Lacquer painting technique (Jiangzhou rhinoceros carving technique)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: lacquerware painting technique (Jiangzhou rhinoceros carving technique)

Applicant: Xinjiang county, Shanxi Province

Project No.: 910

Project No.: VIII - 127

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Shanxi Province

Type: Extension Project

Applicant: Xinjiang county, Shanxi Province

Protected by: Jiangzhou Institute of lacquerware, Xinjiang

Brief introduction of lacquerware painting technique (Jiangzhou rhinoceros carving technique)

Applicant: Xinjiang county, Shanxi Province

Picking rhinoceros is one of the techniques of carving lacquer. Carved lacquer began in the Tang Dynasty, and carved rhinoceros was shaped in the Song Dynasty. Its name can be seen in historical books such as yanfanlu by Cheng Dachang. It is also mentioned in xiushilu, the only monograph of Chinese painters in Ming Dynasty. Wang Shixiang, a famous scholar in China, believes that tixi is mainly produced in Xinjiang county, Shanxi Province.

Rhinoceros carving is a process in which two or three kinds of lacquer, such as red, black and yellow, are piled up on the surface of the utensils layer by layer regularly. After reaching a certain thickness (about 0.3-0.5 mm), patterns are carved with a "V" shaped knife. Different layers of color can be seen at the edge of the knife, which is quite different from other lacquer carving and lacquerware. It is named "tixi" because the side of the knife edge of the pattern appears as the sectional level of the cut rhinoceros cortex. At the same time, it is also called "cloud carving" in modern times because the patterns are mostly Huiwen and yungou, which can flow freely and rotate vividly.

Tixi is a complicated lacquer painting process in China. It must be strictly controlled in every technological process from wood selection to mounting, graying, painting, drawing, carving and polishing. It must be operated by artists with many years of experience. In particular, painting must be carried out in a damp, airless, clean and pollution-free basement. Generally, there are about 80 coats of paint, one coat of paint and another coat after drying in the shade. Each coat of various colored paints needs several coats, and dozens of coats will take more than a month. After the whole is dried in the shade, it can only be painted and carved after a period of time. Each pattern must be carved and trimmed again and again until the depth, width and thickness meet certain requirements, and then other processes can be carried out.

The production technology of picking rhinoceros in Jiangzhou has gone through several ups and downs. Although it has already begun to take shape in a certain scale, the manual production technology of picking rhinoceros is very complicated and exquisite, and now it can not be replaced by mechanized operation, and there are only a few talents engaged in picking rhinoceros production in the whole county, so the picking rhinoceros in Jiangzhou is still on the verge of being lost.