Chinese sexual symbolic art: The embodiment of the value and influence mechanism of Chun Gong Tu

Abstract

As a typical representative of Chinese sex symbol art, Chun Gong Tu has unique expressive power and artistic value in terms of spatial layout, compositional elements and symbolic presentation. It embodies the visual aesthetic value, psychological aesthetic value and social value of sex symbol art through the portrayal of characters and environmental backgrounds, and is worthy of in-depth exploration. Based on the introduction of Chun Gong Tu, this paper conducts a quantitative study with the aim of providing a feasible path for the development of contemporary Chinese sex symbol art. The study concludes that Chinese sex art education can significantly and positively influence the interest and cultural identity of the audience, and that interest can further stimulate the cultural identity of the Chinese audience, thus promoting the dissemination and creation of sex symbol art in China.

Keywords:

• China
• sexual symbol art
• Chun Gong Tu
• sexual art education

1. Introduction

“Appetite and lust are only natural”. This is a common Chinese proverb meaning that eating and sex are basic human desires (D. L. Liu, 2005). This reflects that ancient Chinese inhabitant gave sexual activities the same status compared to daily eating activities and played an important role in the lives of the inhabitants and in promoting the maturation of sexual thoughts.

In ancient China, people often associated sexual art with terms such as pornography, lewdness, and ugliness (Y. L. Liu, 2012). In the minds of people tamed by traditional social ethics and moral codes, love has long been regarded as a secret that cannot be spoken to the outside world. However, no matter how much they avoided expressing their emotions and catering to the mainstream of traditional society, people could not suppress the urge for sex, which existed in everyone and formed a sexual culture in the long run, which also led to the production of pornography in ancient China (Xu, 2013). Pornography, such as literature, film, and painting, is a means of expressing human consciousness in extremes that exist in a non-mainstream form. These works are also performing different functions and roles for social development in the process of changing state ideologies, guiding people on how to engage in social practices.

In pornographic works, we can often capture features such as ass, breasts, lips, thighs, etc., which can show the process of sex, and these things not only represent their own properties, but also are given the meaning of “sex”, thus constituting a sex symbol with cultural connotation. In addition to the human body, sexual places such as beds, bars, cars, and clothing such as pajamas and lingerie can also become symbolic features representing national sexual culture (X. M. Chen & Yang, 2012). According to the semiotic aesthete Cassir, “art can be defined as a symbolic language”, a formal symbolic language of our thoughts, feelings. Each artistic image can be described as a symbol or system of symbols with a specific meaning. In order to understand the work of art, one must understand the artistic image, and in order to understand the artistic image, one must understand the structure. The symbol, as the denotative form of an object, has the unifying function of generating humanity and shaping human culture. Therefore, this paper develops the study of sex symbols as a kind of art.

Sexual symbolic art is a work of art created by the creator of art based on the analysis and interpretation of elements such as human feelings and sexual activity W. G. Chen (2010). For example, when Picasso depicted paintings related to sex (J. Zhang, 2011), it is clear that he depicted the interaction between the artist and the model, from which we do not learn a practical sexual position, but his talent lies in the timely capture of the emotional state of the process (Yi, 2009). The purpose of sex symbolic art is also to be able to delight the viewer’s eyes, titillate the viewer’s heart and awaken the viewer’s eroticism. In the development of society, whether in the most popular or powerful sex symbolic artworks, or in the sex symbolic artworks in museums, or in the products found in sex stores, the function of arousal is included. Every social group has to be exposed to things related to sexual symbols, and at the same time, sex symbol art reflects the social acceptance of sexual values and culture in the society.

With the prosperous development of society and the liberation of sexual thought, Chinese folk gradually produced a large number of sex symbolic artworks, which are collectively called “Chun Gong Tu”, which not only reflect the daily sexual life and process of Chinese residents, but also represent the connotation and artistic skills of Chinese folk society at that time, and their expression of composition The patterns and elements of the composition are unique, and therefore have far-reaching artistic value, and deserve more attention and research. However, the study of “Chun Gong Tu” only gradually came to the attention of researchers in the 1950s, and only general interpretations of these paintings with sexual symbolic elements were made. For example, the Dutch scholar Gulik’s publication “Mi Xi Tu Kao” (The Secret Sexuality Examination) contains a large number of illustrated copies of Chinese erotic pictures, but it only describes these sexual works, but does not dig deeper and explore the artistic value in these sexual works.

In addition, as art historical materials, Chun Gong Tu is a good reference for contemporary art creators and is crucial to the long-term development of the discipline of modern Chinese sexual art. Strangely, however, the art of sexual symbolism in China is not well explored and studied, and these art forms have not been passed on and promoted. This may be due to the indifference of China’s current educational system to sexual arts resulting in the delayed development of sexology. In China, sexology is only covered in art courses in colleges and universities, and only a small group of people are exposed to the knowledge, so this has led to a slight lack of creative momentum in the development of Chinese sexual art.

Therefore, this paper addresses the historical origin, artistic characteristics and contemporary value of Chun Gong Tu, a traditional Chinese sex symbol art work, and on this basis, explores the issue of the factors and path mechanisms that Chun Tong Tu has influenced the artistic value on the creation of contemporary Chinese sex symbol art. The purpose of the study is mainly to analyze whether Chun Tong Tu can still play a role in promoting the creative population in contemporary sex art education using Chun Tong Tu as the material, and what path it takes to achieve the development of sex symbolic art in China. By clarifying the artistic characteristics of Chun Tong Tu and its educational value for contemporary times, Chinese sex symbolic art can be further innovated in the process of inheritance.

2. The embodiment of the value of Chun Gong Tu

Chun Gong Tu originally referred to the secret sexual drama, lustful play and love stories between the emperor and his harem concubines in the Chinese imperial palace, and now refers to a generic term for paintings featuring male and female sexual intercourse. Literally, “Chun” means spring, which represents the revival of everything and is also a time when people are sexually active, so Chinese people use words like “Fa Chun” to express their desire for sex and to have a sexual experience. The word “Gong” refers to the palace and the court, which means that the birth of Chun Gong Tu, a neutral symbolic art, first took place in the royal family. “Tu” means picture, and the expression of Chinese sex symbol art is mainly created by painting. Chun Gong Tu’s work is more beautiful and fuller than the original images that use symbols to represent sexual elements, from which representative symbols, such as genitalia, breasts, etc., can be visually and concretely seen (Li, 2015).

The earliest historical sources that can trace the origin of Chun Gong Tu are from the Han Dynasty, showing the art form of frescoes, while it was later emulated in the Sui, Tang, and Song Dynasties, but only in the palace and imperial houses where such paintings appeared (He, 2014). At that time, due to many social and environmental factors, it was not widely imitated and circulated among Chinese folk. It was not until the late Ming Dynasty (1582–1644) that the art of Chun Gong Tu was opened up and made accessible to the general public in their lives, thus making the late Ming Dynasty a period in which Chun Gong Tu flourished (Yu, 2016). The economic prosperity, the loosening of political rule, the ideology of “human liberation”, the openness of sexual literature, and the innovation of engraving and printing technology all contributed to the flourishing of Chun Gong Tu in the late Ming Dynasty. Through historical examination, the late Ming Dynasty not only suddenly saw a large number of sex-related paintings, but also many small lifestyle objects and artifacts that covertly represented male intercourse, such as pottery sculptures of sex, bronze mirrors of intercourse, etc. In addition, there is a steep rise in historical literature about the sexuality of Chun Gong Tu, such as “Jin Ping Mei” and “Rou Pu Tuan”. These erotic novels describe the actual form of Chun Gong Tu by means of storyline development, transforming the original didactic pictures into real-life scenes, thus giving Chun Gong Tu a narrative character, reflecting and summarizing the origin and development of Chun Gong Tu and the social changes of the time, and providing sufficient historical materials for studying the development of Chinese sexual symbolic art.

