Huizhousandiao
01 · Historical Records
Its origins can be traced back to the Tang dynasty. With the rise of Huizhou merchants in the Ming and Qing periods, 'Wuyuan Three Carvings' reached its zenith on the strength of Huizhou-style architecture; the relevant skills are distributed mainly in certain towns, townships, and villages such as Jiangwan, Sikou, Longshan, Tuochuan, Zheyuan, Qinghua, Duanxin, and Zhentou. The carving on the 'Minister's Mansion' (Shangshu Di) built at Likeng, Tuochuan, Wuyuan County, in the 24th year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty (1596) by Yu Maoxue, Vice Minister of Revenue and Minister of Works, may be regarded as the earliest example of 'Wuyuan Three Carvings'; later, Yu Maoheng, Minister of Personnel of the Ming dynasty, also built the 'High Minister's Mansion' (Shangguan Qing Di) at Likeng in the sixth year of the Tianqi reign (1626).
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The territory of ancient Huizhou included what is today Huangshan City in Anhui Province and Wuyuan County in Jiangxi Province. 'Huizhou Three Carvings' is the collective name for three crafts practiced in ancient Huizhou: wood carving, brick carving, and stone carving. All are decorative carvings on Ming and Qing architecture of the ancient Huizhou region, with a strong local cultural character. Ancient Huizhou buildings consist mainly of dwellings, official residences, ancestral halls, temples, covered bridges, and memorial archways; whether building components or household furnishings, they have a strong regional style and attach great importance to carved decoration. Wood carving is generally used to decorate such parts of the house as crescent beams, architraves, dougong bracket sets, sparrow braces, beam humps (commonly called 'yuanbao', or ingots), flat plate heads, tenon ornaments, hook hangers, the lattice hearts of partition doors and windows, skirt panels, taohuan (border-strip) panels, lotus doors, window lattices, window rail panels, balustrades, gazebo ceilings, upper-floor edge guard boards, and hanging meshwork, while the furniture displayed inside the house — beds, couches, chairs, cabinets, tables, dressing stands, and occasional tables — is likewise adorned with fine wood carving. Brick carving mainly decorates the gate towers and door canopies of dwellings; stone carving is used chiefly for the stone balustrade panels of ancestral halls, the foundation stones of dwelling entrance walls, leak windows (openwork windows), and the decoration of stone archways. The 'Huizhou Three Carvings' are matched to the architecture as a whole with great tightness and security; the craftsmanship of their layout, the ingenuity of their structure, the beauty of their decoration, the refinement of their construction, and the depth of their content are awe-inspiring. Whether in wood, brick, or stone, the three carvings employ multiple techniques together — relief, openwork, round carving, and line engraving — from which one can trace the lineage of China's architectural decorative carving since the Han and Tang dynasties. At the same time, they reflect the influence of other art forms within Huizhou culture — such as the Xin'an school of painting, Huizhou woodblock prints, Huizhou seal carving, Huizhou inkstone carving, and ink-mold carving — on the style of Huizhou architectural decorative carving. The production procedures of the 'Huizhou Three Carvings' differ according to material, tools, and techniques. For example, the procedure for brick carving includes preparing the brick, laying out the design, blocking out the rough form, refining the detail, polishing, and repairing; the traditional tools are mainly charcoal sticks, chisels, brick planes, pry bars, wooden mallets, whetstones, emery cloth, bow saws, palm-fiber brushes, and hand drills. The procedure for wood carving includes selecting the material, laying out the design, blocking out the rough, medium, and fine forms, polishing, and applying oil and lacquer; the traditional tools are mainly small axes, hardwood mallets, chisels, carving knives, wire saws, whetstones, and emery cloth. The procedure for stone carving includes processing the stone, drafting the design, rough hewing, coarse dressing, hollowing out recesses, and fine finishing; the traditional tools are mainly chisels, wedges, flat chisels, engraving knives, hammers, axes, chopping axes, 'hazi' and 'duozi' chisels, and grinding heads. The traditional production skills of the 'Huizhou Three Carvings' have long circulated widely among the folk building and carving trades. After 1979, a number of ancient-architecture and garden construction enterprises were established one after another, some veteran 'Three Carvings' artisans were reorganized into teams, and they began to take on apprentices and pass on their skills. However, owing to changes in building materials and tools and to the calculation of construction costs, the traditional carving skills — which consume much time, labor, and material and whose knife techniques are difficult to master — were gradually excluded from practical use, and many skills have already been lost. 'Wuyuan Three Carvings' refers to the brick carving, stone carving, and wood carving found in Ming and Qing ancient buildings within Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province. It belongs to a branch of Huizhou-style architectural art, and its products are used mostly as decorative components on buildings such as dwellings, official residences, ancestral halls, temples, covered bridges, and memorial archways. In the 16th year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing dynasty (1659), Yu Weishu built the 'Sima Mansion' (Sima Di), marking the entry of 'Wuyuan Three Carvings' into an entirely new stage of development. In the 20th year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty (1681), the 'Hundred-Pillar Ancestral Hall' was completed at Huangcun, Gutan Township, in northern Wuyuan County; in the first year of the Qianlong reign (1736), a cluster of merchants' residences was built at Sixi and Yancun in Wuyuan County. The decoration of these buildings shows the 'Wuyuan Three Carvings' at the height of its prosperity. Although 'Wuyuan Three Carvings' is subordinate to Huizhou-style architecture, it fuses aesthetics, mechanics, mathematics, history, and ecology in a single crucible, possessing profound cultural substance and extremely high artistic value. The materials for 'Wuyuan Three Carvings' are chosen with great strictness: bricks must be locally produced water-polished black bricks; stone must be 'Yixian black' from Anhui, or Qingtian stone from Zhejiang and Chaqing stone from Chun'an; large wood carvings must use timber of maple, camphor, cypress, or chinquapin more than a hundred years old; fine wood carvings use nanmu, jujube, poplar, peach, and other woods with a fine, dense grain. The various knife techniques are the key to 'Wuyuan Three Carvings': their hallmark is that no single method is adhered to — they are mixed and used together so that the works attain an effect of airy transparency. Round carving, relief carving, shallow carving, deep carving, and openwork carving are therefore extremely common. Beginning with Liu Sanyuan, whose sobriquet was 'Carver of Three Carvings' (Diao San Diao), the skills of 'Wuyuan Three Carvings' formed a lineage of their own; at present, however, like 'Huizhou Three Carvings', they face the danger of being lost and urgently need rescue and support.
