The dressing of images in Taiwanese folk religion integrate factors such as Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist cultures, concept of imperial power, folk custom, traditional drama and national styles, forming a vivid national style, a culture with profound meaning, and a beautiful field of art. Its contents are comprehensive, including extensively dressing of emperors, queens and officers. The main characteristics are honorable dragons and phoenixes and class identifications, plus Chinese traditional clothing colors and propitious patterns. An image is dressed according to the information on that certain god recorded in various historiographies. The above conditions comprise the main component of images’ dressing. These cultures are presented in images’ dressing through “form”, “color” and “pattern”. The religious embroideries of folk religion are still affected by the Ming and Qing Dynasties in that their crafts, colors, patterns and layouts are contained of the practices, values, thinking, morals and aesthetic of the Chinese traditional culture. The arts of all the dynasties, in Taiwanese history of modern art, and related to folk religion are comprehensive and difficult to cover. Therefore, this study focuses on the dressing of images in the art of Taiwanese folk religion. When it comes to the dressing of images, it is natural that the emphasis and focal point are on the forms, colors and patterns, and how they change with the evolution of time, the prosperity of folk religion, and the development of cultural community’s innovation. The “dressing of images”, which demonstrates divine goals of religion and manifests glories of gods, has naturally become the focus of religious art to all devoted believers, who are influenced unobtrusively in their progress of being religious. However, it also hides inconspicuously a blind spot which panders to authorities of the generation and satisfies the minds of contemporary people. The writer discovered during research that the presentation of images’ dressing in the past was mainly based on dictations passed down for generations, thus relevant literatures are far more valuable compared to those of other studies. Therefore, in addition to studying relevant literatures, researchers also conducted field interviews to acquire sufficient positive information for an overall discussion. This dissertation consists of five chapters. Chapter one states the motive, goal, method and scope of study. Chapter two describes the substance worship in Taiwanese folk religion, and primarily discusses the origins and evolutions of various religions which co-exist in modern Taiwanese society. Chapter three discusses the connection between the dressing of images and external culture; analysis on external culture is used to analyze its relation with dressing of images. Chapter four, which is the emphasis of this study, primarily analyzes the cultural meanings and forms of images’ dressing to understand t