The style of ancient Chinese Chun Gong Tu paintings is fresh and splendid, and the figures in them mostly present a relaxed yet luxurious and elegant spirituality, reflecting an introverted, subtle yet highly meaningful traditional Chinese cultural spirit and painting style. From the technical aspects of “brush,” “ink,” and “color,” the forms, expressions, and atmosphere of the figures in Chun Gong Tu demonstrate the theoretical foundation and spiritual connotation of the classical theory that “man is an integral part of nature” of traditional Chinese painting. At the same time, Chun Gong Tu has an aesthetic value that transcends the sensory aesthetics of appearances and has a deeper imaginative aesthetic value, which can perfectly integrate visual aesthetic value, psychological aesthetic value and social value.

Chun Gong Tu mostly depicts nude figures, but many of them do not directly depict sexual intercourse, but rather the scenes before and after, the flirtation between men and women, and other sexual acts. These large-sized full nudes, with their unique artistry and skillful painting techniques, provide ample evidence that ancient Chinese painters were not limited by technique in their grasp of the human form in figure painting, and that the figures’ clothing and accessories, furniture and various decorative objects in the images can provide an interesting documentary source for understanding the social life and literature of the time. In the picture below, a nude man and a clothed woman stand side by side in the center of the picture, while to their right is a combination of lake rocks and banana leaves in the background. The large, narrow banana leaves are located at the top of the picture and bend to the left, forming a curved shade above the figures, obstructing the viewer’s view from the right perspective, as if to inform others that this is a secret space and that they do not want to be peeped at by third parties during sex. This use of trees, rocks, and furniture objects to block the image and the view of others is a common technique of Chinese artists and has been prevalent since ancient times. Compared with the gorgeous and complicated environmental backgrounds depicted, the main characters are still portrayed in a slightly simpler manner, creating a strong visual contrast, which helps the viewer understand the real living space created by the creator.

From the details of the figure, the clothed woman’s body is in proportion. Under the cover of the long skirt, the bodies of ancient Chinese women are all slender, slender, and dexterous. In sharp contrast, the proportions of the nude male are completely discordant, with an excessively elongated torso and short legs, creating a sense of visual discomfort. The man has a full erection of the penis and embracing the female partner at the same time, can not wait to reach the hands of her dress at the breasts of the action, did not create too much for the picture of the erotic elements, but rather give people a sense of comedy. Here the sexual organs of women are not directly reflected, but only through the male penis and hand gestures to reflect the side of sexual hints. But the two figures in Figure 2 have shifted from outside to inside the house, and behind them is a screen that takes up a quarter of the overall picture, again serving to inform the viewer that this is an intimate work. But unlike the above picture, if Figure 1 is a subtle sexual tease, while Figure 2 is a complete sexual exposure. Even so, the creator of this image does not depict the sexual organs of the figure in detail, but rather diminishes the erotic content of the image by obscuring them, for example, the female breasts are covered by the arms, the male genitals are covered by the female buttocks, and the female penis is not depicted. However, such an image can create a strong visual impact on the viewer. By depicting the man’s finger about to touch the woman’s anus, the author uses a static image to create a dynamic association, allowing the viewer to imagine the sexual activity between them in their own minds.

Figure 1. Outdoor scenes of sex.

Figure 2. Indoor scenes of sex.

In addition, the artistic flavor of this Chun Gong Tu is shown in its integration with literature. The creator of this picture improvised a poem to express emotions and thoughts according to the content of the picture. The picture is accompanied by the poem that “佳人睡去一团娇，偷将玉手暗轻摇。可惜多情睡未稳，巫山十二梦魂消”. It means that the beautiful woman is sleeping in a huddle and in her dream she dreams that a man is secretly putting his hands on her genitals and playing with them, but unfortunately, good dreams do not last long and this sleeping beauty soon wakes up and the dream dissipates, but she is still recalling the sex scene in her dream.

Chun Gong Tu has unique artistic characteristics in terms of its compositional patterns and the expression of compositional elements. The elements used in Chun Gong Tu include screens, lakes and rocks, rocky hills, flowering trees, and a “third party” that does not avoid the intimate encounter between the hero and heroine. In addition, the indoor tents, beds, bookshelves, screens, carpets, windows, trees and flowers in the garden and other common scenes are also expressed in a delicate and exquisite manner. The scenery in the screens and flowers in the garden mostly show peach blossoms, peonies, hibiscus, lotus flowers, butterflies and other things with literary meaning and sexual innuendo. Among them, the role of the screen is also to divide the picture, the creation of private space, and an unconscious embodiment of the identity of the literati scholars, while lake rocks, rockeries, willow trees, etc. were essential components of the “garden architecture” prevalent in the Ming Dynasty. Because of the unique shape of the natural landscape, it added color to the elegant activities of the literati gardens, which were also prevalent in the Ming Dynasty, and therefore contained the elegant interests of the literati. By transposing it to Chun Gong Tu, it creates a real-life atmosphere in the picture while hinting more at the various interests of the literati and scholars who enjoyed life and pursued elegance and decadence. The willow tree has been favored by the literati since ancient times and has been celebrated in poems and songs, and because of its long, soft, curving and graceful stature, it often became a metaphorical object for ancient women. More importantly, the willow tree has strong vitality and can reproduce asexually, so the ancients poured their religious feelings on the willow tree, therefore, it is only appropriate that the willow tree is repeatedly described in Chun Gong Tu. In the elemental composition of Chun Gong Tu, extreme attention is also paid to the depiction of clothing, one reason being the psychologically suggestive effect of eroticism, another being that the meaning given to clothing by the ancient Chinese transcends the role of clothing itself, whereas clothing in nude painting appears as a foil to nudity (Shen, 2003), without any erotic component. On the whole, Chun Gong Tu favors poetic imagery, unlike nude painting which focuses on figurative representation.

The artistic expression in Chun Gong Tu, which is shaped in the form of printmaking, is all done with lines. Line is the main means of expression in Chinese painting, it has the characteristics of flatness and generalization of visual language, the line is done according to the objective image characteristics with light, heavy, fast, slow, turning, lifting and pressing, etc. It is a similar image of feeling, it is more in line with the inner spirit of the objective things, not the similarity of object texture, so the line modeling presents the subjective imagery rather than the real object itself. It relies on observation, memory, and capturing the essence of things. The stylistic expression of Chinese Chun Gong Tu resulting from such an aesthetic attitude forms a high degree of consistency with that of orthodox Chinese literati painting.

