Liang Desong
01 · Lineage & Regional School
He was born into a family of Miao painting and learned to paint from his father from childhood. Within the regional tradition and school record of Miaohua in Baojing, Hunan: Yang Chuxin excelled at painting wild mountain flowers and plants, insects, birds, and animals, and was widely welcomed by local Miao women. In the early twentieth century, Liang Qiurui, a Miao artist of Baojing County in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Hunan Province, inherited the technique of painting Miao paintings and transmitted and developed it within his family. The images commonly seen in the paintings include dragons, phoenixes, flowers, plants, fish, shrimp, insects, birds, bamboo, and trees. Drawn with care by the painter and combined with the Miao totemic motifs, they organically unite on the surface of the painting the history of the migrations of the ancient Miao ancestors with the mountains, rivers, clouds, sun and moon, human figures, and buildings of the natural world, as well as the immortals and benevolent deities of legend, so that every pattern and every color scheme in the painting contains rich cultural meaning.
02 · Mastery & Signature Works
Male, of the Miao ethnic group, born in November 1964 in Baojing County, Hunan Province. His painting combines realism with abstraction, exaggeration with distortion, and metaphor with symbolism, and depicts Miao cultural history, production and daily life and folk beliefs; his subjects are wide-ranging and his meanings rich, his images marvellous and his style romantic, full of a strong local flavour and artistic power. His works have been shown many times in exhibitions and display activities, and some have been collected by art museums. Flowing Gold on the You River Celebrates the Anniversary, Radiant Colour from Ludong Casts Glory set a Guinness World Record for the largest hand-made Miao painting. Within the documented technical tradition of Miaohua in Baojing, Hunan: Miao painting is an independent genre of painting that developed on the basis of traditional monochrome embroidery design drafts. Miao embroidery originally used papercuts as embroidery patterns. By the end of the Qing dynasty, a Miao man skilled in painting named Wang Zhengyi began painting white starch paste directly onto dark-colored cloth, replacing the old "cuoben" papercut templates, so that women could embroider directly following the painted drafts. These embroidery drafts painted on plain cloth were vivid and full of charm; their lines were fluid and expressive, and they were warmly welcomed by the women. People were reluctant to cover these beautiful lines with embroidery thread, so they hung the painted drafts on the wall as decoration. Wang Zhengyi accordingly changed the white line drawing into polychrome painting, making it a purely cloth-based painting used for clothing, window curtains, door curtains, and interior decoration. Later, Wang Zhengyi passed on the craft of painting Miao paintings to his wife's younger brother Yang Chuxin and his brothers. The Miao paintings created by the Liang family are rich in subject matter, and their content largely reflects the historical and contemporary conditions of Miao culture, production and daily life, commodity trade, and folk belief. The painters combine realistic and abstract, exaggerated and deformed, free and rigorous modes of expression, giving the paintings a highly distinctive aesthetic value and a romantic style that is at once plain and primitive and warmly unrestrained. The compositions are bold, the lines well ordered, the colors rich and harmonious, gorgeous without vulgarity, and the works have a marked national character. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Wang Zhengyi's turn to colour": Late in the Qing, Wang Zhengyi replaced paper-cut embroidery patterns with white paste drawing on dark cloth and then turned the line drawing into colour painting. "Costume, quilts and hall curtains": Miao painting still appears on costume, quilt covers, bed and door curtains, hall hangings, bed edges, wall pieces and ornaments, mostly on auspicious themes. "Dragons, phoenixes and totems": Dragons, phoenixes, flowers, fish, insects, birds and bamboo are joined with totemic motifs to set migration history alongside mountains, rivers and legendary beings. "Yang Chuxin's wild flowers": Wang passed the craft to his brother-in-law Yang Chuxin, whose wild flowers, insects and beasts won over local Miao women and carried the art down family lines.
Wang Zhengyi's turn to colour
Late in the Qing, Wang Zhengyi replaced paper-cut embroidery patterns with white paste drawing on dark cloth and then turned the line drawing into colour painting.
Costume, quilts and hall curtains
Miao painting still appears on costume, quilt covers, bed and door curtains, hall hangings, bed edges, wall pieces and ornaments, mostly on auspicious themes.
Dragons, phoenixes and totems
Dragons, phoenixes, flowers, fish, insects, birds and bamboo are joined with totemic motifs to set migration history alongside mountains, rivers and legendary beings.
Yang Chuxin's wild flowers
Wang passed the craft to his brother-in-law Yang Chuxin, whose wild flowers, insects and beasts won over local Miao women and carried the art down family lines.
03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status
He is a representative bearer of Miao painting, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. All of his children are bearers of the next generation.
04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier
Historical origin
In the early twentieth century, Liang Qiurui, a Miao artist of Baojing County in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Hunan Province, inherited the technique of painting Miao paintings and transmitted and developed it within his family. The images commonly seen in the paintings include dragons, phoenixes, flowers, plants, fish, shrimp, insects, birds, bamboo, and trees. Drawn with care by the painter and combined with the Miao totemic motifs, they organically unite on the surface of the painting the history of the migrations of the ancient Miao ancestors with the mountains, rivers, clouds, sun and moon, human figures, and buildings of the natural world, as well as the immortals and benevolent deities of legend, so that every pattern and every color scheme in the painting contains rich cultural meaning.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liang Desong | Baojing, Hunan | 05-2706 | This page |
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。