Inside-painted Art
01 · Historical Records
The inner-painting art transmitted in Shantou is the sole representative of the 'Yue school' of traditional Chinese inner painting; its founder was the late Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts Wu Songling.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Guangdong inner painting is a traditional art and craft. Using the composition, brushwork, and coloring techniques of Chinese painting, it paints with the reversed hand on the inner wall of glass bottles, creating a unique artistic marvel. Shantou is the central city of the eastern Guangdong (Yuedong) region, long known as a 'Zou and Lu by the sea' — that is, a coastal place as cultured as the ancient lands of Zou and Lu — with a rather deep cultural foundation. Guangdong inner painting stands out and forms a school of its own on the strength of its distinctive glass-bottle shapes, the decorative effect of gilding and coloring on the exterior of the bottles, its painted-coloring techniques, and its painting tools. Influenced by the Lingnan school's painting style, Guangdong inner painting has slender and delicate lines and rich, intense colors, with rich and colorful subject matter, bringing mountain and water scenery, birds and beasts, ancient and modern figures, and exotic flowers and plants onto the inner walls of bottles, and earning the reputation of a 'remarkable painting art'. Guangdong inner painting is a crystallization of the wisdom of folk artists. It is made entirely by hand, with distinct artistic characteristics and a strong local style, providing a unique case for the study of the history of arts and crafts and of Lingnan painting. Now that the master has passed away and the craftsmen who transmit the production skills are all over fifty, Guangdong inner painting faces a shortage of successors, and its prospects are worrying.
Wu Songling and the rise of the Guangdong school
The only representative of the Guangdong school of Chinese inside painting, founded by the late national arts and crafts master Wu Songling, who with his son Wu Zekun trained thirty-five apprentices at the Shantou institute and later special crafts factory.
Gilding and colouring outside the glass bottle
The school stands apart by its bottle forms, the gilded and painted decoration outside the glass, its colouring technique and its tools, all work being done by hand with a strongly local character.
Painting in reverse inside the bottle
Applying the composition, brushwork and colouring of Chinese painting, the artist works in reverse on the inner wall of the glass bottle, an art hailed as a curious wonder of painting.
Landscape, birds, figures and rare flowers
Under Lingnan influence its lines are slender and its colour rich, gathering waterscapes, birds and beasts, figures ancient and modern and rare flowers onto the inner wall of the vessel, a singular case for the history of craft and of Lingnan painting.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Guangdong inner painting takes Shantou City, Guangdong Province, as its center of the craft. Relying on the trade networks of the Chaoshan merchants, its works are mostly sold to Hong Kong, Macao, and various parts of Southeast Asia; hence it is called the 'Yue school' of inner painting. Yue-school inner painting mostly uses locally fired glass bottles, with gilding and coloring on the outside and reversed-hand painting on the inside. Painters reach into the mouth of the bottle with a self-made hooked brush, and must arrange the picture in reverse in their minds. Influenced by the Lingnan school of painting, Guangdong inner painting features slender lines and intense colors, often taking Chaoshan landscapes, birds and beasts, ancient and modern figures, and exotic flowers and plants as its subjects. Wu Songling and his son Wu Zekun taught disciples at the Shantou Arts and Crafts Research Institute, forming the early transmission genealogy of Yue-school inner painting; their successors mostly came from that institute and from the Special Crafts Factory. The shapes of Guangdong inner-painting bottles are varied, including round bottles, flat bottles, fish-shaped bottles, and bionic bottles; the inner walls of the bottles must be sand-polished before the pigment can adhere. In the 1980s, Shantou inner-painting works participated in national arts and crafts exhibitions on many occasions, and Wu Songling was awarded the title of Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Hengshui Inside-painted Art · Inside-painted Art · Inside-painted Art.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Wu Songling and his son Wu Zekun successively trained 35 inner-painting apprentices at the Shantou Arts and Crafts Research Institute (later renamed the 'Special Crafts Factory'), enabling this unique skill to be transmitted.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Xisan 01-0065
- Liu Shouben 03-1222
- Yang Zhigang
- Zhang Guangqing
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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