The harmony of Incense and Zen－A Creative Study on Form Design of Incense Burner

• Main Authors: SUN,MEI-Fang, 孫梅芳
• Other Authors: CHEN, YU-CHIA
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5a6yg3

碩士 === 國立臺灣藝術大學 === 視覺傳達設計學系 === 105 === Incense originated from the Shang and Zhou dynasties. It was originally used as a sacrificial object. With the evolution of the times incense applied to daily life. Incense is not only the object, but also represented the life culture and metaphysical philosophy. Life is also like incense, born and death like dream, illusion, bubble, shadow, and as dewdrop or lightning. Zen means you can find it during moving, sitting, and lying, and you are able to find enlightening wisdom in everything in life. Incense has characteristics as impermanence, pure heart, enlightenment, the complementary effects of nihility and reality, and going up to the next realm. This kind of characteristic is similar to the core spirit of Zen. Zen and incense have the same appeal. This research refers to the development of incense culture, tools, brief introduction of Zen, and Zen Aesthetics, I also visit brand enterprises related to incense. In my visit, I understand incense culture and operation state of incense market. In the interview survey, we get the conclusion: Many handicrafts brands start to develop products related to incense. However, they actually had no experience about incense industry before. Therefore, incense industry is the one with the potential for development. Incense brands on market mainly emphasizes incense used in daily life, and every brand focuses on package and visual design to aim to attract majority group of young adults and high income group. This research aims to explore the design of incense burners which are not only about religious marks or for specific groups to use, they actually make incense and incense burner closer to common people. Therefore, the designers give their design the meaning of Zen, creativeness and elegance of life. People’s bodies and hearts are comforted through sight, smell, tactile, and atmosphere coming out from smoke while burning incense sticks. Through the comforting process, people can also return to simple and pure inner life. The experiment is oneness of incense and Zen. The characteristics organized in literature become the inspiration of creative thought of six themes. This series shows the scene and journey of life through incense burner, and changes through ups and downs. We hope this series is able to help the enlightenment of wisdom in life. The main design is the complementary effects of nihility and reality. This design imports the characteristics of Zen Aesthetics from references into appearance design, and there is philosophy which combines nihility and reality contained in the meaning of incense burner. Incense burner can be seen as the presence of nihility, while the hollow-out design of incense seal is the presence of reality. Six incense burners and six incense seals mean the enlightenment stage with complementary effects of nihility and reality in life step by step. The design concept is from exterior side to interior side which means this work shows the changes deducing from outside world to the world at heart. Through the appearance design of incense burners and smoke drift slowly upwards people can feel the implied meaning of incense burner between nihility and reality There is also questionnaire survey in the research to understand the preference of Zen learners and common people. I find out the awareness of Zen spirit and most peaceful feeling is the same between common people and Zen learners which means their choices of Zen spirit and peaceful feeling is the same and highly related. The result shows that Zen learners prefer to choose the works with Zen spirit, while common people tend to choose ones which can bring them the most peaceful feeling and with design sense. Base on research result, creators aims to make life with incense more abundant and closer to daily life, and hand down the incense spirit with a thousand-year history in modern life and turn into new face from generation to generation.