The compositions of Chun Gong Tu are spatially free, often with multiple spatial compositional techniques, without being bound by the point of view. The expression of space is also a distinctive feature of Chun Gong Tu’s artistic expression that differs from that of nudes. Look at body painting picture, whether it shows the interior, or the environment of the sky and woods, all pursue a realistic, immersive feeling. However, the scenes depicted by Chun Gong Tu are usually in the bedroom, study or bathroom, with the bedroom being the most common setting. Painters usually portray an ancient Chinese bed frame, a traditional bed frame that is a very separate space. In such a picture the bed frame is a layer of space, placed in the bedroom is another layer of space, through the window or door often see a corner of the garden or promenade, another layer of space, this complex spatial environment can well render the hidden nature of the sexual theme in the picture. However, these spatial divisions are not expressed according to the perspective relationship, but are rich in decorative interest, that is, the space is set off by the laying out of flat patterns. What is more interesting is that whenever the environmental space is represented, there seems to be a place that is open and not all closed. We can think that this is a deliberate arrangement by the artist in order to show the sex scene to the viewer perfectly, so that the viewer can get more intense stimulation. For the presentation and handling of the picture, it usually also has a dramatic character. The scenes are sometimes arranged as if they were stage paintings or a scene from a play, with carefully chosen environments and matching props, often creating a psychological atmosphere for the audience to feel the sexual innuendo when enjoying them, which to some extent truly reflects the style and folklore of the era (Wang, 2011).

In the portrayal of the muscle lines of the characters, the structure is empty, often two lines framing a large shape with no twist, not to mention the difference in the texture of the muscle peptide. In addition, in the portrayal of sexual organs, the details of female breasts are completely ignored, and Negi does not show any special care for female breasts, much less the great enthusiasm for them that modern people show, which is also true in literature. Therefore, in the picture often men and women are the same, there is no difference in size and undulation, and the method of expression is similar, just two small curved lines outlining a little, sometimes broken, sometimes connected, thus not easy to distinguish between the sexes. Compared with the three inches golden lotus of women, women’s breasts were not considered as sexy symbols at that time. Therefore, we can say that the painters consciously omitted this landscape.

In contrast, the figures in the drawings wearing clothes are often wonderfully vivid, and the structure and dynamics of the human body are in turn much more accurate against the backdrop of the clothing pattern. It seems that the role of clothing is indeed extraordinary for the Chinese, and it adds a lot of color to both paintings. Why did ancient Chinese artists attach such importance to the representation of clothing? This paper argues that the appearance of faded clothes on the screen possesses erotic psychological suggestion. Looking at these clothes deliberately placed at the feet, on the bed, on the ground, or on the hanger alone gives a reverie or sexual suggestion that exceeds even the feeling of directly seeing two naked bodies, which is also one of the expressions of a Chinese sex symbol art.

Thus, it can be seen that the characteristics and values of Chinese sexual symbolic art represented by Chun Gong Tu are displayed in several aspects, and the combination of elements such as sexual positions, characters’ expressions, room accessories, and outdoor landscapes in the figure forms a unique expression of Chinese sexual symbols (Guo, 2009). In addition to the images in the picture, the accompanying poetic text is also an important feature of the artistic expression of sexual symbols, which is based on traditional Chinese culture and centered on the sexual symbols in Chinese traditional culture. The painting technique of Chun Gong Tu is mainly based on rendering, featuring fresh and light tones, fine and slender lines, and a sense of thick and light layers (Shi, 2014), presenting a soft and delicate, dreamy and beautiful artistic effect. The figures in the picture are also more lively and vividly drawn to reflect the colorful stories of the characters within Chun Gong Tu, and the figures and scenery are organized in a more beautiful and orderly manner in the form of central symmetry and other forms. In order to facilitate readers to visually appreciate Chun Gong Tu’s works, some of them are collected in this paper, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Part of the Chun Gong Tu collection.

These Chinese characteristics of sex symbolic art have also had a profound influence on contemporary and even modern times, especially on the sex symbolic art of Japanese ukiyo-e. Early Japanese ukiyo-e painters not only adopted Chinese color printing techniques, but also closely followed Chinese painting styles, sometimes even simply transferring a Japanese flavor into Chinese painting to create their works indirectly. However, the innovation and use of Chinese sex symbol art in China has not developed accordingly in the long history, and is in a somewhat stagnant and embarrassing situation. The root of the problem lies in the traditional disdain for the “dishonorable” image of Chun Gong Tu, with the words most closely associated with it usually being “obscene”, “filthy”, and “degrading”. The words most closely associated with it are usually “obscene,” “filthy,” and “degrading,” leading scholars who are committed to studying Chun Gong Tu to face the possibility of being suspected of being “obscene” in order to create invisible pressure on their psyche. One must admit that this has become a very weak subjective and artificial psychological barrier in the field of Chun Gong Tu research.

From the perspective of art, in the field of ancient Chinese art research, which has a long and rich history, little attention has been paid to the “private culture” of Chun Gong Tu in both ancient and modern times (Lai, 2019), resulting in the absence of an important link in the chain of development of modern Chinese art history, giving people an incomplete feeling. Chun Gong Tu is not a crude and unpleasant work. On the contrary, immersed in Chun Gong Tu, the poetic and picturesque background environment sets off the elegance of the characters, who in turn convey their rich inner feelings by their expressions and movements, the whole is elegant and refined, like a long and gentle stage opera. The creators of Chun Gong Tu were able to reduce the eroticism of Chun Gong Tu through the expression of opera stage effects, to be poetic and visually beautiful, and to create real life scenes through the images, which required considerable artistic attainment on the part of the artists who created Chun Gong Tu. As such, we cannot ignore the research value of Chun Gong Tu in the field of art, which has some connection to various contemporaneous works of art, as well as a succession of artworks from the preceding and following eras. It would be irrational to subjectively sever these intrinsic connections, as Chun Gong Tu offers a new perspective on the understanding and study of existing figure painting, printmaking, fiction, and opera, and adds a unique perspective to the study of the field of sex symbolic art (Dai & Bao, 2013).

Therefore, it is necessary to explore how to make full use of Chun Gong Tu in the current context of the times to guide, promote and innovate the development of modernized Chinese sex symbol art. Thus, this paper draws on an interdisciplinary perspective, introduces a management research paradigm, and employs mathematical and statistical research tools to construct and analyze an effective path and influence mechanism that allows Chun Gong Tu, a traditional Chinese sex symbol art, to positively influence the creation and dissemination of sex symbol art by contemporary young creators. By mining the research variables related to Chinese sex symbolic art, we use the influential effect between variables as a criterion to determine the validity of the hypothesis. The intrinsic reason for the slow development process of Chinese sex symbol art is the unfamiliarity of the Chinese people with this type of art, and the difficulty in accessing such knowledge becomes a major obstacle to the creation of sex symbol art. In addition, interest and identification with Chinese sex symbol art are psychological factors that may inspire the willingness to create and disseminate, and Chinese religious ideology also plays an important role in the development of art and culture, so we will construct a theoretical model as well as propose reasonable research hypotheses based on the above variables, and verify the feasibility of the model through the research design and data analysis in the following section to provide a feasible management path for the development of Chinese sex symbol art.

