Yan Senlin

04-1895Inkstone Making CraftsmanshipTraditional CraftsmanshipYinchuan, NingxiaBatch 4 (2012)

Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire

Male, Han ethnicity, born in November 1952 in Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. A representative bearer of the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects in inkstone making craftsmanship (Helan inkstone making craftsmanship). Growing up in a family of inkstone makers, he learned Helan inkstone making from his father Yan Zijiang from childhood. In sixty years of practice he has inherited the traditional craft and design style of Yan family inkstones, working chiefly on the principles of reading the stone and drawing out its colouring, acting according to the material, fine carving and polishing, and a wide range of subjects; he makes full use of the colour distribution, natural shape, size and thickness of the raw stone in designing and making his inkstones, achieving an artistic effect in which pattern and ground set each other off. His representative works include the Gourd inkstone, the Li Bai Viewing the Waterfall inkstone and the Majestic Helan inkstone; fresh and elegant yet vigorous and archaic, with flowing forms, ingenious conceptions and delicate, round and lustrous textures, they are highly ornamental and artistic and display the regional character of Helan inkstones.

References & Archival Sources

Yan Senlin · National Representative Bearer Archive

Representative Items of This Bearer

Profile

Representative item: Inkstone Making Craftsmanship
Item code: Ⅷ-133
Category: Traditional Craftsmanship
Region: Yinchuan, Ningxia
Born: 1952.11.03
Batch: Batch 4 (2012)

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