Xiuyan Jade Carving
01 · Historical Records
In the late Qing and early Republican period, a jade street formed in the Xiuyan area with more than three hundred practitioners, and there appeared the "Eight Great Artisans" of jade carving, led by Jiang Baotang, and the "Two Lis of Plain Work," represented by Li Dechun. From the 1950s to the end of the 1980s, the plain-work (suhuo) technique developed further; its representative work, the xiuyan jade tower censer Radiance of China, stands 3.15 meters high and is the largest plain vessel work in the history of Chinese jade carving to date. It won the Golden Cup Award in the national Hundred Flowers Awards evaluation, was designated a national treasure, and is held in the Great Hall of the People. Li Hongcai, a contemporary jade carving master born in 1942, has practiced the craft for more than forty years and has created many fine works and unique tour-de-force pieces. In 1964, his work was presented as a gift from the workers of Liaoning to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao Zedong.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xiuyan jade carving is a folk jade carving craft that developed with the Xiuyan area of Liaoning Province as its center. At the site of the 5,000-year-old Hongshan culture, "plain-work" (suhuo) craft objects made of xiuyan jade — jade dragons, jade pigs, human-faced jade tablets and beast-faced jade cong tubes — were excavated, showing that jade carving here began very early. At that time jade carving produced five major categories of goods: figures, flowers and birds, animals, florals and plain work, with the plain-work technique reaching a relatively high level. Xiuyan jade carving has rich techniques and is particularly noted for plain work; flexible rings and movable chains are its typical processes, of such difficulty that people of the world call them miraculous. The plain-work technique of Xiuyan jade carving inherits the traditional techniques of Chinese jade objects: the work is mainly three-dimensional circular carving and relief, supplemented by line carving, cut-out carving and openwork carving, and also employs methods such as hooking flowers, scattered flower hooking and top-strike flowers. It is especially adept at techniques such as cutting out impurities and removing streaks, applying skill according to the material, turning blemishes into beauty, making clever use of waste material, making clever use of contrasting colors, and screw-thread assembly. His tour-de-force jade work Ruyi Pot can pour out two different kinds of liquor, clearly separated; in Nine-Dragon Treasure Pavilion, a jade dragon breathes mist inside the pavilion, and a jade pearl hangs in the air and never falls. In 1999, when Macao returned to Chinese sovereignty, the jade work Round Moon at Double Ninth, designed and made by Li Hongcai and his apprentices, was presented as a gift from the Liaoning provincial government to the government of the Macao Special Administrative Region, and was widely acclaimed. At present, high-tech processes have entered the field of jade carving, dealing a heavy blow to handcraft skills; masters like Li Hongcai have become few and far between in the Xiuyan area, and the prospects for the transmission and development of Xiuyan jade carving are worrying, so protective measures need to be taken.
Plain ware
The plain-ware line excels in soft rings and live chains, combining round and relief carving with line, pierced and openwork cutting.
Hongshan jades
Jades of the five-thousand-year-old Hongshan culture show how early the local craft began.
Huaxia Lingguang
At 3.15 metres the largest vessel-and-plain-ware piece in Chinese jade history, awarded a gold cup and kept in the Great Hall of the People.
Li Hongcai's tricks
His Ruyi Pot pours two distinct wines, and in 1999 his workshop presented the jade Round Moon of September to Macao.
The eight masters and the two Li
Around 1900 the local jade street employed over three hundred people, giving rise to the eight masters led by Jiang Baotang.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The plain-work lineage of Xiuyan jade carving forms a system of its own: Wang Yunxiu imitates ancient vessels such as censers, bottles, tripods and xun incense burners from before the Qin and Han dynasties — balanced and stately, with even proportions, round and smooth — with ornamentation that is plain, elegant and sumptuous. Technically he makes extensive use of relief, combined with circular carving, openwork carving, and interior carving, which is called a "unique skill" (juehuo). After the Xiuyan County Jade Carving Factory went bankrupt in 1993, in order to keep this craft alive he single-handedly founded the Youlian Jade Carving Factory dedicated to Xiuyan jade plain work, and has taught the craft tirelessly.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Wang Yunxiu (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, Manchu ethnicity, born in 1957, a native of the Xiuyan Manchu Autonomous County, Liaoning. After the Xiuyan County Jade Carving Factory went bankrupt in 1993, in order to keep this craft alive he single-handedly founded the Youlian Jade Carving Factory dedicated to Xiuyan jade plain work, and has taught the craft tirelessly; his apprentices' skills are now maturing. Wang Yunxiu imitates ancient vessels such as censers, bottles, tripods and xun incense burners from before the Qin and Han dynasties — balanced, stately, with even proportions, round and smooth — with ornamentation that is plain, elegant and sumptuous. Technically he makes extensive use of relief processes, combined with circular carving, openwork carving, and interior carving, which is called a "unique skill" (juehuo), embodying traditional Chinese aesthetic concepts. Representative works include the Temple of Prayer for Good Harvests, Heavenly Rooster Zun Vessel, and Peace Brings Elephant Fragrance Zun. He is a representative inheritor of Xiuyan jade carving, an item of national-level intangible cultural heritage of the first batch, and an outstanding folk artisan of Liaoning Province.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Yunxiu 01-0092
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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