Jade Carving
01 · Historical Records
The area around Yangmei Village was originally farmed by its inhabitants; in the early 20th century the villagers began by refurbishing old jadeware, going from village to village to buy up old jade articles, repair them and resell them, gradually accumulating experience in judging materials and carving. After the 1980s they shifted to buying Burmese jadeite rough stone directly and carving it for their own sale, forming a jadeite-processing cluster organized around family workshops.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Yangmei jadeite carving is a folk jade-carving technique of Guangdong Province; it arose in the early 20th century and is distributed in the area of Yangmei Village, Pandong Town, Dongshan District, Jieyang City. The Yangmei jadeite-carving craft developed from old-jadeware processing techniques and has now become an economic pillar of the locality, forming an enormous industrial chain. Yangmei jadeite carving is particular about its materials: its products mainly use high-quality jade produced in the “Yeren” (savage) mountains of northern Burma (the Hpakant jade tract) and from within China; these raw materials are crystal clear in texture and extremely hard. Yangmei jadeite carving skillfully exploits the natural grain of jade, pursuing the marvelous, the ingenious, the refined and the distinctive; its forms are small and delicate, true to life and vivid, its carving consummate and mature, so that the jade articles seem made by nature itself. Chinese jadeite carving divides into two major style systems, northern and southern; Yangmei jadeite carving belongs to the southern school, and includes many techniques and styles such as relief, three-dimensional carving, base-supported carving, openwork carving and water-adjusting carving. In the course of its technical formation, Yangmei jadeite carving was influenced to varying degrees by local folk traditional crafts such as Chaoshan wood carving, stone carving and Chaozhou embroidery, displaying a distinct Lingnan local character. Wood carving is a folk craft of carving on wood. It generally selects fine, dense, tough, deformation-resistant timbers such as nanmu (Phoebe), red sandalwood, camphor, cypress, ginkgo, agarwood, padauk and longan as raw materials, and uses circular carving, relief, openwork and piercing techniques; some pieces are additionally colored and painted on the surface to protect and beautify the material. Wood-carving technique has existed in China since ancient times, and can be traced back as early as the Warring States period. Early wood carving was used mostly for tribute articles, deity statues and architectural decoration; in the Ming and Qing dynasties the making of wooden ornaments and everyday utensils developed considerably, forming a variety of styles rich in regional characteristics. Present-day folk wood carving mainly highlights play value and decorative quality, emphasizing the beauty of the wood itself; in making, craftsmen judge the shape and circumstances of the material and give form according to its nature, incorporating modern ideas on the basis of inherited tradition. Among the various kinds of wood carving, Macao deity-statue carving has always upheld a creative purpose centered on religious ends; it forms a style of its own and attracts attention.
Rough stone from the Hpakant fields
The craft uses fine rough stone mainly from the Hpakant fields in northern Myanmar and from domestic sources, clear and extremely hard.
The southern school, with water-regulating and ground-lifting carving
Chinese jadeite carving divides into northern and southern systems; Yangmei belongs to the southern school with relief, round, ground-lifting, openwork and water-regulating techniques.
Novel, ingenious, refined and distinctive
Exploiting natural veining, the craft prizes novelty, ingenuity, refinement and distinctiveness, with small lifelike pieces that seem naturally formed.
The influence of Chaoshan woodcarving, stone carving and embroidery
In its formation the craft was influenced by local Chaoshan woodcarving, stone carving and embroidery, giving it a marked Lingnan character.
Hong Ronghui and the Jieyang Yudu vocational school
The national inheritor Hong Ronghui founded the Jieyang Yudu vocational school in 2011 and helped set up a jewellery design and processing course.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Taking Yangmei Village, Pandong Town, Rongcheng District, Jieyang City as the core, it radiates to Jiedong, Puning and other counties and cities of the Chaoshan region; the locality is known as the “Jade Capital of China”. Raw materials are mostly purchased from the Hpakant jade tract of Burma, and finished products are sold through the Jieyang jade market to all parts of China and Southeast Asia.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Jade Carving · Jade Carving · Jade Carving · Jade Carving · Jade Carving · Jade Carving.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Hong Ronghui (recorded in the official archive of associated inheritors): Male, Han ethnicity, born in June 1955; a native of Jieyang City, Guangdong. Through more than thirty years of practice he has continuously studied, summarized and improved, mastering the properties of jade with accurate calculation of materials, ingenious design and consummate craft; his works make clever use of material and color, possessing the character of “new, strange, special, peerless and refined”. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the jade carving (Yangmei jadeite carving) intangible cultural heritage project. He attaches great importance to training successors: in 2011 he founded the Jieyang Yudu Vocational School and serves as its principal himself, and helped establish classes in jewelry design and processing to pass on his art.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Song Shiyi 03-1274
- Wuhaizhou 03-1275
- Gao Zhaohua 03-1276
- Liu Chaoguo 04-1797
- Li Bosheng 04-1798
- Yuan Yao 04-1799
- Hong Xinhua 04-1800
- Dinianwei 04-1801
- Yang Xi 04-1802
- Cui Lei 05-2663
- Hong Ronghui 05-2664
- Guo Shilin
- Yang Genlian
- Zhang Tiecheng
- Jiang Xi
- Yin Zhiqiang
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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