Lantern Art
01 · Historical Records
According to research, the making of Suzhou colored lanterns can be traced back to the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, a history of more than fifteen hundred years. Since the Ming dynasty, Suzhou lantern making has developed considerably and long enjoyed a high reputation throughout the country. The lanterns take the pavilions and towers of Suzhou's classical gardens as their formal models; the bodies use the finest Suzhou silk as material; the surfaces are painted with the artistic techniques of the Wu School of painting; and the lantern flowers are made of Suzhou multi-color papercuts that recreate the 'huasheng' ornaments of the Tang dynasty.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Suzhou colored lanterns are a traditional folk art popular in the Suzhou area of Jiangsu Province, playing a very important role in local festivals and celebrations. The annual Suzhou lantern festival creates a warm and joyful atmosphere for the festivities and is loved by the broad masses of the people. Suzhou lantern making enjoys advantages unmatched by other parts of the country, displaying distinctive local characteristics. Suzhou colored lanterns are complete in category, rich in variety, elegantly colored, distinctive in form, and meticulous and excellent in workmanship. They comprise five major categories—hanging lanterns, wall lanterns, standing lanterns, large-scale artistic lanterns, and figure-lantern composite scenes—with more than 120 varieties. The forms come in all sizes, from small pieces about ten centimeters across to large ones of more than thirty meters, which is unique in the country. Each variety of Suzhou colored lantern has its own distinctive craft. Production is still carried out by hand today, with multiple process steps—framing, pasting, papercutting, painting, and decoration—linked in sequence and checked at every stage, fully following the traditional methods of colored-lantern making and naturally incorporating elements of Wu culture. Suzhou colored lanterns carry rich historical and cultural connotations; combining papercutting, painting, paper-figurine craft, and other techniques, they have become a model of Chinese traditional handicraft and a visual emblem of Wu culture.
Archival Records of Process Steps
Each variety of Suzhou colored lantern has its own distinctive craft. Production is still carried out by hand today, with multiple process steps—framing, pasting, papercutting, painting, and decoration—linked in sequence and checked at every stage, fully following the traditional methods of colored-lantern making and naturally incorporating elements of Wu culture.
The four skills: tying, pasting, cutting, painting
Still entirely hand-made, Suzhou lanterns require the four skills of frame tying, pasting, paper-cutting and painting in successive stages.
Silk-clad clay figures in motion
Wang Xiaowen created the moving silk-clad clay-figure lantern group and revived the lost ten-thousand-eye gauze lantern.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The forms of Suzhou colored lanterns take the pavilions and towers of Suzhou's classical gardens as their models; the bodies use the finest Suzhou silk as material; the surfaces are painted with the techniques of the Wu School of painting; and the lantern flowers use Suzhou multi-color papercuts that recreate the 'huasheng' ornaments of the Tang dynasty. Because the craft shares its origins with Wu-region painting and papercutting, the varieties fall into five major categories—hanging lanterns, wall lanterns, standing lanterns, large-scale artistic lanterns, and figure-lantern composite scenes—with more than 120 varieties, in sizes ranging from about ten centimeters to more than thirty meters. Transmission has long relied on Suzhou's local lantern enterprises and veteran artists.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Wang Xiaowen (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in July 1945, from Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. He has been engaged in lantern design and production for more than forty years; building on his mastery of the 'four skills' of Su lantern making—framing, pasting, papercutting, and painting—he researched and developed 'silk-clad clay figure' dynamic composite-scene lanterns, and is a second-generation founder of Suzhou colored lanterns. 'Wonders of Ancient Lanterns', jointly developed with Oriental Paradise in Guangzhou, filled a gap in China's amusement offerings and was highly praised by the Disney amusement association. He restored the production of the long-lost 'Wanyanluo' lantern. Representative works include the large lanterns 'Pavilion-Style Flower Basket Lantern', 'Twin Dragons Sporting with a Pearl', 'Monkey Kingdom Band', 'Wu Song Beats the Tiger', and 'Hundreds of Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix', as well as the opera-themed lanterns 'Chasing the Fish' and 'The Peach Blossom Fan'. Representative inheritor of Colored Lanterns (Suzhou Colored Lanterns), a fifth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item. He persists in passing on the craft, and several of his apprentices have become the backbone of the field, linking the past and the future.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Li Xiangman 01-0114
- Chen Weiyan 01-0115
- Li Zhuqin 01-0116
- Cai Binghan 01-0117
- Yang Zenggui 01-0118
- Zhang Jinpei 03-1260
- He Weifu 03-1261
- Chen Baihua 03-1262
- Deng Hui 03-1263
- Lin Hanbin 03-1264
- Yang Yurong 04-1793
- Ma Yuanliang 05-2631
- Wang Xiaowen 05-2632
- Wang Rulan 05-2633
- Hu Jinlong 05-2634
- Lin Shunkui 05-2635
- Xu Qianshen 05-2636
- Zhang Juntao 05-2637
- Zhang Shuqi 05-2638
- Liu Yaosheng 05-2639
- Li Banghua
- Chen Dizhen
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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