Fan Deran
01 · Lineage & Regional School
He studied under Xie Qingyun, a sugar-painting artist of Hefeng, for three years. Within the regional tradition and school record of Sugar Sculpture in Chengdu, Sichuan: Chengdu sugar painting is most concentrated in the temple fairs around Qingyang Palace and Wenshu Monastery in the urban center and in the market towns of the eastern suburbs; Jinjiang District still preserves the activity of sugar-painting artists, and Pidu, Wenjiang, Jianyang, and other places also have transmission. The works mostly use bamboo skewers as their armature; the artist draws out the lines in a single motion while the sugar liquid is on the point of setting but not yet set, and once cooled the piece is removed and stuck into a bamboo skewer rack for sale. In former times, Chengdu sugar-painting artists mostly traveled from village to town with Sichuan opera troupes, melting sugar and painting on the open threshing grounds of temple fairs, lantern festivals, and market towns; wherever the opera troupe performed, a sugar-painting stall would be set up, and so Sichuan opera figures became the subject the veteran artists knew best. This trade flourished in Chengdu's urban and rural areas in the first half of the 20th century, with artists assigned stalls by street lane and market town, each keeping to his own territory.
02 · Mastery & Signature Works
He practised his art with his master in the Jianyang area, often travelling with Sichuan opera companies, and so became especially skilled at rendering Sichuan opera figures in poured sugar. After the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression he drifted to Chengdu, settled there and made his living by his craft. His sugar paintings are particularly accomplished in flat slab pieces, filled pieces and theatrical figures, and he could capture the form and spirit of his subjects accurately. His modelling is steady and composed, built mainly on planar masses, with stable planes and flowing lines skilfully combined and set off against one another. Representative works include Shui Man Jin Shan (Flooding of the Jinshan Temple), Feng Yi Ting (The Phoenix Pavilion) and Zhan Changsha (The Battle of Changsha). Before 1949 he took five apprentices, and after the introduction of reform and opening up he took on young disciples including Chen Changji, Wu Fengquan, Xie Fengkun and Zhang Daocheng, so that the sugar-painting craft was transmitted and developed. Within the documented technical tradition of Sugar Sculpture in Chengdu, Sichuan: Sugar sculpture is a distinctive category of traditional Chinese folk modeling art, one that primarily exploits the plasticity of sugar to shape it into forms. Unlike Western sculpture, Chinese folk modeling incorporates rich formative elements such as painting, sculpture, carving, seal-engraving, and decoration, reflecting more strongly the aesthetic inclinations and technical character of its own tradition. Sugar sculpture generally uses malt syrup and corn sugar — the malt syrup being colloquially known as "tang xi" (sugar syrup) — as its raw materials, and completes its pieces through a combination of shaping techniques: pinching, piling, pasting, cutting, blowing, rubbing, pulling, pressing, pouring, and stretching, together with decorative methods such as painting, dyeing, carving, scratching, dotting, poking, stamping, inserting, and attaching. Sugar-sculpture pieces can be appreciated and played with, and can also be eaten directly. In Chinese folk life, sugar sculpture is found throughout the north and the south, with a broad popular base, and is closely bound up with everyday customs. Chengdu sugar painting, colloquially known as "pouring sugar cakes" (dao tang bing er), "sugar cakes" (tang ba ba er), and "sugar shadow figures" (tang deng ying er), is a folk art popular in the Chengdu area of Sichuan Province that combines both sculptural and painterly qualities. Chengdu sugar painting has a long history. According to the Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu): "When white sugar is melted and molded into the forms of human figures, lions, and elephants, it is called xiang tang (feast sugar); this is what the commentary to the Book of the Later Han refers to as ni tang. "Sugar painting, which uses melted sugar as its raw material, evolved from xiang tang; in the course of its development it continuously absorbed the expressive techniques of shadow puppetry, paper cutting, and other folk arts, gradually forming a special folk plastic art characterized by modeling through masses and lines. Chengdu sugar painting takes flowers, birds, fish, insects, flying birds and running beasts, and dramatic figures as its subjects; its finished works are both sweet sugar food and art objects for appreciation — as the saying goes, "viewed as a painting, eaten with flavor." Chengdu sugar painting embodies people's wishes for blessing and their aesthetic ideals; its products are deeply loved by children and young people, and so traces of sugar painting can be found at urban and rural temple fairs, markets, and other mass cultural occasions in the Chengdu area. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Poured sugar cakes and sugar shadow figures": Its popular names include poured sugar cakes and sugar shadow figures, the latter echoing the shadow puppetry it absorbed. "Copper ladle and stone slab": A copper ladle pours the molten sugar onto an oiled stone slab where the figure sets, a bamboo stick pressed in while it is still hot. "Flat pieces and filled pieces": Two modes of work; the inheritor Fan Deran excelled at flat and filled pieces and at opera characters. "Flooding Jinshan, Fengyi Pavilion, Battle of Changsha": Signature pieces by Fan Deran, all famous episodes of Sichuan opera whose troupes he followed as a young man.
Poured sugar cakes and sugar shadow figures
Its popular names include poured sugar cakes and sugar shadow figures, the latter echoing the shadow puppetry it absorbed.
Copper ladle and stone slab
A copper ladle pours the molten sugar onto an oiled stone slab where the figure sets, a bamboo stick pressed in while it is still hot.
Flat pieces and filled pieces
Two modes of work; the inheritor Fan Deran excelled at flat and filled pieces and at opera characters.
Flooding Jinshan, Fengyi Pavilion, Battle of Changsha
Signature pieces by Fan Deran, all famous episodes of Sichuan opera whose troupes he followed as a young man.
03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status
Male, Han ethnicity, born in July 1924, died in August 2015, a native of Jianyang, Sichuan Province. Representative bearer of Sugar Sculpture (Chengdu sugar painting), a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.
04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier
Historical origin
In former times, Chengdu sugar-painting artists mostly traveled from village to town with Sichuan opera troupes, melting sugar and painting on the open threshing grounds of temple fairs, lantern festivals, and market towns; wherever the opera troupe performed, a sugar-painting stall would be set up, and so Sichuan opera figures became the subject the veteran artists knew best. This trade flourished in Chengdu's urban and rural areas in the first half of the 20th century, with artists assigned stalls by street lane and market town, each keeping to his own territory.
05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage
National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.
| Bearer | Declared area | Roster code | Relation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fan Deran | Chengdu, Sichuan | 03-1297 | This page |
| Luo Zhaoying | Tianmen, Hubei | 05-2699 | Other regional school |
06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records and the associated project dossier, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。