Where do Liu’s puppets come from?

Liu’s puppets are Dongying’s intangible cultural heritage.

Liu's puppets have a history of more than 120 years since Guangxu in the late Qing Dynasty. After the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the craftsmanship gradually matured and the scale of production also expanded. It has grown with the growth of several generations.

The Liu family is the family that makes Liu’s puppets, and Liu’s puppets have a strong regional character. After more than a hundred years of inheritance and development, it has been passed down from generation to generation mainly through oral and personal teachings and continuous innovation. The exquisite workmanship is unparalleled.

Liu's puppets now belong to Daji Folk Handicraft Workshop, and are exclusively operated and produced by Liu Peizong, the inheritor. This folk art is in an endangered state and is now concentrated in the eastern part of Dongying District, Dongying City, Binzhou, Bo There are also some apprentices in Xing and other places. Liu's puppets are commonly known as "cloth toys". ***There are seven major series and more than a thousand varieties.

As a kind of folk art, Liu's puppets have themes, contents and art forms that are adapted to the characteristics of rural areas, and have a strong local flavor and local characteristics. The patterns of Liu's puppets are mainly patterns passed down from generation to generation by the older generation of artists, with traditional auspicious patterns, and are drawn according to the shapes of different puppets. They are often decorated with words such as "luck, longevity, good fortune, good fortune, good fortune, longevity, good luck, etc." and auspicious meanings such as "bats, butterflies, money, and good luck." There are also peonies, chrysanthemums, and bamboos used to express the shape and structure. The shape and structure are arbitrary and subjective, which has the characteristics of primitive culture and local art, and reflects the traditional Chinese aesthetic concepts. The colors of Liu's puppets are mostly red, green, yellow, blue, purple, The contrasting folk colors of black, white, gold and silver are mainly used. The raw materials are all pollution-free plant dyes. The colors are bright and have a traditional ethnic style. In terms of pattern design, they are mostly based on myths, folk tales, historical stories, etc., which have unique characteristics. It has the characteristics of exquisite shape, lifelike image, bright colors, exaggeration and vividness; the subject matter, content and artistic form are adapted to the characteristics of rural areas, and have a strong local flavor and local characteristics. As a representative of traditional folk handicrafts, Liu's puppets have both visual enjoyment and practical value. The works are exquisite, the shapes are interesting and have a strong folk style, which is pleasing to the eye and deeply loved by the broad masses of the people. Liu's puppets enrich the cultural life of the masses, are messengers of cultural exchanges, are the cohesion of culture, are the accumulation of history, and are living fossils for the study of traditional cloth art in the Yellow River Estuary.

Since its inception, from the founder Liu Dianyuan to the second generation inheritor Zhang Xiuyun and the third generation inheritor Liu Yuanhui, Liu's puppets have gone through hundreds of years of ups and downs. In the 1980s, Liu Peizong followed the instructions of his father Liu Yuanhui. , slowly began to resume the production of Liu's puppets, and actively innovated the craftsmanship of Liu's puppets on the basis of inheritance. He visited the residents of Dongying, learned about the local customs, and designed and produced a series of Liu's puppet artworks with strong characteristics of the Yellow River Estuary. On the basis of retaining the original characteristics of the subject, elements of the times are incorporated, deformed and exaggerated to make the image more vivid. The Liu puppets created by him have various shapes but have their own souls, unique and very individual. They have now developed into local handmade arts and tourist souvenirs in Shandong Province and the Yellow River Delta region, and are popular all over the country. have a greater impact. His work Buhu was exhibited at the first Shandong (International) Cultural Industry Expo. Since then, he has created works such as "Moon God Cat" and "Fu Niu", and has won many awards. The fabric work "Five Cows Birthday Celebration" won the first prize in the Shandong Province Farmers' Calligraphy and Painting Art Exhibition to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and was permanently collected by the Provincial Art Museum as a treasure. In 2010, Liu's puppets were selected into the third batch of intangible cultural heritage list of Dongying City, providing a strong guarantee for the inheritance and development of Liu's puppets.

Looking back at the past, a hundred years have passed. Nowadays, in the construction of modern society, Liu's puppets still tell the people of the Yellow River Estuary about their endless love for life. With their elegant and popular folk charm, they continue to bloom their simple brilliance in modern life.