Yang Xia

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Yang Xia, Male, Unspecified, from Guangzhou, Guangdong, is a third-batch national representative bearer of Furniture Making Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-45). The tradition is documented in Guangzhou, Guangdong. Within the regional tradition and school record of Furniture Making Craftsmanship in Guangzhou, Guangdong: The Guangzuo hardwood furniture craft is practiced in Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong Province. In the Ming and Qing dynasties Guangzhou stood at the frontier of overseas maritime trade, and most timber was imported from Southeast Asia, so the material used is chiefly suanzhi (blackwood) and Burmese huali rosewood. Guangshi furniture is bulky in form and densely carved, and together with the regularity of the Jingzuo and the elegance of the Suzuo it ranks as an important strand of Ming–Qing furniture. The Guangzhou Woodcarving Furniture Craft Factory is the designated protecting institution for the project. After the Kangxi era of the Qing dynasty, Ming-style furniture spread to England, France, and other countries, exerting a considerable influence on eighteenth-century European furniture. Some furniture of the Qing dynasty continued the style and craftsmanship of the Ming dynasty and is therefore also called "Ming-style furniture". Ming-style furniture in China today is produced mainly in Suzhou, Beijing, and Guangzhou; inheriting the fine traditions of Ming furniture, it has formed three major systems: the Su (Suzhou), Jing (Beijing), and Guang (Guangzhou) styles. By the end of the Ming dynasty, Guangshi furniture was already in use at court. In the early years of the Qing dynasty, Guangshi furniture became a principal type of court furniture because its luxurious style suited the needs of the imperial family. In the mid-Qing dynasty, influenced by the European Baroque and Rococo styles, Guangshi furniture developed further in form and decoration, and its proportions became increasingly sumptuous. During the Republican period (1912–1949), the Guangshi furniture industry declined under the impact of war, and only gradually recovered after the victory in the War of Resistance against Japan.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Born in October 1937 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, he is of Han ethnicity. He is a national representative bearer of Furniture Making Craftsmanship (the Guang-style hardwood furniture making craft), a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a technician of Guang-style hardwood furniture making and a senior craft artist. He learned the Guang-style rosewood furniture craft from his father from childhood. In 1958 he entered the Guangzhou Woodcarving Furniture Craft Factory, where he was responsible for the design of Guang-style hardwood furniture and for technical reform for as long as forty-five years. He has a thorough command of the creative process and a comprehensive range of skills. Drawing on ergonomics, he redesigned the tall hardwood chair, which had required the sitter to hold a rigidly upright posture, into a low-seated model with a curved back that suits contemporary ways of living and has been widely welcomed. He compiled a set of standard craft-management manuals for hardwood furniture making, covering production processes, graded technical standards and quality standards for each graded stage. Within the documented technical tradition of Furniture Making Craftsmanship in Guangzhou, Guangdong: Ming-style furniture is the most famous category of traditional Chinese furniture: it achieved brilliant results in the history of ancient Chinese furniture and is regarded as the model of traditional furniture, while also occupying an important place in the history of world furniture. Building on the furniture-making traditions of the Song and Yuan dynasties, Ming-style furniture achieved great innovation in materials, processing techniques, styling, and structure. The craft uses hardwoods of great density and fine grain as its material—zitan (red sandalwood), huali (rosewood), hongmu (mahogany), wumu (ebony), tielimu, and jichimu (chicken-wing wood)—taking full advantage of their grain, texture, and luster, and striving for a simple, pure structure and dignified form free of superfluous ornament, suited to a wide range of uses and to the needs of the human body. Most praiseworthy of all, Ming-style furniture is built entirely on frames joined by mortise and tenon (sunmao), with the various joints ingeniously fitted together and not a single nail or drop of glue used; the resulting furniture is precisely constructed, solid, and sturdy, and has won the admiration of experts in the field around the world. Metal fittings made of white copper, red copper, or gilded metal—such as corner braces, hinges, and feet—are likewise of exquisite form and soft hue, matching the furniture so that each sets off the other. Ming-style furniture comes in a great variety of types, falling mainly into six categories: seating, supports, beds, storage pieces, racks, and screens. Chairs, stools, and drum stools belong to the seating category; incense stands, flower stands, tables, and desks to the support category; beds and couches to the bed category; boxes, chests, cabinets, and cupboards to the storage category; washbasin stands, mirror stands, and clothes racks to the rack category; and standing screens and folding screens to the screen category. At present, for various reasons—a shortage of hardwood raw materials, a workforce that is mostly elderly, and the relatively poor skills of young craftsmen—the production of Ming-style furniture has run into problems. In addition, the market has been flooded with counterfeit and inferior hongmu furniture, which has also caused difficulties for the production of authentic Ming-style furniture. The Guangzuo hardwood furniture craft is a representative traditional folk handicraft of Guangzhou, and its history can be traced back to the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The Guangshi furniture craft is an important branch of Chinese furniture craftsmanship: while inheriting China's traditional furniture-making techniques, it also absorbed and adapted Western furniture culture, giving rise to strong Lingnan artistic characteristics. Guangshi furniture making emphasizes the careful selection of fine materials and meticulous workmanship; its carved areas are both broad and deeply cut, and its inlaying technique is applied with ease, opening a new fashion in furniture making. Guangshi furniture comes in a great variety of types and styles: besides the traditional tables, chairs, stools, beds, and small stands, there are types found in no other region or rarely seen elsewhere, such as the kang bed that can be used for both sleeping and sitting in the living room. Under the impact of mass-produced modern furniture, most Guangshi furniture factories have had difficulty operating, and few enterprises still persist in producing typical Guangshi furniture. The Guangshi furniture-making process is complex, and such important process steps as carving, inlaying, planing, and preparing blanks are all difficult to master. With old artisans dying one after another and new artisans not yet fully trained, a break has appeared in the transmission of the Guangshi furniture craft. Problems such as these obstruct the smooth transmission and development of the Guangshi furniture craft and urgently require plans to resolve them rationally. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Archival Records of Process Steps": The Guangshi furniture-making process is complex, and such important process steps as carving, inlaying, planing, and preparing blanks are all difficult to master. With old artisans dying one after another and new artisans not yet fully trained, a break has appeared in the transmission of the Guangshi furniture craft.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2009, Yang Xia was announced in the third batch of national representative bearers for Furniture Making Craftsmanship, with Guangzhou, Guangdong as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Furniture Making Craftsmanship in Guangzhou, Guangdong: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2008 (batch 2), with Guangzhou, Guangdong as its declared area, and Guangzhou Mudiaojiajugongyi Factory as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

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.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Yang Xia · National Representative Bearer Archive