3. Study design

3.1. Sexual art education

Sexuality education is an education about human sexuality, which involves cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality (Ademuyiwa et al., 2023). Due to the traditional Confucianism, Chinese society has always adhered to the concept of “no teacher, no teacher” in educating adolescents and other groups about sex, and in schools, most teachers are shy to mention “sex” to students and lack the popularization of sex education (Blandy & Congdon, 2015). As a result, there is a serious lack of sex education in China. Currently, some minors and even adults lack sexual knowledge, which can easily lead to distortion of sexual psychology and slippage of sexual morality and cause various social problems or crimes. Nowadays, most people rely on the Internet media to learn about sex, but it is difficult to distinguish the truth from falsehoods in the Internet, and it is difficult to distinguish between sexual art works and simple pornography, which makes most people not receive scientific and systematic concepts of sexual art and engrave wrong concepts in their minds (Goldfarb & Lieberman, 2021).

Sexual art education has only been emphasized and become an important research direction in the art departments of Chinese higher education institutions (Lindberg & Kantor, 2022), and erotic drawings have an important reference value, as the art of sexual symbols contained in them can guide scholars’ creative thinking, stimulate research interest and aesthetic experience, and increase creative passion. Therefore, in this paper, we use the “Chun Gong Tu” as the research medium and take sexual art education as the independent variable to analyze its influence on other variables. This variable contains a total of two dimensions, one is the transmission of knowledge about sexual symbols, which is a prerequisite factor reflecting the ability of contemporary Chinese art creators to effectively engage with this type of art; only when creators understand Chinese sexual symbolic art can they possibly be able to inherit the artistic values in Chun Gong Tu that are worth promoting. The other is symbolic perception, a variable that reflects the good or bad quality of sex art education. The ability of creators to perceive the sex symbolic elements in Chun Gong Tu is an important factor that inspires them to innovate and create new content and forms of sex art.

3.2. Interest as aesthetic experience

With the increased interest in the expression of emotions in art (Armstrong & Detweiler-Bedell, 2008; Cupchik et al., 2009; Silvia, 2010), emotions have gradually become the most expressed aspect of art (Silvia, 2005). These emotions are expressed through creation and shared through perception. Throughout the history of art, the complex emotions of shock, sublimity, epiphany, and transformation evoked by encounters with art have been collectively referred to as aesthetic experiences. Aesthetic experience involves both positive and negative emotional states such as arousal, joy, fascination, admiration, and sadness. In addition, when the aesthetic experience is intense, physiological reactions will occur, such as mental exhilaration. As the line between general experience and aesthetic experience becomes clearer, changes in the aesthetic experience of art may be related to a number of variables (Leder, 2003). Therefore, it is necessary to consider it as a possible mediating variable between sexual art education and the artistic communication and creative intention.

Interest stimulates the desire to learn and explore, and if a work of sexual symbol artwork inspires a desire to learn, it can help people gain a diversity of knowledge, skills, and practical experiences. Interest can be evaluated in terms of both novelty and complexity. For example, when people perceive something as unseen, complex, and not difficult to understand, they will feel more curious about it and develop a desire for it (Qiu, 2022). In short, interest is an emotional state that arises when confronted with something that is unknown but through understanding and thus knowable, and he may be able to stimulate a preference for something new. The study analyzes the relationship between interest based on aesthetic experience as one of the research variables influencing the communication and creation of art related to sexual symbols.

3.3. Artistic communication

Art communication refers to the process of people using various communication methods to disseminate art information, the purpose of which is to give more people the opportunity to contact and understand art, so as to improve the artistic cultivation of the public (Zheng, 2022). Art communication is the process of continuous circulation of many art information in the general social environment (Tian & Fu, 2022). With the development of the times, art has become more and more important to society at large, and art culture has taken on a richer form. The development of traditional art is also experiencing pain, that is, in the new era of rapid development, traditional art is restricted in its dissemination channels for various reasons, making its dissemination and influence weaker and weaker, and even some art forms appear to be about to enter museums, which is worrying (Peng, 2022).

For art communication, some scholars point out: “Art communication, as an intermediary link between art production and art consumption, enables art activities to complete the complete process from art text production to art value realization. The purpose of art is its dissemination. Art communication, as a social activity of human art information exchange, is not in a closed, isolated and static state, but a dynamic process composed of the elements of art communication and their mutual relations.” Art communication has both the most core five elements: communicator, message, communication medium, recipient (audience), and communication effect, and at the same time, at its secondary element level, it emphasizes the interaction of art aesthetics, the interactive understanding and feedback of coding and translation, and among its marginal factors, whether the transmission and the recipient have a common shared experience system, such as ideology, cultural experience, scientific communication, and value identity (Melissa, 2022).

Historically, the dissemination of traditional Chinese sex symbolic artworks has been greatly restricted. Because people believed that having knowledge about sex was shameful and unspeakable to the outside world, people did not approve of sex art in their hearts. But with the development of the times, people’s openness to sexual knowledge has gradually made people realize the importance of sexual culture, sexual art and sexual education. People are also becoming more and more open to sexual art, and are happy to share the works of sexual symbols with artistic value to the public and popularize the correct concept of sexual art to the public. The prerequisite for the dissemination of sex art is that people have a strong interest in the field and a sense of psychological identification with it before they are willing to disseminate it.

3.4. Cultural identity

Cultural identity is a feeling of group cultural identity, a feeling that an individual is influenced by the culture of the group. With respect to “cultural identity,” it answers the question of “who we are” (Rentschler et al., 2023). According to Huntington, people of different nationalities often answer “who we are” by what is most meaningful to them, i.e., they define themselves by “ancestry, religion, language, history, values, customs, and institutions,” and use certain symbols as signs to express their cultural identity, such as flags. He also uses certain symbols as signs of his cultural identity, such as flags, crosses, and so on. Therefore, he believes that cultural identity is the most meaningful thing for most people.

Cultural identity is also a kind of identity construction and belonging, reflecting a sense of community, and is the basis for the existence and development of a country and nation, as well as a guarantee for the cohesion of a nation-state. Strengthening cultural identity is indispensable for enhancing national competitiveness and strengthening soft power. Modern studies on culture and art have turned to the consideration of cultural identity, and scholars have used geographical location, race, nationality, and sexual orientation as conceptual representations of cultural identity based on different cultural arenas. Culture and art are closely related to people’s specific lifestyles. Although it is impossible for modern people to live and create art in the same way as ancient people did, we can still look back at history and find valuable things from the ancients in all aspects of life that can be used to guide our production and practice. The reason for the unsatisfactory dissemination of sexual art works such as “spring pictures” lies in the lack of recognition and acceptance of such art works, which are not considered to be in the hall of fame and can only be circulated in dirty places. Nowadays, although the attitude toward sex symbol art is gradually liberalized, whether Chinese society is psychologically resistant to it still needs to be investigated and studied. Only when people truly recognize and accept the status and role of sex symbol art in the development of society will people be willing to disseminate such artworks and join in the creation of them, and help revitalize traditional Chinese art and culture.

3.5. Creative intention

Willingness is a psychological category that refers to a decision that is made in the mind before a behavior occurs. The term behavioral will, however, is derived from attitude theory. Scholars have defined the concept of behavioral will. For example, Ajzen argues that behavioral intentions are closer to behavior than attitudes, feelings, and other factors, and therefore a person’s behavioral intentions can be used to predict whether or not he or she will engage in a certain behavior; Davis argues that behavioral intentions are the degree to which a person has made a decision to perform or not to perform a particular future behavior; and Venkatesh argues that behavioral intentions are the likelihood that an individual will complete a task. Although different scholars have different definitions of behavioral intentions, they all affirm the predictive role of behavioral intentions.

