Ji Tianyuan

01 · Lineage & Regional School

From childhood she learned puppet head carving from her father Ji Guifang, a representative bearer of Taishun marionette theatre, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Within the regional tradition and school record of Puppet Head Carving in Taishun, Zhejiang: To this day, stories of the puppet master's spirit manifesting itself still circulate among the local people. In the late years of the Southern Song, string puppet theater was transmitted from Hangzhou to Taishun; at first, string-puppet performers also carved puppet heads, and during the Ming and Qing periods specialized puppet-head carving artisans appeared.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Han ethnic group, born in November 1964 in Taishun County, Zhejiang Province. From 1982 to 1987 she attended training successively at the Wenzhou arts and crafts sculpture programme, the Zhejiang Arts and Crafts School, the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Changming Toy Factory in Fujian Province. In 1987 she founded the Taishun County Arts and Crafts Toy Research Institute. She has worked for nearly thirty years in puppet head carving and in the design and making of turned-wood toys; representative works such as Antique-Style Doll, Tang-Style Court Lady and Theatrical Figure Types have been shown in exhibitions at various levels and have won awards. Within the documented technical tradition of Puppet Head Carving in Taishun, Zhejiang: Taishun puppet-head carving is a puppet modeling art circulated in Taishun County, Zhejiang Province. Taishun puppet-head carving reached a high level during the Ming and Qing periods, and is renowned for 'fine and concise carving, quiet and beautiful facial modeling, simple and plain painting of facial patterns, meticulous and refined pastel-color technique, and puppet figures each with a distinct character'. Taishun puppet-head carving combines carving technique with painted-color craft: the head is first carved into shape from camphor wood or other hardwood of relatively fine grain, after which pastel-color painting is applied. The carving mnemonic runs: split the four sides, fix the center, find the triangle, trim the circle. Its modeling characteristic is to exaggerate and distort the proportions of the head, with brisk and succinct lines and handsome stage images; the sheng, dan, jing, mo, and chou role types, and loyal, treacherous, worthy, and foolish characters, each have their own distinguishing traits. To enhance expressiveness, Taishun puppet heads have grown from the traditional 15 model types to more than 180, with nearly 300 facial patterns, and the facial movement techniques in particular have increased from a few to 15. The mechanism settings that allow the facial structure to move are used mostly on the heads of chou, jing, and spirit-monster figures. For sheng and dan figures, the eyes are set to glance left and right. Taishun puppet-head carving has developed continuously on the basis of inheriting tradition, forming a puppet modeling art with the local characteristics of southern Zhejiang. Taishun puppet-head carving relies mostly on family and master-apprentice transmission, and has many renowned masters. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The carver's mnemonic": The inherited carving mnemonic of Taishun puppet heads, worked first in camphor or fine-grained wood and then painted in powder colours. "From fifteen heads to over 180 face designs": To widen expression Taishun expanded from fifteen traditional head types to more than 180, with nearly 300 face designs and fifteen facial mechanisms. "The moving facial mechanisms": Mechanisms are fitted mostly to clown, painted-face and demon heads, while sheng and dan heads are given eyes that glance from side to side. "Ji Tianyuan and the Taishun craft toy institute": The national inheritor Ji Tianyuan, born 1964, trained in Wenzhou and at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and founded the Taishun craft toy institute in 1987.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Puppet Head Carving (Taishun puppet head carving), a fifth-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. Ji Tianyuan · National Representative Bearer Archive