A Morphological Analysis of Joss Paper Image in Taiwan - a Case Study of Fu Lu Shou
Vol.7(2), pp. 10-17, February, 2016 DOI: 10.5897/JLC2015.0346 Article Number: 335FD7F57445 ISSN 2141-6540 Journal of Languages and Culture Copyright © 2016 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article http://www.academicjournals.org/JLC Full Length Research Paper A morphological analysis of Joss paper image in Taiwan - A case study of Fu Lu Shou Ching Yang1*, Tsai-Ching Tsai2 and Ming-Chuen Chuang3 1Department of Graduate School of Industrial Design, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan, Republic of China. 2Hualien Prison, Agency of Corrections, Ministry of Justice, Hualien, Taiwan, Republic of China. 3Institute of Applied Arts, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China. Received 27 August 2015; Accepted 21 November, 2015 Based on the Fu, Lu and Shou Joss papers, the current study investigated the religious tradition of the Joss paper burning as well as the styling features, purposes, and types of the three-god Joss paper via the examination of previous studies and field work. With the collected Joss papers for different purposes, six samples with the three gods were extracted to decipher the componential principles of the three-god patterns, arrangement of printed characters, and decorative frames. Besides, with the Joss papers for different purposes, the current study compared and analyzed the styling features of the three god images, the complexity-simplicity transformation style and embedded connotation. The results of the current study revealed that the Fu, Lu and Shou Joss paper could be divided into Taiji-jin (that is, Tiangong-jin) for the heaven and gods, Shou-jin for gods and Buddha, and Yi-jin for ancestors or spirits.
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