Old Craft+New Technology+Classic Craft+New Design Concept Woodcarving Craft is heading for a new direction.
CCTV News:Wood carving is an ancient traditional handicraft skill in China, and its history in China can be traced back to Hemudu culture in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province more than 7000 years ago. From a simple piece of wood to a priceless woodcarving work, it takes thousands of times, and generations of craftsmen have carved time with their hearts, which has spanned thousands of years unconsciously, and the story under the carving knife is also continuing to write a new chapter.
Exploring new themes with wood as the volume
With a knife as a pen and wood as a roll, in Putian Art Museum, Fujian, China arts and crafts master Zheng Chunhui and more than 10 craftsmen are engrossed in carving two woodcarving masterpieces, one is the 120m-long Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the other is the 56m-long double-sided woodcarving "Hundred Miles Lanxi Map". The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is a world cultural heritage, and Mulan River is the "mother river" of Putian people.
China arts and crafts master Zheng Chunhui:Mulanxi stream raised me, but Mulanxi was not so docile. The flood disaster in Mulan River is particularly serious in history. Through the efforts of the Party and the government, as well as the vast Putian people, it has turned harm into benefit, and until now it has presented a beautiful picture of ecological management in the whole basin of Mulan River.
Wood carving originated in the Neolithic Age and has a history of about 7000 years. In the Tang Dynasty, the superb level of wood carving technology was amazing to the world. These ingenious skills have also been passed down from generation to generation. To make a beautiful woodcarving, it takes months or even years to go through many links such as embryo beating, polishing and finishing. Therefore, people describe wood carving as the art of time. In the immersion of woody plants, in a moment of carving, the context flows. Zheng Chunhui, on the other hand, regards woodcarving as a carrier to depict history and record the times.
China arts and crafts master Zheng Chunhui:Its idea is to show the beauty of natural ecology after the management of Mulan River. I want to use this traditional skill to describe people’s spirit under the background of this great era. Traditional woodcarving can make children like it and young people like it, which is also the significance of my creation.
Embrace the integration of popular woodcarving and wrong gold creativity
Love is the most powerful baton. Zheng Chunhui and other craftsmen of the older generation have been engaged in woodcarving all their lives, but now the younger generation of non-genetic inheritors are relaying, and Huang Wangwang, born after 1985, is one of them. As the fifth generation inheritor of the woodcarving family, Huang Wangwang was influenced since childhood and entered the factory as an apprentice at the age of 13. Putian woodcarving is famous for its subtle through carving, and the completion of a work cannot be separated from a good carving knife. Therefore, just grinding the carving knife Huang Wangwang has been grinding for three years.
Huang Wangwang, a non-genetic inheritor of Putian woodcarving:If you are not careful, you will prick your hand. My hand has already pierced many holes. It’s interesting to be young, that is, I am anxious with whoever touches my knife.
Traditional woodcarving is more used in architecture, and the woodcarving factory in Putian is mainly for order processing. Because not so many people understand and appreciate woodcarving, many craftsmen in their hometown once put down their skills and turned to work. It has become Huang Wangwang’s dream to make woodcarving flourish again. His path is to explore the integration of traditional skills and popular culture.
Huang Wangwang, a non-genetic inheritor of Putian woodcarving:I hope to integrate traditional handicrafts, so I began to go to the museum to see it. When I saw it, I found two elements. The first element was borrowed from the armor of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and the animal face pattern on it was particularly beautiful. I think it brought courage to people and meant guarding.
Another element that inspired Huang Wangwang came from a real dragon pattern on an ancient jade in the Han Dynasty.
Huang Wangwang, a non-genetic inheritor of Putian woodcarving:In the past, dragons looked like this in everyone’s basic impression. The ancient jade in the Han Dynasty had a texture similar to this one. Because this year is the Year of the Loong, I used the real dragon pattern to design this piece when the Year of the Loong came.
The inspiration from the museum, in addition to the patterns, also has a harvest, that is, the ancient wrong gold craft. This craft first appeared on bronzes in Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and was used on wooden objects in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
In ancient times, the gold thread was usually grooved in the wood, then buried in the groove and polished repeatedly until it was smooth. Generally, gold misplacing is easy to finish on a plane. If it is an arc-shaped solid surface, it means it is more difficult. Huang Wangwang went ahead in spite of difficulties.
Huang Wangwang, a non-genetic inheritor of Putian woodcarving:This gold thread is very special. It is not adhered by ordinary glue. It uses another traditional non-legacy process called lacquer.
In order to find a suitable lacquer, Huang Wangwang kept trying and asked the restoration experts of the Palace Museum for advice.
Huang Wangwang, a non-genetic inheritor of Putian woodcarving:An old friend of mine in the Forbidden City mixed a paint for me, which is excellent and suitable for the restoration of this ancient method. Therefore, it is a very traditional technique combined with this contemporary IP, which is an innovation.
The technology of the ancient method of copying gold has broken through, and its application is naturally extensive. Jewelry and glasses can be gradually added to this process, which is widely welcomed by the market, but it also exposes another limitation of traditional wood carving works, that is, the finished product takes a long time and is difficult to mass produce.
Huang Wangwang, a non-genetic inheritor of Putian woodcarving:With the help of this industrial force in the new era, we can realize mass production of traditional handicrafts, bring them to more people, share them together, and have them together. This is also a very important proposition and challenge for us now.
Traditional craft plus "number" to run woodcarving skills to a new direction
Old craft+new technology, classic craft+new design concept, wood carving works are rejuvenating and colorful under the promotion of the inheritors of the new era.
Huang Haisheng, General Manager of Fujian Tiancai Classical Craft Co., Ltd.:This kind of jewelry box, the whole town should sell more than hundreds of thousands of pieces at home and abroad a year. If the traditional master carves by hand, it will take at least one month. Now, through digital empowerment, after the master makes the samples, they are transmitted to our machines through digital software and then carved, and they can be produced in half a day. The machinery and equipment are constantly optimized, and the accuracy of each knife is almost as thin as hair.
Traditional crafts work hand in hand with digital running, which not only upgrades production capacity. In Duwei Town, Xianyou County, exquisite three-dimensional woodcarving shapes can be seen from tea trays, pen holders, pen holders to tissue boxes, chopsticks, knives and forks. Digital technology is deeply integrating woodcarving skills into more than a dozen fields such as tea art, study and storage, and has enabled tens of thousands of styles to be mass-produced.
Huang Haisheng, General Manager of Fujian Tiancai Classical Craft Co., Ltd.:In the future, we hope that through artificial intelligence technology, more consumers can participate in the whole process of product design and meet the needs of more and more people for national fashion products.
Today, there are more than 2,600 wood carving related enterprises in Putian, with more than 100,000 employees and a total industrial output value of over 20 billion yuan. The products are exported to Southeast Asia, Europe and America. Traditional wood carving techniques have not disappeared with the changes of years, but have been passed down and carried forward from generation to generation, making breakthroughs in seeking change and innovation, and "old trees" have made "new branches".
Before writing appeared, people began to carve pictures on wood and record their lives. After thousands of years of inheritance, woodcarving, an ancient art, has not only not withdrawn from the historical stage, but has also been upgraded from a tool to preserve information to an art to decorate life. Traditional skills can continue to glow with new vitality, and it is inseparable from the innovative spirit of generations of woodcarvers. They put the new technologies, new materials and new ideas of each era into the innovation of woodcarving techniques, depicting the times, dreams, new yearning for a better life and new inheritance of excellent traditional culture with knives as pens.