Artistic creation is a specific act, which refers to the creative labor of art workers to observe, experience, study, analyze, select, process and refine living materials, shape artistic images and create artistic works by using a certain world view as a guide and certain creative methods. Artistic creation is a spiritual production activity carried out by human beings for their own aesthetic needs, and it is an independent, pure and advanced form of aesthetic creation activity. Art creation takes social life as its source, but it is not simply a copy of the phenomenon of life, but essentially a special kind of aesthetic creation. Artists always create art works from specific aesthetic feelings and experiences, use image thinking, select, process, summarize and refine life materials according to the laws of beauty, and conceive aesthetic imagery that blends subjective and objective, then use material materials to express the aesthetic imagery, and finally constitute art works with unified content and formal beauty. Art creation is not only a simple matter of solving technical skills, but it should also solve the big problems of personality and spirit, ideology, and the relationship between human beings and nature and society.

The willingness of students, scholars, and social groups to participate in the creation of art about “sexuality” is an important reference for modern Chinese society in relation to this art form. When people are confused about sexual art education, it is unlikely that they will be able to create or express their willingness to create (C. L. Zhang & Wei, 2021). At the same time, if, after receiving this education, they still do not have a strong interest in it, it is impossible for the public to identify with it from the bottom of their hearts and spread the knowledge of the art to them (Cao, 2021).

3.6. Confucianism

In the history of traditional Chinese cultural development, the most dominant of similar religious ideologies is Confucianism, which has had a profound influence on sexual culture. From a historical point of view, Confucianism and sexual culture seem to be on an opposite side. In Chinese history, from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States to the Han and Tang dynasties, the sexual culture was more open and developed. However, after the Song Dynasty, the culture of sex was more confined, and sex culture tended to decline, and this confinement and decline was deeply influenced by Confucianism. There are many views in Confucian culture that promote sexual confinement, for example, “Only women and lesser men are difficult to raise” is discriminatory against women; “It is improper for men and women to touch each other’s hand in passing objects” blocks free interaction between men and women; “be lustful when full and warm” is quite a bit of what modern people call “men with money become bad, women become bad on money” taste. That is why the Chinese literary writer Lu Xun angrily pointed out that feudal rituals in China were killing people.

Confucianism advocates benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trust, and considers these five aspects to be the important principles for dealing with people in the world. Confucian culture, on the other hand, has a humble attitude toward sex, and its descriptions of sexual intercourse are elegant, gentle and subtle. This is compared with the world’s ancient national sexual culture, it can be found that Chinese sexual culture and sexual art is by no means as romantic as ancient Greece, not as indulgent as ancient Rome, not as mysterious as ancient India, and not as rude as ancient Japan, but very much about etiquette, that is, the husband and wife live together in harmony and mutual understanding.

Confucianism, with its emphasis on the middle way, has had a great influence on later generations, in all aspects, including sexual culture. The middle way is the basic attitude of thinking and treating people in a way that Confucianism strongly advocates. It believes that “the middle way” is impartial and appropriate, that is, neither thought nor behavior should be overdone, nor should there be gaps. The middle way of Confucianism has adopted a conservative attitude toward sex, which to a certain extent confines the development of sexual art. Now, we advocate a sexual civilization, which is not absolute sexual freedom, but certainly not biased towards sexual control, but a healthy, positive sexual perception.

Since the influence of Confucianism on traditional Chinese sexual culture and sexual art still plays its role in modern society, it is important to study the interaction between Confucianism and Chinese sexual culture education, which in turn influences the public’s sense of identity and willingness to disseminate and create sexual symbolic art.

Accordingly, this paper generates a relatively complete set of theoretical model framework based on the above research variables, as shown in Figure 4, and forms the following nine research hypotheses.

Figure 4. Hypothesis model.

Hypothesis1:

Sexual art education can significantly and positively influence the interest of art students.

Hypothesis2:

Sexual art education can significantly and positively affect art students’ cultural identity.

Hypothesis3:

Interest enhancement can significantly and positively influence art students’ cultural identity.

Hypothesis4:

Interest enhancement can significantly and positively influence art students’ willingness to disseminate art.

Hypothesis5:

Interest enhancement can significantly and positively affect art students’ willingness to create art.

Hypothesis6:

Cultural identity can significantly and positively influence art students’ willingness to disseminate art.

Hypothesis7:

Cultural identity can significantly and positively influence art students’ willingness to create art.

Hypothesis8:

Confucianism plays a significant positive moderating role between sexual art education and cultural identity

Hypothesis9:

Confucianism plays a significant negative moderating role between cultural identity and willingness to disseminate.

The study is divided into two stages of data collection, in order to more accurately and scientifically measure the impact of the contrastive art education on the willingness of art groups to disseminate and create. First, in the pre-survey stage, the main purpose was to test the applicability of the scale in order to make the content of the questionnaire reflect the current situation and achieve the expected results, to provide a reference basis for the subsequent revision and optimization of the questionnaire, and to lay the foundation for the development of a formal research program.

This paper uses the questionnaire form to collect data for the respondent population, and the question items of the variables in the questionnaire are designed according to the Richter 7-level scale, which consists of 7 options: “strongly disagree”, “disagree”, “somewhat disagree”, “general”, “somewhat agree”, “agree” and “strongly agree”, and the question items of each variable are shown below.

Sexual art education scale. Knowledge transmission: (1) I can find knowledge about sexual art in books. (2) I have many ways to learn about sexual art. (3) Universities have courses related to sexual art. (4) Professors are proactive in teaching about sexual art. (5) I will share my knowledge of sexual art with my classmates. Symbolic perception scale: (1) I can see many symbols in these works. (2) I think the expression of these works is made up of symbols. (3) I think the symbols in these works are obvious. (4) I think the symbols in these works are peculiar. (5) I think the symbols in these works give a sense of shock.

Interest scale. (1) I find these works interesting. (2) I find these works fresh. (3) I find these works novel. (4) These works captivate me. (5) I would like to see more related works.

Cultural identity scale. (1) I feel that these works show the traditional Chinese culture. (2) I can accept the artistic and cultural flavor of these works. (3) I have a strong sense of belonging to works related to sexual art. (4) I have a strong sense of dependence on works related to sexual art. (5) I do not resent the expression of traditional Chinese sexual art and culture.

Confucianism scale. (1) I believe in and am loyal to the Confucianism. (2) I often participate in Confucianism activities. (3) I approve of Confucianism culture. (4) Confucianism has had a strong influence on me. (5) I cannot live without Confucianism culture.

Creative intention scale: (1) After seeing these works, I have new ideas. (2) After seeing these works, I was inspired by new ideas. (3) I want to create relevant art after seeing these works. (4) I have a desire to create after seeing these works. (5) After seeing these works, I feel the urge to create.

Artistic communication scale: (1) I am willing to share these works of sexual art with others. (2) I would like to communicate my knowledge of sexual art to others. (3) I am willing to share the artwork I have created with others. (4) I am not ashamed to communicate my knowledge of sexual art. (5) I think it is normal to spread knowledge of sexual art.