Strict choice of materials
Local water-milled grey bricks, Anhui black stone and century-old maple, camphor and cypress are specified for different classes of work.
The Minister's and Marshal's mansions
The 1596 Shangshu Mansion is taken as the earliest instance of the craft; the 1659 Sima Mansion opened a new stage.
The hundred-pillar hall
The 1681 hundred-pillar ancestral hall and the 1736 merchants' houses show the craft at its height.
The Emperor's Hunt
Yu Youhong's carving reaches nine layers with operable windows; he has also restored old buildings in Tunxi and Wuyuan.
Mixed knife work
The key lies in freely mixing knife methods, so that round, relief, shallow, deep and pierced carving all appear together.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The skills of Wuyuan Three Carvings formed their own lineage beginning with Liu Sanyuan, whose sobriquet was 'Carver of Three Carvings' (Diao San Diao). In 1979, Yu Yougui learned carpentry under Yu Kunlai of Wuyuan; in 1982, he studied wood carving under He Chaoqun of Xiuning, Anhui; later he traveled to Pucheng in Fujian, Shunde in Guangdong, and other places to study. In 1988, he founded the Hualong Wood Carving Factory of Wuyuan County and successively trained more than two hundred Wuyuan Three Carvings artisans. In 1991, Yu Youhong returned to his hometown and founded the Huizhou Carving Factory; he later founded the Youhong Huiyi Carving Factory, the Wuyuan Three Carvings Transmission Institute, and others.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Huizhousandiao.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Yu Yougui (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han, born in April 1965, from Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province. In 1979 he learned carpentry under Yu Kunlai of Wuyuan; in 1982 he studied wood carving under He Chaoqun of Xiuning, Anhui; later he traveled to Pucheng in Fujian, Shunde in Guangdong, and other places to study. Through long practice, he has mastered the three carving skills of Wuyuan: wood carving, stone carving, and brick carving. His works are rich in content and exquisite in technique. Several works, including the wood carving 'Purple Air Comes from the East' and the brick carving 'Zither, Chess, Calligraphy, and Painting', have been exhibited and have won prizes. Representative inheritor of Huizhou Three Carvings (Wuyuan Three Carvings), an intangible cultural heritage project of the third national-level batch. Winner of the Xinzhuan Prize for Inheritors of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage, awarded by the Chinese National Academy of Arts (China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center). In 2015, he was named a Model Worker of Jiangxi Province. Since founding the Hualong Wood Carving Factory of Wuyuan County in 1988, he has trained more than two hundred Wuyuan Three Carvings artisans. Yu Youhong (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han, born in November 1967, from Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province. In 1991 he returned to his hometown and founded the Huizhou Carving Factory; he later founded the Youhong Huiyi Carving Factory, the Wuyuan Three Carvings Transmission Institute, and others. He is expert in Huizhou carving; his representative work 'The Emperor's Hunting Expedition' has as many as nine layers of carving, and the windows he carved can actually be opened. Thanks to his unique wood-carving restoration skills, he has participated in the restoration of historic buildings such as Tunxi Old Street in Anhui and Xichongyuan in Wuyuan. Representative inheritor of Huizhou Three Carvings (Wuyuan Three Carvings), an intangible cultural heritage project of the fifth national-level batch. Several works, including 'A Time of Great Peace' and 'The Emperor's Hunting Expedition', have won prizes. Since 1991, he has taught the craft to more than forty people, five of whom — including Wang Xiaozi — have become municipal- and county-level representative inheritors of Wuyuan Three Carvings.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Fang Xinzhong 01-0099
- Feng Youjin 01-0100
- Wang Jinsheng 03-1243
- Yu Yougui 03-1244
- Kuaizhenghua 04-1784
- Cao Yongsheng 04-1785
- Wu Zhenghui 05-2610
- Yu Youhong 05-2611
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。