Wu Weiming
01 · Lineage & Regional School
In 1953 he entered a porcelain factory and studied ceramic painting under the veteran artisan Wu Weisong. Within the regional tradition and school record of Fengxici Firing Craftsmanship in Chaozhoushifengxi, Guangdong: The Fengxi porcelain firing craft centers on the Fengxi District of Chaozhou City, Guangdong Province. Beginning in the Neolithic period more than eight thousand years ago, porcelain had already appeared in Chaozhou, Guangdong. The Fengxi porcelain firing craft is unique: workshops are distributed along both banks of the Fengxi, every household taking porcelain as its trade, and its products were sold far to Southeast Asia along with the Chaozhou port and the eastern-Guangdong salt industry. After the Song dynasty, Chaozhou's Fengxi became a center of ceramic production, a situation that has continued to this day.
02 · Mastery & Signature Works
Born in August 1938 in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, he is a man of the Han ethnic group. He is a national representative bearer of Fengxi porcelain firing craftsmanship, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a senior crafts artist. In 1960 he attended the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts for further study. He later pursued advanced study at museums in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Dunhuang, which laid a sound foundation for his artistic creation. He long worked on ceramic painting, shaping and decorative design, drawing widely on the compositional methods of Han dynasty pictorial stone reliefs and on Western modernist styles, and designed a large number of underglaze polychrome and display porcelain works noted for graceful forms, soft lines and restrained colours with a strongly modern flavour. Within the documented technical tradition of Fengxici Firing Craftsmanship in Chaozhoushifengxi, Guangdong: Beginning in the Neolithic period more than eight thousand years ago, porcelain had already appeared in Chaozhou, Guangdong. The Fengxi porcelain firing craft employs many techniques—carving, modeling, openwork, pinching, appliqué, engraving, incising, stamping, and pressing—and its decorative means are rich and varied, of which openwork carving and pinch modeling are the most famous. Fengxi porcelain artisans are good at shaping human and animal figures through realistic, exaggerated, and transformed approaches; the products are highly artistic, brilliant and lustrous, with a unique spirit and charm. Also unique in the Fengxi porcelain firing craft is the "openwork porcelain-flower" technique that combines fully openwork artistic colored porcelain with pinch-modeled porcelain flowers: that is, various patterns are openwork-carved on the original body, and various flowers are pinch-modeled from porcelain clay, then fired in the kiln. In addition, there are unique processes such as multi-level openwork and three-dimensional porcelain floral sculpture, all of which can be called superb craftsmanship. With the changing times and the restructuring of porcelain enterprises, the original creative personnel scattered; many veteran porcelain artisans were forced to change trades to make a living, and most of the middle-aged and young artisans went into business, resulting in a situation of few successors. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Nine shaping methods": Carving, modelling, piercing, pinching, applying, incising,hua, stamping and pressing, with piercing and modelling the most celebrated. "Realistic and exaggerated figures": Chao opera figures and folk tales are modelled at once true to life and freely exaggerated, with a brilliance quite their own. "Eight thousand years of Chao pottery": Pottery in Chaozhou reaches back eight thousand years, and the workshops along the river still trade under the name of the old kilns.
Nine shaping methods
Carving, modelling, piercing, pinching, applying, incising,划, stamping and pressing, with piercing and modelling the most celebrated.
Realistic and exaggerated figures
Chao opera figures and folk tales are modelled at once true to life and freely exaggerated, with a brilliance quite their own.
Eight thousand years of Chao pottery
Pottery in Chaozhou reaches back eight thousand years, and the workshops along the river still trade under the name of the old kilns.
03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status
He has consistently worked to cultivate ceramic talent, teaching and transmitting the craft by personal example as well as verbal instruction.
04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier
Historical origin
After the Song dynasty, Chaozhou's Fengxi became a center of ceramic production, a situation that has continued to this day.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wang Longcai | Chaozhoushifengxi, Guangdong | 03-1353 | Same declared area |
| Wu Weiming | Chaozhoushifengxi, Guangdong | 04-1875 | This page |
| Wu Weichao | Chaozhoushifengxi, Guangdong | — | Same declared area |
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。