Clay sculpture (Suzhou clay sculpture)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: clay sculpture (Suzhou clay sculpture)

Applicant: Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Item No.: 346

Project No.: Ⅶ - 47

Time of publication: 2008 (second batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Jiangsu Province

Type: Extension Project

Applicant: Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Protection unit: Suzhou Art School (Suzhou Art Vocational School)

Introduction to clay sculpture (Suzhou clay sculpture)

Applicant: Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Suzhou is not only an important central city in the Yangtze River Delta, but also a national cultural city and a scenic tourist city. In more than 2000 years of development history, Suzhou clay sculpture has always enjoyed a high reputation. It is as famous as Chaozhou Fuyang clay sculpture, Tianjin clay figurine Zhang and Wuxi Huishan clay figurine. It is an important representative of Chinese clay sculpture.

Suzhou clay sculptures can be divided into two categories: one is large clay sculptures, namely statues of deities and Buddhas in temples; the other is small clay sculptures, namely Tiger Hill clay figurines. The traditional statues of Suzhou god Buddha are famous for their delicacy, vividness and elegance. One of its advantages is that they are easy to draw materials. When making statues, they usually take local mountain mud, and are shaped by nailing the skeleton, preparing mud (rough and fine processing), adding mud, painting or loading gold. Each big step includes several small steps. It takes at least one or two years to complete a work.

The material of Huqiu clay figurine comes from the clay around Huqiu, which is black, fine and sticky, so it is very suitable for shaping small clay figurines. The most important feature of Huqiu clay figurine is its strong realism. Its works are generally about 10 to 15 centimeters high, and most of them are based on drama stories. The most characteristic of Huqiu clay figurine is the shape, also known as "shaping the truth", that is, in the face of a specific person, in the shortest time to grasp its charm, with a variety of colors of clay on the spot to shape the image, the shape of the character is clear, lifelike, often can achieve the effect of both form and spirit.

Suzhou clay sculpture is a combination of folk custom, religion, sculpture, painting, calligraphy and other arts, which has high artistic and historical and cultural research value.