Boxwood carving in Yueqing

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: boxwood carving in Yueqing

Applicant: Yueqing City, Zhejiang Province

Item No.: 341

Project No.: Ⅶ - 42

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Zhejiang Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Yueqing City, Zhejiang Province

Protection unit: Yueqing Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center

Brief introduction of Yueqing boxwood carving:

Applicant: Yueqing City, Zhejiang Province

Yueqing City is located in the southeast coast of Zhejiang Province, across the river from Wenzhou. The Euonymus japonicus wood carving in Yueqing is an ornamental round carving art made of Euonymus japonicus wood. It is mainly popular in Nanjie Village of wengyang Town, houheng village of Xiangyang Town, Liushi town and Lecheng town in Yueqing City, and spread to Wenzhou, Yongjia, Hangzhou, Shanghai and other places.

It is not clear when the boxwood carving in Yueqing began. The statue of Tieguai Li, which is now stored in the Palace Museum of Beijing, is the oldest boxwood carving of the Yuan Dynasty. However, the appearance of the boxwood carving in Yueqing was later than that of the statue. Yueqing is located in Oujiang port, where floods often occur. There is a custom of doing "dragon stall" to eliminate disasters and avoid evil spirits. Longdang is made of camphor wood with figures carved on it. It is this folk craft that gave birth to the boxwood carving in Yueqing. In 1876, Wenzhou became a trading port with active foreign trade. Many Yueqing boxwood carvings were collected by businessmen at home and abroad. Folk artists who originally engaged in "dragon file" carving and Buddha carving turned to boxwood carving. In 1909, Zhu Zichang, a Wenzhou native, won an excellent prize in Nanyang Business Association for his boxwood carving "monk Ji Dian",

In 1915, his work "hide and seek" won the second prize in the international Panama competition. Besides Zhu Zichang, ye Furu, Wang Fengzuo, ye Yizhou and other famous artists also appeared in the wood carving industry. Now the main inheritors are Gao Gongbo, Yu Jinshun, Wang Duchun, Yu Dingliang, Wang Dufang and so on.

There are three types of boxwood carvings in Yueqing, which have different modeling concepts, techniques and procedures. The first is the traditional type, which is mainly composed of single figure modeling, but also group carving or collage carving; the second is the root carving type, which uses natural boxwood root block as material and uses tree root modeling; the third is the split carving type, which splits the wood block that can not be used for figure carving, and takes the natural texture of the split wood to carve, so that everything goes with the nature and does not make meticulous carving. Traditional sculpture has the figure model, and the material type should be suitable for it, so there are procedures such as clay sculpture draft, material selection, shaping, and solid frame; while root carving is flexible, so it does not need clay sculpture draft, but must pay attention to maintain the unique modeling meaning of the root, and split carving turns its attention to the texture based modeling.

Boxwood is a kind of precious tree material with tough texture, fine texture and slow growth cycle. It is said that it is difficult for a thousand year old boxwood to become a cypress. The wood carving of Qile Qing Dynasty fully shows the wisdom of folk craftsmen. In the process of historical development, it presents a variety of different styles, such as the round, concise and fluent wood carving of Ming Dynasty, the clear, smooth and round wood carving of Qing Dynasty, and so on. The technological process of boxwood carving is complex. The delicacy and technological requirements of each process are unmatched by other carving, and can not be replaced by modern technology. Today, there is a crisis in the material source of boxwood carving in Yueqing. At the same time, there is a serious loss of professionals, which makes it difficult for new people to continue, and individual workshops are scattered, which makes it difficult to have an impact. These conditions affect the development of boxwood carving skills, and it is urgent for the relevant parties to work out a plan to rescue and protect this special skill.