Ming style furniture making techniques

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Ming style furniture making skills

Applicant: Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Item No.: 395

Project No.: VIII - 45

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Jiangsu Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Protection unit: Suzhou Redwood carving factory Co., Ltd

Brief introduction of Ming style furniture making skills:

Applicant: Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Suzhou Ming style furniture refers to the hardwood furniture made by skilled craftsmen in Jiangnan area with Suzhou as the center since the middle of Ming Dynasty, which is made of red sandalwood, sour branch wood, Qizi wood, Huali wood and other exotic wood. Therefore, it is also called "Suzhou Ming style furniture" for short.

Suzhou Ming style furniture has the characteristics of rigorous structure, smooth lines, excellent craftsmanship and bright paint. It is unique with its distinctive artistic style and local characteristics. Rigorous structure means that the furniture is made up of mortise and tenon skills, focusing on the integrity of the structure and the balance of force; smooth lines means that the appearance of the furniture is dominated by lines, with little carving; excellent skills means that every process such as material selection, ingredients, woodworking, polishing and lacquering is exquisite and impeccable; glossy lacquering means that the furniture is painted with traditional lacquer skills, through more than a dozen crafts The order of the fine work, to achieve the effect of like paint not paint.

Design is the first process of Ming style furniture making, not only to design the shape, but also including the structure of furniture, carved patterns, etc.

Woodworking is the production of green body, its basic process in addition to the middle of the mechanical processing, there are four links: marking, line management, assembly, grinding.

According to the design pattern, carving needs to shovel the bottom, straighten out the sidelines, pull flowers, carve patterns, etc., so as to make the heel clear, the flowers and leaves alive, the layers clear, and the three-dimensional feeling.

There are 16 working procedures for the lacquerer: roughing, scraping finish coat, sanding skin, making color; top coat, sanding skin finish coat; sanding skin, wiping paint; pushing blade surface paint; pushing blade; wiping paint, etc.

The historical and cultural value of Ming style furniture lies in that after long-term development, it has made landmark achievements in the field of daily use of furniture, and its perfection, rationality, practicality and decoration have reached the peak. In Ming style furniture, whether it is chair, tea table, table or bookshelf, its delicate shape, symmetrical proportion and clear lines fully show the cultural connotation and artistic temperament of furniture. It takes structural parts as decorative parts, which fully reflects the natural characteristics of natural materials. Its refined, fitting and scientific mortise and tenon techniques make it perfect.