Several Chinese universities with strong art disciplines were used as the regions for data collection in this study, such as the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, and Tsinghua University. In this paper, we focus on the art students in these schools, mainly because art students are more educated than students in other disciplines and may have a deeper understanding of sex education and sexual art, and are more likely to express their views. Secondly, art colleges have a better training model for art students, and the research on sex education and sexual art is cutting-edge and diversified, so it is more representative to conduct a survey on these students who are in a superior academic environment. Finally, this study did not investigate non-art groups because the non-art subjects and non-student groups may have a biased understanding of sexual art, they cannot effectively perceive the intent, and a questionnaire based on their values alone would not achieve the objective answers we need. Therefore, this paper believes that it is reasonable and feasible to conduct the research for a group of students with some background in art disciplines.

4. Data analysis

The pre-survey phase was conducted from September 14 to 10 November 2021, and the questionnaires were collected in the form of online and offline questionnaires distributed to a random sample of students receiving art education within these universities. A total of 230 questionnaires were collected, of which 148 were valid and 82 were rejected. The 72 questionnaires included both homogeneous questionnaires with the same checkbox and those that had not been exposed to sexual art education during their studies, so we excluded those that had not received such education.

In order to make the study more applicable and valid, SPSS 23.0 software was used as the main research tool to test the questionnaire data. The Cronbach’s α value is the key indicator to test the reliability, when Cronbach’s α takes a value >0.7, it can be said that the questionnaire design has good applicability and reliability. When the Bartlett’s sphericity test is less than or equal to 0.01, the more the KMO is close to 1, the better the validity of the questionnaire and the variables.

According to the analysis results, the overall Cronbach’s alpha value of the questionnaire reached 0.904 and the KMO value was 0.838, which indicated that the questionnaire had excellent reliability and validity overall. In terms of individual variables, the Cronbach’s α value of the Sexual Culture Education Scale was 0.886 and the KMO value was 0.803; the Cronbach’s α value of the Interest Scale was 0.812 and the KMO value was 0.799; the Cronbach’s α value of the Cultural Identity Scale ‘s α value of 0.850 and KMO value of 0.836; Cronbach’s α value of 0.789 and KMO value of 0.807 for the Artistic Communication Scale; Cronbach’s α value of 0.918 and KMO value of The Cronbach’s α value for the Confucianism scale is 0.786 and the KMO value is 0.788. From the above, we know that all variables have good reliability and validity, therefore, this questionnaire is suitable for continuing formal research.

The official research period was from 5 March 2022 to 1 May 2022, and both questionnaires were collected during the normal school hours, thus the speed of questionnaire collection could be guaranteed. In this period, 300 questionnaires were collected, and after eliminating invalid and irrelevant questionnaires, 205 valid questionnaires were obtained. Therefore, the number of questionnaires collected on both occasions was 353.

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the sample for the general information collected from the study population. It can be seen that among the surveyed groups, there are 106 males, accounting for 30.0%, which is less than the number of females. However, there are still some groups who believe that they are not simply male or female, and do not subscribe to the gender binary, but rather, assign themselves to a wider range of gender types. Non-binary groups accounted for 21.8% of the sample size. In terms of age level, the number of students aged 18–22 accounts for the largest number, while the group of students aged 30 or older accounts for the least, only 6.8%. In terms of education, the number of undergraduates surveyed was 217, the largest number at 61.5%, the number of master’s students was 28, accounting for 30.6%, and the number of doctoral students was the smallest at 28, accounting for 7.9%. When asked “Have you ever created sexual artworks before”, only 99 students said they had such experience, while a total of 254 students had no such experience, which shows that the development of sexual artworks in Chinese universities is still not in the mainstream, although they have received sexual art education, but still lack of relevant practice. In terms of necessity, a total of 178 art students think that sexual art education is very important, while 56 art students think that sexual art education is not important, and 119 students think that sexual art education is optional, which may be related to the fact that their research direction is not related. Among the researched groups, the painting art group accounts for the largest proportion, the design group is the second, and the sculpture group is less.

Table 1. Sample description statistics

Category	Item	Frequency	Proportion
Gender	Male	106	30.0%
	Female	170	48.2%
	Non-binary	77	21.8%
Age	18–22	228	64.6%
	22–26	63	17.8%
	26–30	38	10.8%
	Over 30	24	6.8%
Qualifications	Undergraduates	217	61.5%
	Master students	108	30.6%
	Phd students	28	7.9%
Experience in creating sexual artworks	Yes	99	28%
	No	254	72%
The necessity for sexual art education	Very necessary	178	50.4%
	General	119	33.7%
	Not necessary	56	15.9%
Type of specialization	Painting	96	27.2%
	Film and video	57	16.1%
	Design	78	22.1%
	Sculpture	34	9.6%
	Others	88	24.9%

4.1. Correlation analysis

Correlation analysis is a statistical method for studying the relationship between variables. Before validating and exploring the causal relationship between variables, i.e., conducting regression analysis, it is necessary to use a valid analysis method to explore the degree of correlation between variables in the model. Usually, if there is a significant correlation between the variables, then the regression relationship can be continued, and conversely, if there is no significant correlation between the variables, which means that the hypothesis is not valid, then the regression relationship will not be tested. In this study, the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to correlate the relationship between the variables.

As shown in Table 2, there is a significant positive correlation between sexual art education and interest (r = 0.580, p < 0.01), a significant positive correlation between sexual art education and cultural identity (r = 0.532, p < 0.01), a significant positive correlation between sexual art education and art communication (r = 0.454, p < 0.01), a significant positive correlation (r = 0.507, p < 0.01), and a significant negative correlation between sexual art education and Confucianism (r = −0.432, p < 0.01). There was a significant positive correlation between interest and cultural identity (r = 0.388, p < 0.01), a significant positive correlation between interest and art communication (r = 0.655, p < 0.01), a significant positive correlation between interest and willingness to create (r = 570, p < 0.01), a significant negative correlation between interest and Confucianism (r = −424, p < 0.01), a significant positive correlation between cultural identity and artistic communication (r = 0.297, p < 0.01), a significant negative correlation between cultural identity and artistic communication (r = 0.443, p < 0.01), a significant negative correlation between cultural identity and Confucianism (r = −453, p < 0.01), and a significant positive correlation between artistic communication and willingness to create correlation (r = 541, p < 0.01), a significant negative correlation between artistic communication and Confucianism (r = −440, p < 0.01), and a significant negative correlation between willingness to create and Confucianism (r = −0.394, p < 0.01).

Table 2. Correlation analysis

Variable	Mean	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Sex Art Education	3.700	0.745	0.766
2. Interest	3.625	0.759	0.580***	0.737
3. Cultural Identity	3.607	0.826	0.532***	0.388***	0.729
4. Artistic Communication	3.558	0.802	0.454***	0.655***	0.297***	0.750
5. Creative Intention	4.004	0.754	0.507***	0.570***	0.443***	0.541***	0.753
6. Confucianism	3.221	0.731	−0.432***	−0.424***	−0.453***	−0.440***	−0.394***	0.770

*p＜0.05，**p＜0.01，***p＜0.001.

4.2. Regression analysis

Regression analysis is a statistical method used to determine the interdependence between two or more variables. This paper uses regression analysis to examine the effect of sexual arts education as an independent variable in the hypothesized model. A direct path test is conducted for the model in Figure 8, based on controlling for statistical variables such as gender and education, and then examining the moderating effect of the variable Confucianism in the model.

