Also known as the model. Refers to people, things and things that exist in real life, and literary and art workers shape artistic images on this basis in artistic creation.
As the original material, the prototype of life is a natural thing, which has not been processed and transformed. But it is the source and foundation for artists to create artistic images and artistic modeling. Outstanding artists attach great importance to creating artistic images on the basis of life prototypes. Most of the main characters, secondary and plot characters in their works can find prototypes in real life; Even the fantasy or absurd characters written by romantic artists cannot be divorced from the prototype of life.
Creating artistic images according to the prototype of life does not mean copying or copying the prototype of life. From life prototype to artistic image and even artistic model, we have to go through a series of processing and production processes such as selection, refining, conjugation, transplantation, transformation, reasoning and fiction. Typicalization is the only way to make the prototype of life a model of art. Due to the differences in creative personality, theme and genre, different writers and artists have different attitudes towards life prototypes and ways to deal with them in the process of typification. Generally speaking, there are three ways. One way is to "take all kinds of people and synthesize one", that is, to "combine" many prototypes to shape typical characters. However, the so-called "miscellaneous mining" and "combination" are by no means a mixture or a heap of many similar people, but based on the prototype of life, some individual and distinctive life phenomena are actively concentrated and processed, thus shaping a typical image with individual life and profound social commonness. Another method is based on a prototype in life, while absorbing other related prototype facts and merging them into a typical one. Its advantage is that it has a prototype framework of character plot, and there is a basic point whether it is increased or decreased. In this way, the key is to choose a good model. At the same time, we should have rich life experience, mobilize all life to accumulate and process the basic prototype, so that the characters are richer, more substantial and more prominent than the prototype, with deeper and broader generality. There is also an extremely strict method of "portraying characters according to the model" to tell true stories. This method is often used in biographical literature, reportage and memoirs. The possibility of shaping a real story into a typical story mainly depends on two factors: first, the prototype of the real story chosen by the artist is highly typical. Some prototypes themselves can even be said to be a social model; Second, you can't copy the real story, but you must also select, refine, render and process it.
Based on the prototype of life, take the prototype of life as the "base" and create a typical image. It is the basic experience accumulated by human beings in long-term artistic practice and conforms to the law of artistic creation. Therefore, artists must go deep into life, observe, experience, understand and be familiar with all kinds of characters from the widest and richest sources, constantly expand the base of life prototypes, make their typical creations have a deep life foundation, and create more successful artistic models.