工艺美术的基本性质,是实用与审美的统一,它既要满足人们物质生活的需要,又要满足人们精神生活的需要。结合工艺美术生产的实际,物质生产和艺术生产是其生产过程中同时存在的既相互联系又有区别的两个方面。工艺美术作为物质生产,又基本上是商品生产,必然受生产和市场经济法则的支配;它同时又是艺术生产,必然也受按照美的规律进行创作的原则的制约。客观经济规律和客观艺术规律同时作用于工艺美术,从而构成了工艺美术自身的基本特点及其发展的特殊规律。我国的工艺美术领域十分广阔,涉及的面很广,需要研究的问题也很多,认识和掌握工艺美术的特点和规律,是工艺美术理论研究的重要内容。这方面的研究可从各方面着手,比如从历史学角度探求工艺美术本质和发生发展规律的工艺美术史研究:从美学角度研究工艺美术审美特征的工艺美学;从经济学角度研究工艺美术生产实践和市场消费的特点与规律的工艺美术经济学等等,都极大地促进和丰富了工艺美术学科的理论建设。我国古代的工艺美术是在手工业的基础上发展起来的。随着近、现代科学技术的进步和人们物质文化生活不断增长的需要,大量利用新工艺,新技术和新材料的机器产品的工艺美术发达起来,这是工艺美术适应社会生活发展和需要的必然结果。因此,原有的工艺美术,便不能概括工艺美术全部,于是出现了两个分支:手工 The basic nature of arts and crafts, is the unity of practical and aesthetic, it not only to meet the needs of people’s material life, but also to meet people’s spiritual life needs. Combining with the actual production of arts and crafts, material production and art production are two aspects that are interrelated and differentiated simultaneously in the production process. As a material production, arts and crafts are basically commodity production, which is bound to be governed by the laws of production and market economy. At the same time, it is an art production and must also be bound by the principle of creating according to the law of beauty. Objective economic laws and objective laws of art work simultaneously on arts and crafts, thus constituting the basic characteristics of arts and crafts and their special laws of development. The field of arts and crafts in our country is very vast, involving a wide range of issues that need to be studied. Understanding and mastering the characteristics and laws of arts and crafts is an important part of the theoretical study of arts and crafts. Research in this area can start from all aspects, such as from the historical perspective of art and craft to explore the nature of the law of development and the history of arts and crafts history: Aesthetics from the aesthetic point of view of the aesthetic characteristics of the arts and crafts aesthetics; from the economic point of view of arts and crafts production practice And the characteristics and laws of market consumption arts and crafts economics, etc., have greatly promoted and enriched the theoretical construction of arts and crafts disciplines. The ancient arts and crafts in our country were developed on the basis of handicraft industry. With the progress of recent and modern science and technology and the ever-increasing need of people’s material and cultural life, the arts and crafts of machine products that make extensive use of new techniques, new technologies and new materials are developed. This is the inevitable necessity for arts and crafts to adapt to the needs of social life result. Therefore, the original arts and crafts, arts and crafts can not sum up all, then there are two branches: hand