Wood carving (red sandalwood carving)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: wood carving (red sandalwood carving)

Applicant: China red sandalwood Museum

Item No.: 834

Project No.: Ⅶ - 58

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Beijing

Type: Extension Project

Applicant: China red sandalwood Museum

Protected by: China red sandalwood Museum

Introduction to wood carving (red sandalwood carving)

Applicant: China red sandalwood Museum

The traditional red sandalwood carving technique is mainly used in the traditional Ming and Qing Dynasty palace furniture production, which represents the highest level of woodworking technology at that time, and has special style characteristics.

Red sandalwood carving is handmade with various carving techniques, including line carving (Sun carving, Yin carving), light relief, deep relief, flat carving, round carving, wool carving, openwork carving and so on. The work is based on wood, with carving instead of writing and painting with knife. The composition is luxuriant and full, the knife technique is vigorous and unconstrained, and the picture is deep and deep. The theme of the work is wide, mainly mountains and rivers, flowers, birds and animals, and antiquity. Its patterns contain the good wishes of good luck, many sons and many blessings, long life and prosperous official fortune.

The tenon and mortise structure carving used in red sandalwood furniture is more precise and ingenious. The whole body does not need a nail. It completely depends on the tenon and mortise fit, and the parts are inseparable. The precision of the craft and the tightness of the clasp make people feel seamless, which is beyond the reach of modern mechanical craft. The production of sandalwood carving works of art can only be completed through more than ten processes, such as wood drying, cutting, sawing, assembly, manual fat smashing, carving, floor cleaning, polishing and waxing. It takes at least one year to make a sandalwood carving, and at most it takes several years.

With the changes of the times and the development of large-scale industry, mechanical production has already penetrated into every link of traditional furniture manufacturing, and the traditional red sandalwood carving process is facing the crisis of extinction.