Yang Wen

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Yang Wen, Male, Han, from Huangshanshitunxi, Anhui, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Writing Brush Making Craftsmanship (Ⅷ-200). The tradition is documented in Huangshanshitunxi, Anhui. Within the regional tradition and school record of Writing Brush Making Craftsmanship in Huangshanshitunxi, Anhui: The special feature of this craft is that it can be divided into the 'wet' and 'dry' processes. The Huizhou brush-making craft was first created during the Northern Song dynasty. According to the 'Xin'an Gazetteer,' during the Northern Song a man named Wang Boli founded the 'Four Treasures Hall' at the seat of Shezhou Prefecture, producing all four treasures, and was especially renowned in the world for his brushes. By the time of Emperor Lizong of the Southern Song, Xie Ji, as prefect of Huizhou, again presented Wang Boli's brushes together with Chengxin Hall paper, Li Tinggui ink, and Wuyuan date-pit inkstone as tribute. From then on, Huizhou brushes were mostly tribute items, produced in very small quantities through the ages and mostly hidden deep in the palace archives, so that very few actual specimens have survived to the present.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, of Han ethnicity, born in October 1969 in Huangshan City, Anhui Province. He is a national representative bearer of Writing Brush Making Craftsmanship (Hui Brush Making Craftsmanship), a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a Hui brush making technician. Born into a brush-making family whose forebears' brushes were once tribute items, he took part in brush making from childhood under the influence of a supportive family setting. In 1987 he worked at the Hengyun Brush Factory. In 1994 he founded the Yang Wen Brush Studio on Tunxi Old Street in Huangshan City. In 2006 he established the Huangshan Hui Brush Craft Research Institute. He has preserved the traditional seventy-two stages of Huizhou brush making while innovating within them, and is meticulous in selecting hair, the finest brushes using a single tip chosen from ten thousand hairs. The brushes he makes possess the four traditional virtues of sharpness, evenness, roundness and resilience, and also meet the performance requirements of modern brushwork, ink and colour, making them excellent tools for painting and calligraphy. Within the documented technical tradition of Writing Brush Making Craftsmanship in Huangshanshitunxi, Anhui: The Huizhou brush, also called the 'Wang Boli brush' or the 'Xin'an brush,' is one of the four treasures of the study of Huizhou, named for being produced in Huizhou (today Huangshan City, Anhui Province). The Huizhou brush-making craft is a traditional technique, famed for fine material selection and complex workmanship, that produces the Huizhou brush renowned worldwide for its four virtues of 'pointed, even, round, and resilient,' mainly spread through the southern Anhui area, including Shexian, Yixian, Xiuning, Jixi, Qimen, and Wuyuan. The Huizhou brush is characterised by holding much ink, opening and closing easily, controlling the ink flow well, suiting both writing and painting, and fully expressing the ink tones of scorched, dense, heavy, light, and clear. Huizhou brush making stresses superior materials and fine manufacture. Material selection is roughly divided into two aspects: the choice of head material and the choice of shaft material. For the head, selection follows the saying 'a thousand hairs to choose one,' mainly including wool, rabbit hair, horse hair, deer hair, badger hair, raccoon-dog hair, rat hair, weasel tail hair, chicken feathers, pig hair, monkey hair, tiger hair, fox hair, ox-ear hair, and infant hair. For the shaft, the materials include water bamboo, mottled bamboo, red sandalwood, sandalwood, lacquerware, mother-of-pearl, jade, porcelain, and so on. The head-making process mostly takes place in water; the traditional 'wet' process has 72 steps, mainly including selecting hair material, layering hair, removing grease, removing skin fat and down, levelling the tip, mixing hair materials, combing the hair sheet, rolling the brush column, covering with outer hair, and binding the brush root. The 'dry' process refers to the steps other than the head: mainly selecting the shaft, mounting the head, gluing the head, the shaft, trimming the head, setting the brush shape, and carving characters. The Huizhou brush is finely selected, excellently made, beautifully shaped, and strongly artistic, with high collectible value, and it contributed greatly to the spread of Chinese culture and the formation of the Xin'an painting school. The Huizhou brush-making craft, transmitted for a thousand years with wide influence, is an important part of Huizhou culture, bears witness to the historical development of Chinese calligraphy and painting culture, and holds considerable socio-cultural value. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "": "Process-Step Record": The head-making process mostly takes place in water; the traditional 'wet' process has 72 steps, mainly including selecting hair material, layering hair, removing grease, removing skin fat and down, levelling the tip, mixing hair materials, combing the hair sheet, rolling the brush column, covering with outer hair, and binding the brush root.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is committed to safeguarding and transmitting Hui brush making; his son Yang Da has been recognised as a municipal-level bearer of intangible cultural heritage. In June 1999 he took part in the Kunming Art Expo, where he received the gold prize for fine works presented by the organising committee, and the exhibits were permanently collected by the expo bureau.

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. Yang Wen · National Representative Bearer Archive