Chongdefu
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Male, of Manchu ethnicity, born in 1954, a native of Beijing. He is a national representative bearer of the Mubanshuiyin (woodblock water-printing) technique, a first-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is also a senior technician at Rongbaozhai and a highly skilled talent recognized for outstanding contributions in Beijing. At the age of seventeen, Chongdefu went to work at Rongbaozhai, where he apprenticed under older-generation block-carving technicians such as Zhang Yanzhou, Sun Rixiao, and Zhang Jinshen, absorbing the carving methods of these masters. He devoted himself to studying the various folk woodblock printing techniques and, in response to Rongbaozhai's need to reproduce large-scale works of calligraphy and painting, worked out a set of experience and methods of his own. When carving, he holds the knife as if it were a brush and moves it with complete ease, joining his breath to his strength and channeling it through his hand and wrist to the tip of the blade. Chongdefu is recognized at Rongbaozhai as a backbone and authority in block-carving technique. He served as lead carver in the carving of such classic works as Qingming Shanghe Tu (Along the River During the Qingming Festival), Sunzi Bingfa Baijia Shu (Hundred Masters' Calligraphy of the Art of War), Xu Beihong's Qun Ma (Herd of Horses), and Qi Baishi's figure, flower-and-insect paintings, and he recarved some of the blocks of the Shizhuzhai Jianpu (Ten Bamboo Studio Letter Papers). In the transmission of the craft, he has played a linking role between the past and the future: he inherited and developed the techniques of the previous generation while passing them on without reserve to his four apprentices.
Honors & Recognition
In order to enhance artistic expressiveness, he diligently studied traditional calligraphy and painting, and through long accumulation and discipline he cultivated a steady and precise control of his work, attaining a high level of skill in using the carving knife to recover and reproduce the spirit of the original works.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
- Mubanshuiyinjiyi Ⅷ-77
- Mubanshuiyinjiyi Ⅷ-77
- Mubanshuiyinjiyi Ⅷ-77
Profile
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, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。