Bamboo carving (Baoqing bamboo carving)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Bamboo carving (Baoqing bamboo carving)

Applicant: Shaoyang City, Hunan Province

Project No.: 345

Project No.: Ⅶ - 46

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Hunan Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Shaoyang City, Hunan Province

Protected by: Shaoyang Baoqing bamboo carving Research Institute

Introduction to bamboo carving (Baoqing bamboo carving)

Applicant: Shaoyang City, Hunan Province

Shaoyang City of Hunan Province, formerly known as Baoqing Prefecture, is located in the southwest of Hunan Province. It is the political, economic and cultural center of the southwest of Hunan Province. Baoqing is a semi hilly area with high mountains in the West and low mountains in the East. It is rich in Phyllostachys pubescens. Since ancient times, bamboo production industry has been very developed. It is one of the main birthplaces of Chinese bamboo culture.

Baoqing bamboo carving is a kind of folk craft which is derived from practical bamboo craft and integrates appreciation and practicality. In Baoqing Fu Zhi compiled in Ming Dynasty, pan Yilong, a famous bamboo Carver in Baoqing, and his bamboo works in Wanli period were recorded. During the reign of Emperor Kangxi in Qing Dynasty, Wang Shangzhi, a bamboo Carver in Baoqing, invented the spring turning craft and the spring turning bamboo carving. When making bamboo carvings in this way, the artists remove the green and festival bamboo and exploit the bamboo spring. After boiling, drying, grinding and other processes, they flatten and paste it on the wood or bamboo body, then polish and polish it, and use different techniques to carve figures, landscapes, flowers and birds on it. Bamboo spring carving is ivory like in color and elegant in style. Once it came out, it became a treasure for high officials and scholars, and was regarded as a tribute and diplomatic gift by the court. He once won the gold medal at the "Panama Pacific World Expo"; in 1950, the Government Affairs Council designated eight pieces of Baoqing fanhuang bamboo carvings as gifts for Chairman Mao Zedong's visit to the Soviet Union to celebrate Stalin's birthday.

Baoqing bamboo carving has a wide range of carving techniques, rich themes and unique techniques. There are more than 20 kinds of knife techniques alone. The ancient masters of Baoqing bamboo carving are good at combining their superb artistic expression skills with literati's aesthetic taste and the artistic conception of Chinese classical painting and calligraphy, creating countless exquisite bamboo carving works with high artistic value and cultural connotation.

Baoqing bamboo carving, a wonderful folk art, has survived tenaciously although it suffered severe setbacks in wars and 1960s. However, in the 1990s, all the original nine bamboo art factories in Shaoyang went bankrupt, and the technicians scattered all over the country. Now the only remaining 20 old artists are getting older. Baoqing bamboo carvings are on the verge of extinction and need urgent rescue and protection.