Kang Yusheng

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He later studied under Jiao Diangong, learning the techniques of weaving, leveling, cutting and repairing. Within the regional tradition and school record of Ditan Weaving Craftsmanship in Beijing: During the Tang dynasty, both imperial courts and the residences of the wealthy laid out carpets. In the Yuan dynasty, influenced by the Mongolian way of life, the imperial court established workshops for sheared floral carpets, among others. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, carpet weaving in Gansu, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Beijing, and other places developed rapidly. Carpet-weaving techniques were introduced to China from the Western Regions during the Western Han dynasty, and by the Tang dynasty the craft in the Central Plains had largely matured. Since the 20th century, Beijing palace carpets have developed further. In 1900, Beijing palace carpets won a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, France. By 1920, there were already 354 Beijing palace carpet workshops, making it one of China's principal carpet-producing regions. In 1956, the publicly-private Beijing No. 1 Carpet Factory was established; it later merged with the Third Carpet Cooperative, renamed "Xicheng Carpet Factory," and in 1965 was renamed "Beijing No. 5 Carpet Factory." From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, exports of Beijing palace carpets were at their peak, earning wide international renown.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnic group, born in February 1933, a native of Beijing. A national representative bearer of Carpet Weaving Craftsmanship (Beijing Palace Carpet Weaving Craftsmanship), a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a carpet weaving technician. In 1947 he was apprenticed to Chen Ziquan at the Jushuncheng Carpet Factory, where he studied pattern drawing and color coordination. He has mastered the complete set of techniques and has innovatively summarized an integrated operational method, namely level, smooth, accurate, even and grounded, together with eight crafting techniques, namely pressing, squeezing, padding, nailing, trimming, wedging, reversing and moistening, which have been incorporated into the teaching and quality assessment standards of the trade. He excels at exploiting the dimensions of a carpet and the directional structure of its double warp threads to vary the arrangement of inserted pile and knotted tufts and to alter the form of the patterns. His artistic style is fluent, handsome, flexible and delicate: seen close at hand it resembles a painting, and from a distance it carries a lingering resonance. In 2005 he took part in the rescue and recovery of the weaving technique for gold-wound silk carpets. His representative works include Guose Tianxiang (National Beauty and Heavenly Fragrance) and Xianshou Tu (Immortals and Longevity). His apprentices include Wang Guoying, Miao Guifu and Gao Chunrong. Within the documented technical tradition of Ditan Weaving Craftsmanship in Beijing: The handcraft of hand-knotted wool pile carpet weaving is a Chinese manual craft rich in ethnic character; it coils wool yarn into knots that are looped onto a carpet base woven from interlacing cotton warp and weft threads, forming a raised pile surface. Carpet weaving with wool yarn in China began roughly in the Neolithic period. The two-ply wool pile carpets unearthed from the Lop Nur area of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and from a Han-dynasty tomb in Minfeng County show that carpet weaving had already reached a high level by the Eastern Han period. The craft of carpet weaving comprises stages such as design, weaving, surface leveling, clipping (cutting flat patterns into three-dimensional relief with scissors), washing, and finishing. Some of the wool yarn used for weaving is still dyed with ancient plant-based dyes. Chinese carpets are not only daily necessities for ethnic-minority communities but are also exported abroad in large quantities. Carpet patterns draw on the characteristics of ancient bronzes, embroidery, brocade, porcelain, and other decorative arts, while carpets of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Tibet each display their own distinct artistic features. Beijing hand-made carpets were formerly called "guanfang tan" (official-workshop carpets) and also "gong tan" (palace carpets). In the Yuan dynasty the carpet industry flourished, and large-scale weaving workshops emerged. In the Ming dynasty, government-run carpet institutions began weaving high-quality official-workshop carpets. After the Qing dynasty, the patterns of Beijing official-workshop carpets gradually developed an artistic style blending the colors and motifs of multiple ethnic groups. The craft of Beijing hand-made carpet weaving mainly comprises three aspects: first, the specialized equipment used in weaving, namely the loom beam; second, the dedicated tools and measuring instruments for weaving; and third, the traditional division of the craft into two technical types—draw-twist carpet weaving and pull-twist carpet weaving. The production process of Beijing palace carpets mainly consists of three stages—preliminary preparation, carpet forming, and beautification and finishing—characterized by: first, refined pattern design and flawless conception; second, careful material selection and accurate yarn matching; and third, meticulous processing pursued to perfection. Beijing hand-made carpets fully embody traditional Chinese culture and the art of the Beijing court; the trade calls them "Jingshi carpets" (Beijing-style carpets), and building on this foundation they spread to the folk, giving them both imperial grandeur and folk flavor. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Documented Process Steps": The production process of Beijing palace carpets mainly consists of three process steps—preliminary preparation, carpet forming, and beautification and finishing—characterized by: first, refined pattern design and flawless conception; second, careful material selection and accurate yarn matching; and third, meticulous processing pursued to perfection.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2009, Kang Yusheng was announced in the third batch of national representative bearers for Ditan Weaving Craftsmanship, with Beijing as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Ditan Weaving Craftsmanship in Beijing: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2008 (batch 2), with Beijing as its declared area, and Beijing Hua FangDiTan Art Co., Ltd. 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. Kang Yusheng · National Representative Bearer Archive