application of traditional Chinese auspicious patterns from the perspective of cultural creativity[J]. Packaging Engineering,2013,34(12): 115-118.DOI: 10. 19554/ j. cnki. 1001-3563. 2013. 12.031. [8] Lin Wei. Research on the integration of Chinese traditional cultural elements and modern design [D]. Jiangnan University, 2008.