Clay Sculpture

01 · Historical Records

Wuxi lies in the southeastern part of Jiangsu Province; a county was established there in 202 BCE, and it was raised to the status of a department (zhou) in 1295. The making of Huishan clay figures in Wuxi began in the late Ming period, as recorded in the 'Gujin Tushu Jicheng' (Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings from Ancient to Modern Times). Specialized cottage workshops for Huishan clay figures began to appear in the Qing dynasty; several dozen clay-figure shops and more than two hundred workshops opened along the Five-Li Long Street and the Upper and Lower River Ponds, forming the famous 'Clay Figure Street'. At the beginning of the 20th century, Huishan town had no fewer than 120 clay-figure shops, a situation that continued to this day.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The production and sale of Wuxi clay figures are concentrated around Huishan in Wuxi; hence Wuxi clay figures are also known as 'Huishan clay figures'. Wuxi clay figures fall into two categories: 'coarse goods' (cuhuo) and 'fine goods' (xihuo). The coarse goods mostly take auspicious and festive themes as their content — such as Big A Fu, the silkworm cat, the Old God of Longevity and the fisherman — embodying the folk wishes for good fortune, protection from evil and abundant food and clothing; their forms are bold and simple, their colors bright, their handling free and expressive, and they unite form and spirit. The fine goods are hand-pinched clay figures, drawn mainly from traditional opera characters, myths and legends, and folk customs; their figures are vividly modeled and painted, with exquisite, luminous coloring. The traditional craft is extremely complex, involving such techniques as rolling, kneading, lifting, pinching, stamping, patting, cutting, coloring, pressing, appliquéing, inlaying, scoring, bending, inserting, pushing, wiping, pasting and mounting. As painted sculpture, the coloring technique accounts for a large proportion of the whole production process for a clay figure; hence the saying 'three parts modeling, seven parts coloring'. Wuxi clay sculpture is much loved by people of all circles at home and abroad for its distinctive artistic forms, vivid folk colors and rich Jiangnan local flavor; it is acclaimed as one of the 'Three Treasures of Wuxi', and its 'Hand-Pinched Opera Figures' and 'Big A Fu' are renowned throughout the world, regarded as the folk painted sculpture richest in Oriental color.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Wuxi hand-pinched clay figures have strict material requirements: the material must be black earth taken from one meter deep in the local paddy fields.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

In the course of their transmission and development, Wuxi clay figures have produced fine works in succession; many have been collected by national-level museums and by experts, and quite a few works have won multiple national awards, including the Mountain Flower Award. At present, Wuxi hand-pinched clay figures face serious problems: infringement of intellectual property, soaring costs of handmade production, a large loss of talent, and the growing scarcity of Huishan clay; rescue-oriented protective measures are urgently needed. Yu Xianglian (from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Female, Han ethnicity, born in 1940, native of Wuxi, Jiangsu. She is a representative inheritor of clay sculpture (Huishan clay figures), a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the first batch; a master of Chinese arts and crafts; and a researcher in folk-art creation at the Chinese National Academy of Arts. She began learning to make clay figures at the age of eight, and at fifteen took up the fine-work hand-pinched opera-figure techniques of the Huishan clay-figure tradition, continuing their transmission to this day. In 1956 she entered the Jiangsu Province clay-sculpture and painting training class, where she systematically studied sketching, sculpture, color, life drawing, literary and artistic theory, and the fundamentals of opera. Yu Xianglian comprehensively inherited the Huishan hand-pinched opera-figure techniques; over more than fifty years in the art she absorbed the strengths of many renowned masters and created many excellent works rich in local cultural character. She restored more than four hundred historic masterpieces for the former Wuxi Clay Figure Museum, meeting the restoration requirement of 'keeping the old as old'; she also solved the technical problems of clay figures being damaged by water and being easily broken. She has also selflessly lectured and taught her art in many places; her representative works include 'Traditional Big A Fu' and 'Pensive Guanyin'. Wang Nanxian (from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Female, Han ethnicity, born in 1941, native of Wuxi, Jiangsu. She is a representative inheritor of clay sculpture (Huishan clay figures), a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the first batch, and a master of Chinese arts and crafts. In 1956 Wang Nanxian entered the Jiangsu Province clay-sculpture and painting training class, where she systematically studied sketching, sculpture, color, life drawing, literary and artistic theory, and the fundamentals of opera; her first teacher was Yu Renjin. She later specialized in painted-coloring techniques under the coloring master Chen Yuxiu at the Huishan Clay Figure Factory. In the 1980s she went three times to the Nanjing Museum to copy Qing-dynasty works, and received guidance from renowned opera masters. Wang Nanxian comprehensively inherited the Huishan hand-pinched opera-figure coloring and gilding-decoration (zhuangluan) techniques, attaining the four essentials of coloring — 'newness, clarity, evenness and brilliance' — and skillfully applying these techniques to keep creating new works. Her representative works include 'The Bodhisattva with the Longevity Peach' and 'Yearly Happiness'.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Yu Xianglian 01-0108
• Wang Nanxian 01-0109
• Hu Shen 01-0110
• Wang Xuefeng 01-0111
• Wu Yucheng 03-1251
• Wu Guangrang 03-1252
• Xu Xingguo 03-1253
• Yang Qihe 03-1254
• Nie Xiwei 04-1791
• Shuangyan 05-2622
• Zhu Wenqian 05-2623
• Xu Shuzhang 05-2624
• Wu Weiqing 05-2625
• Wang Dengshu 05-2626
• Hu Xinming 05-2627
• Yang Jianian 05-2628
• Liu Chengyin

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Clay Sculpture (Wuxi, Jiangsu) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Yu Xianglian · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Wang Nanxian · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