Linear regression equations were established using sexual art education, interest, and cultural identity as independent variables, and art dissemination and willingness to create as dependent variables, and the analysis results are shown in Table 3. The regression results showed that sexual art education had a significant positive effect on the interest variable (β = 0.235, p = 0.000), sexual art education had a significant positive effect on the cultural identity variable (β = 0.362, p = 0.000); interest had a significant positive effect on the cultural identity variable (β = 0.176, p = 0.006), interest had a significant positive effect on art communication (β = 0.281, p = 0.000), and interest had a similarly significant positive effect on willingness to create (β = 0.321, p = 0.000); cultural identity had a significant positive effect on art communication (β = 0.145, p = 0.029), and cultural identity also had a significant positive effect on willingness to create (β = 0.137, p = 0.035).

Table 3. Linear regression analysis results

Variables		Interest		Cultural identity		Artistic communication		Creative intention
		β-value	t-value	β-value	t-value	β-value	t-value	β-value	t-value
Control variables	Gender	0.060	1.374	−0.030	−0.784	0.011	0.259	0.016	0.264
	Age	−0.049	−1.090	−0.023	−0.582	−0.041	−0.799	−0.075	−0.135
	Qualifications	−0.197	−3.218**	−0.094	−1.714	−0.119	−1.963*	−0.101	−1.854
	Experiences	0.004	0.089	−0.014	−0.364	−0.065	−1.476	0.032	0.153
	Necessity	0.009	0.204	−0.026	−0.654	−0.035	−0.792	−0.055	−0.986
	Major	0.072	1.221	−0.041	−0.790	0.031	0.542	0.034	0.971
Sexual art education		0.235	4.611***	0.362	8.664***
Interest				0.176	3.725**	0.281	5.324***	0.321	7.866***
Cultural identity						0.145	3.256*	0.137	2.989*
R^2		0.228		0.465		0.333		0.312
△R^2		0.195		0.388		0.281		0.270
F		19.947***		34.396***		24.774***		22.456***

Note: *p＜0.05，**p＜0.01，***p＜0.001.

Based on the results of the above analysis, this paper uses PROCESS compiled by Hayes, based on the moderating effect test procedure proposed by related scholars, to test whether sexual art education is influenced by the variable of Confucianism while affecting the variable of cultural identity, and what role Confucianism plays in the process of the influence of cultural identity on art communication, after controlling for demographic variables.

Model 1 in the PROCESS program was selected for data processing, and the results are shown in Table 4. When the independent variable is sexual art education, the interaction term between sexual art education and Confucianism has a significant negative effect on cultural identity, with an effect value of −0.174 and a p-value <0.001, indicating that cultural identity is moderated by Confucianism. When the independent variable is cultural identity, the interaction term between cultural identity and Confucianism has a significant negative effect on art communication, with an effect value of −0.128, p-value <0.001, indicating that art communication is also moderated by Confucianism.

Table 4. Parameters related to the analysis of moderating effects

Variables	Effect	SE	t-value	p-value	LLCI	ULCI	R^2	F
Dependent variable: Cultural identity
Sexual art education	0.387	0.100	3.856	0.000	0.190	0.584	0.264	21.056***
Confucianism	0.272	0.221	2.232	0.000	0.162	0.706
lnt_1: Sexual art education × Confucianism	0.174	0.069	2.523	0.012	0.310	0.038
Dependent variable: Artistic communication
Cultural identity	0.229	0.131	1.997	0.000	0.124	0.388	0.249	20.732***
Confucianism	0.240	0.317	2.150	0.000	0.189	0.445
lnt_2: Cultural identity × Confucianism	−0.122	0.057	−1.548	0.026	−0.292	−0.035

Note: *p＜0.05，**p＜0.01，***p＜0.001.

From the previous analysis, it is clear that there is a moderating effect of Confucianism on the relationship between sexual art education and cultural identity and art dissemination. Therefore, in order to further analyze the trend of the moderating effect between them, we divided Confucianism into high and low subgroups according to positive and negative one standard deviation, used the simple slope method to explore its moderating effect on cultural identity and art communication (Lu & Han, 2007; Wen et al., 2005), and plotted the trend under the influence of different levels of Confucianism, as shown in Figures 5.

Figure 5. Breakdown of the moderating effects of Confucianism.

The above figure shows that among the art student group, the positive predictive effect of sexual art education on cultural identity becomes stronger as the degree of influence by Confucianism increases, i.e., when the influence by Confucianism is low, the effect of sexual art education on cultural identity is weaker, while when the influence by Confucianism is deeper, the promotion effect of sexual art education on cultural identity increases significantly. In other words, if the influence of Confucianism is weak, although sexual arts education as an independent variable significantly contributes to the improvement of cultural identity, this improvement is more moderate, while when the influence of Confucianism becomes stronger, this promotion effect appears to be more rapid. On the other hand, as the degree of influence by Confucianism increases, the negative predictive effect of cultural identity on art diffusion becomes stronger, i.e., when the influence by Confucianism is low, the effect of cultural identity on art diffusion is weaker, but this effect shows a positive prediction, while when the influence by Confucianism is deeper, the inhibitory effect of cultural identity on art diffusion increases significantly, showing a change from the original promoting role to a reverse role. In other words, if the influence of Confucianism is weak, although cultural identity as an independent variable significantly promotes cultural identity, this improvement is more moderate, and when the influence of Confucianism becomes stronger, this promoting effect disappears, instead weakening the effect of art communication. Taking their paths together, the moderating effect of the Confucianism variable is more pronounced in the effect of cultural identity on art communication than in the effect of sexual art education on cultural identity, so we should pay more attention to the role played by Confucianism in the former.

5. Conclusion and discussion

Sex, as one of the essential elements in people’s daily life, is an important topic explored by people all over the world, whether in life practice or in academic research. Discussions of Chinese sexual art has focused on the history, content, and character plots of Chun Gong Tu, but have neglected its important value to contemporary Chinese sexual symbolic artistry.

Chun Gong Tu has remarkable features in composition patterns and compositional elements. The spatial layout of Chun Gong Tu is generally divided into four parts, namely, the main part, the background part, the configuration part and the decoration part. Among them, the main part is dominated by the landscape, architecture and figures inside the Chun Gong Tu, with the landscape as the center of the picture, the architecture as the main part, and the figures as a supplement; the background part takes the natural environment of still life, landscape and figures as the background of the picture to show them in more realistic details; the configuration part refers to the decoration inside the Chun Gong Tu, such as lanterns, vases, furniture, etc. The decoration part uses the decorative techniques of painting, such as lines, colors, light and shadow, and details, to express the overall atmosphere of the spring palace. The painting technique of the spring palace is mainly based on rendering, featuring fresh and light tones, fine and slender lines, thick and thin layers, presenting a soft and delicate, dreamy and beautiful artistic effect. There are also more characters in the spring palace picture, drawn vividly and lively to reflect the colorful stories of the characters within the spring palace. In addition to the images in the pictures, the accompanying poetic texts are also important features of the artistic expression of sexual symbols, which are based on traditional Chinese culture and centered on the sexual symbols in Chinese traditional culture.

