Bamboo Carving
01 · Historical Records
The art of Jiading bamboo carving was founded by Zhu He during the Zhengde and Jiajing eras of the Ming Dynasty (1506–1566) and was transmitted mainly within Jiading County (District). During the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty, Wu Zhi created the shallow-ground yangwen carving method — elegant, vigorous, and richly layered — which contemporaries called the work of “ghostly axes and divine skill.” After 1949, Jiading bamboo carving acquired professional guild organizations and research institutions.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The art of Jiading bamboo carving is practiced in the Jiading area of Shanghai; Jiading lies in the northwest of Shanghai, with the Liu River to its north, and abounds in bamboo. Zhu He integrated the arts of calligraphy and painting into bamboo carving, creating the “deep-carving technique” characterized by openwork and deep relief, and making bamboo carving an independent art of appreciation. His son Zhu Ying and his grandson Zhu Zhizheng both inherited the bamboo-carving craft of the older generation and developed it further. Zhu Ying's knife work was richer than Zhu He's, while Zhu Zhizheng's achievement went further still, surpassing both his father and grandfather: his knife work was superb, and his style simple, refined, plain, and honest. The three generations of the family established the basic character of Jiading bamboo-carving art and are known in history as the “Three Zhus.” After the “Three Zhus,” the “Four Masters of Jiading” — Li Liufang, Lou Jian, and others — also practiced the Zhu family's “deep-carving method” on bamboo as a pastime alongside their calligraphy and painting. There were also the three brothers Feng Xilu, Feng Xijue, and Feng Xizhang, who excelled in round carving and were adept at human figures; their works, vivid and lifelike, carried Jiading bamboo carving into its full flourishing. Zhou Hao gathered together the greatest achievements of Jiading bamboo carving; using his knife like a brush, he produced works that are vivid and complete, praised by the world as “peerless masterpieces.” Comparable in fame to Zhou Hao were Zhou Li and Shi Tianzhang, known at the time as the “Three Artisans of Jiading.” As early as the early Qing Dynasty, Jiading bamboo carvings were sent to the court as tribute. The Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors not only collected them but also summoned artisans such as Feng Xilu, Feng Xizhang, and Shi Tianzhang to serve in the imperial palace; the Qianlong Emperor even wrote his own poems on brush pots for Jiading bamboo carvers to engrave. In the late Qing Dynasty, Jiading bamboo carving was concentrated within Jiading city, with workshops standing in great numbers and shops abounding. Shi Dajing's “Wenxiu Studio,” Han Yu's “Yunxia Studio,” Ye Duanfu's “Cuiqing Studio,” Zhang Xuehai's “Wenyu Studio,” Zhu Houfu's “Youyangzu,” Fan Yatang's “Wenyuan Studio,” Shen Zhuxiang's “Ruizhi Studio,” as well as “Pan Songyun Studio” and “Xie Yinxuan” all had some influence; yet by this time the whole bamboo-carving trade had begun to stagnate and decline. Traditionally, Jiading bamboo carving was transmitted mainly within families and from masters to apprentices; numerous schools — the Zhu school of relief and openwork carving, the Feng school of round carving, the Wu school of shallow-ground yangwen carving, the Zhou school of southern-school painting, and others — all have successors. Jiading bamboo carvers use the knife in place of the brush, fusing calligraphy, painting, poetry, literature, and seal carving into one and giving bamboo new life; their works acquire a scholarly air and the flavor of bronze and stone, elegant and beyond the commonplace, and became refined playthings of literati and officials throughout the dynasties. The forms of Jiading bamboo carving mostly suit literati taste: brush pots, incense cylinders, arm rests, table screens, and couplet panels made from bamboo tubes and strips, as well as figures, landscapes, plants, and animals carved from bamboo roots. Its techniques include shallow carving, deep carving, shallow-ground yangwen, low relief, high relief, openwork, round carving, and more than ten others; they display a clear regional style and striking originality, and their aesthetic value far exceeds their practical value. Because Jiading bamboo carving is purely handmade, with a complex process that is time-consuming and laborious, it is difficult to produce on a large scale and yields low economic returns, so most artisans have changed occupations. In addition, with the advance of urbanization, large stretches of bamboo groves have disappeared and raw materials for bamboo carving have become scarce.
Archival Records of Process Steps
Because Jiading bamboo carving is purely handmade, with a complex process that is time-consuming and laborious, it is difficult to produce on a large scale and yields low economic returns, so most artisans have changed occupations.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
By the Qianlong era, Jiading bamboo carving had a great array of schools, with Zhou Hao as their leading figure.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Bamboo Carving · Bamboo Carving · Bamboo Carving · Bamboo Carving · Bamboo Carving · Bamboo Carving · Bamboo Carving.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The principal inheritors of this craft today include Fan Xunyuan, Zhang Yingyao, Fan Qichang, Ding Liliang, Wang Wei, Wang Leping, Zhang Weizhong, Jiang Yuming, Su Yurong, Zhuang Long, Zhou Keng, Zhang Weizhong, and Jiang Yuming. Moreover, no Chinese-painting painter trained at art academies has taken up the knife to carve bamboo; the lack of communication and exchange between calligraphers and painters on the one hand and bamboo carvers on the other has caused the cultural content of Jiading bamboo carving to be gradually lost. All of this has led the art of Jiading bamboo carving toward decline, and measures must be formulated as a matter of urgency for its rescue. Wang Wei (from the official archive of associated inheritors): Male, Han ethnicity, born in September 1956, a native of Shanghai. He later pursued advanced study in the Crafts Department of the China Academy of Art, systematically learning sculpture and painting techniques. In 1988 he was transferred to the Jiading Museum, where he established the bamboo-carving crafts department. In 2005 he became vice-chairman of the Jiading Bamboo Carving Association. He transmits the traditional techniques of Jiading bamboo carving; his works are rich in humanistic atmosphere and scholarly flavor. Representative works include “Low-Relief Landscape and Figure Arm Rest,” “Shallow-Ground Yangwen Cloth-Bag Monk Arm Rest,” and “Openwork Brush Pot with the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove”; “Sunken-Ground Table Screen of Dongfang Shuo” and “Low-Relief Brush Pot with Literati at Play in the Bamboo Grove” have been collected by the Jiading Museum. Representative inheritor of bamboo carving (Jiading bamboo carving), a project of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Cengjiantan 01-0107
- Qiao Jinhong 03-1248
- Xu Bingfang 03-1249
- Luo Qisong 03-1250
- Zhang Zongfan 04-1790
- Wang Wei 05-2619
- Hong Jianhua 05-2620
- He Huayi 05-2621
- Baijianren
- Gu Qiwang
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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