Huang Cailiang

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Huang Cailiang, Male, Han, from Ninghai, Zhejiang, is a fourth-batch national representative bearer of Ningbo Nijincaiqi (Ⅶ-109). The tradition is documented in Ninghai, Zhejiang. Within the regional tradition and school record of Ningbo Nijincaiqi in Ninghai, Zhejiang: It is now mainly distributed in Ninghai County, Ningbo City, and the surrounding areas. Clay-gold painted lacquerware is closely bound up with the lives of ordinary people in the Ningbo region: from large bedroom furniture such as beds and cabinets down to small daily utensils such as carrying buckets, fruit boxes, and hat tubes, all of it reflects local living habits and folk customs. Its origins can be traced back to a wooden-bodied red-lacquered bowl more than 7,000 years old, unearthed from the Hemudu site in Yuyao. During the Qing dynasty, Ningbo clay-gold painted lacquerware continued to advance, carrying forward its glorious history. During the Republican era, Ningbo clay-gold painted lacquerware also enjoyed a period of glory; its works frequently appeared at exhibitions in China and abroad and were highly praised by people at home and overseas. At the First National Folk Arts and Crafts Exhibition held in 1953, Ningbo clay-gold painted lacquerware works such as the double-dragon carrying bucket, rice bowl, and powder case received praise from connoisseurs.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han, born in July 1957 in Ninghai County, Zhejiang Province. A senior arts and crafts artist and a master of arts and crafts of Zhejiang Province. He has been engaged in the craft of Ningbo gold-painted lacquer (nijin caiqi) since the age of seventeen. In the early 1990s he founded the Dongfang Art Studio, devoting himself to transmitting and developing the techniques of gold-painted lacquer and of Qing-dao wood-carved Buddhist statues. Combining design, painting, carving and lacquering skills in one person, he is highly proficient. His gold-painted lacquer works such as the Fruit Bucket Series won a gold award at the China (Zhejiang) Arts and Crafts Fine Works Expo and several other prizes, while his Qing-dao wood carving Guanyin on a Leaf and eighteen gold-painted lacquer works were collected respectively by the Nara Museum in Japan and the Heilongjiang Provincial Arts and Crafts Museum. He opened a specialised class in gold-painted lacquer at Ninghai County No. 1 Vocational Middle School in order to teach the craft. Within the documented technical tradition of Ningbo Nijincaiqi in Ninghai, Zhejiang: Clay-gold painted lacquerware is a lacquer-applying craft characterized by the combination of clay-gold and colored-lacquer techniques, and is one of Ningbo's three traditional “gold” crafts. Clay-gold painted lacquerware has a long history. The craft reached the height of its production in the Ming dynasty; as the Zhejiang Gazetteer records, “during the Xuande reign of the Great Ming, Ningbo clay-gold painted lacquerware and gold-traced lacquerware were renowned at home and abroad.” Clay-gold painted lacquerware takes Chinese raw lacquer and gold leaf as its main materials. According to differences in production method, it is divided into three types: clay piling (relief modeling), powder-paste outlining, and clay-gold colored painting. A single technique can be used on its own to make an object, or all three methods can be combined to produce a richly crafted product. Clay piling is the most distinctive technique of clay-gold painted lacquerware: raw lacquer mixed with tile ash or oyster-shell ash in set proportions is pounded into lacquer clay, which is piled onto a primed wooden body to build up landscapes, flowers and birds, figures, pavilions, and other decorative motifs; the relief is then gilded and painted in color. With an elegant, plain, and richly colorful style, clay-gold painted lacquerware can be widely applied to the surface decoration of household buildings and everyday utensils, and can also serve as artwork for display in halls. As people's lifestyles and concepts have changed, clay-gold painted lacquerware has gradually lost its market for survival. Today, only a few artisans in Ninghai County still produce it; elsewhere it has become rare. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Piled clay relief": Its most distinctive method: raw lacquer, tile ash or oyster-shell ash are pounded into putty and piled on the wood base as landscape, bird-and-flower or figure relief, then gilded. "Powder lines and gold painting": By method it divides into piled relief, powder-line and gold-and-colour painting, used singly or in combination on a single object. "The Hemudu red lacquer bowl": Its roots reach the seven-thousand-year-old red lacquer bowl from Hemudu; by the Ming Xuande reign Ningbo's gold-and-colour lacquer was famous at home and abroad. "Buckets, boxes and beds": From bedroom furniture to carrying buckets, sweet boxes and hat tubs, the lacquer ware reflects local habits and folk custom.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a national representative bearer of Ningbo gold-painted lacquer, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

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. Huang Cailiang · National Representative Bearer Archive