Based on the understanding of Chun Gong Tu as the representative of ancient Chinese sexual symbol art, this paper describes the artistic value and role of Chun Gong Tu, and then quantitatively analyzes it by collecting data from art groups, with the aim of discovering the influential relationships between variables such as sexual art education, and discovering the methods and paths to enhance the Chinese art groups’ art of sexual symbols based on these verified relationships, in order to provide theoretical contributions to the dissemination and development of sexual art in China.

Sexual art education can significantly and positively influence the interest of young art student groups. “Interest is the best teacher,” and the only way to mobilize motivation for sexual art is to get the art class group interested in Chinese sexual culture and art. Through empirical testing, sexual art is able to strengthen the interest of art groups when they are educated and popularized within art groups. One interesting phenomenon that occurs in Chinese higher education is that when teachers educate students about sex or teach courses that include sex-related content, students tend to move quickly from a state of lethargy to focus because sex-related content quickly piques their interest and sex-related knowledge is inherently stimulating. At the same time, the presentation of these sexual symbolic artworks can produce similar results for the symbolic perception of sexual art content, in addition to stimulating interest. This is based on the fact that sexual art content has obvious symbols such as breasts, genitals, and uterus, which stimulate their nerves and make them focus on the expression of these symbols and ignore other elements in the sexual symbolic art.

Sexual art education can significantly and positively influence the sexual culture identity of young art student groups. The concepts between education and culture are similar; education is a prerequisite for transmitting culture, and only by accumulating and excavating the ancient Chinese sexual knowledge can it become a unique sexual art culture. Through sexual art education, it is possible for these art groups to become more aware of ancient Chinese traditional sexual culture and sexual art, and thus to accept the inculcation of sexual art, and over time they will be able to develop a sense of identity with these art forms, a feeling that is also a result of people accepting its existence and development from their hearts, and possibly making initiatives and strategies that are actively conducive to the progress of sexual art.

Increased interest in sexual art and identification with Chinese sexual culture can significantly and positively influence the willingness of artistic groups to create sexual art. The increase in willingness to create sexual art is a behavioral response that occurs after external stimulation and a change in psychological state. To stimulate the willingness of the artistic community to create requires constant practice and accumulation of creative behavior, and the creative behavior of sexual art cannot occur without the artistic community’s interest in sexual art and their sense of identity with Chinese sexual culture. When we think that a certain work of sexual art looks very interesting, we often take actions such as imitating and copying, and these actions also lay the foundation for the creation of sexual art in the future, while unknowingly enhancing our willingness or capability to create artworks.

Similarly, heightened interest and sexual cultural identity can significantly and positively influence the willingness of young art student groups to communicate about sexual art. Artistic communication is a subjective idea of whether people are willing to share something with others. When people believe that a work of sexual art is very valuable, they will recommend it to the outside world, hoping that more people will have access to such a highly valuable and precious thing, and the prerequisite for such a desire to share must be the recognition of the disseminator, and for the disseminator to recognize the art, it is necessary to stimulate the interest or aesthetic experience of the recipient of knowledge who is also the disseminator of the art, which is crucial, and we should not ignore the existence of these influencing factors.

Confucianism plays a significant positive moderating role in the direct influence relationship between sexual art education and cultural identity, and a significant negative moderating role in the direct influence relationship between cultural identity and art dissemination. Confucianism is a religious belief that is rooted in the hearts of Chinese residents. This belief is not a direct influence; its existence functions as an informal system. Its role is evident in areas where religious beliefs are prevalent. For example, the vast majority of Chinese residents follow religious ideas such as Buddhism, which are deeply implanted in people’s minds and have a great influence on their daily lives. Chinese Buddhism believes that sex is the great enemy of cultivating the path of attainment, and that if one’s sexual desire is constant, nonetheless one cannot transcend the cycle of rebirth. The people here are influenced by Confucian religious consciousness, and thus their views and attitudes towards sex seem to be somewhat restrained, and they are not willing to talk about any aspect of knowledge about sex when faced with strangers, including knowledge and works related to the art of sexual symbols. If religious beliefs are used as a factor to study the influence of sex symbolic art on individuals, there will be a certain tendency to decline or hinder the development of sex symbolic art, which is detrimental to the development of sex symbolic art, so we should make a reform or behavioral strategy to this status quo. However, Confucianism has had a positive moderating effect on the influence of sexual art education on sexual identity, mainly because Confucianism has influenced generations of Chinese people by promoting the idea of “Yin and Yang combined”, which is the ancient Chinese belief that sexual intercourse between a man and a woman represents a state of harmony and balance, i.e. That is, the world can only flourish when men and women and the “Yin” and “Yang” they represent are in balance and in harmony with each other. Guided by such thoughts, Chinese residents have gained a deeper understanding of sexuality and culture, thus agreeing in their minds that this assertion of sexuality is in line with the path of development of Chinese culture.

Sexual art education is still the weak link in the art education of Chinese colleges and universities, and there are many difficulties and problems, such as insufficient opening rate of art courses, small participation in related activities, shortage of teachers, lack of basic art education in schools in remote areas, and the evaluation system of sexual art education has not yet been established, which restrict the full play of the function of sexual art education in educating people. In the face of the new situation and new requirements, the Chinese government’s education department should increase the investment in sex art education in higher education institutions and art vocational schools. In accordance with national curriculum standards and programs to ensure that the total number of courses in the subject of sexual arts is a percentage of the art education curriculum, so that more art students can be exposed to sexual arts studies, and in this way, traditional or modern Chinese sexual symbolic art can be widely disseminated. In addition, schools should be allowed to offer elective courses in sexual art, the main purpose of which is to allow young students in non-art fields to learn the basics of sexual art, which will help improve the overall artistic literacy of the Chinese people and make people more aware that sex is not just an erotic product, but an art product with higher value and sexological significance.

Secondly, we should screen the general vulgar pornographic works and noble sexual art works, and make students realize what the real sexual art is, so that they will not be confused in their youth, but will really recognize the Chinese sexual symbolic art from the psychological point of view, and have a strong interest, and will be happy to learn and study the topics about sexual art or to create related art works out, only in this way, Chinese Only in this way can Chinese sex art education flourish and gradually be recognized by the whole country or even the whole world. Therefore, the Chinese government should crack down and ban vulgar pornography in order to prevent the impact of these false and sexually obsessed sex goods on elegant and interesting sex symbolic artworks. The creation and development of sex art should be given specific incentives to encourage and guide students, scholars and creative masters in the field of art to actively engage in the creation and development of sex symbolic art, and take measures to protect the legal and reasonable intellectual property rights of these artworks, so as to protect the immediate interests and reputation of the creators.

On the other hand, the development of Chinese sex art needs to keep pace with the times and constantly carry out integration and innovation, so as to enrich the expression form of Chinese sex art, give sex culture new vitality and vigor, and promote the long-term stable development of traditional Chinese sex culture art. With their vivid shapes and unique meanings, sexual culture elements are widely used in various art fields, with colorful patterns and profound folklore, religion, festivals and other cultural support, which can provide a lot of basic materials for the direct reference of Chinese line symbolic art creation. Therefore, in the process of sex culture elements and sex symbol art creation, they can be naturally integrated into the sex symbol art works according to the actual way of use or artistic value of the works to express and highlight the beauty and artistic charm of traditional sex culture.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.