Zhuansu
01 · Historical Records
Juancheng brick sculpture is a traditional sculptural art founded and handed down by the Xie family of Juancheng County in Shandong Province. During the Guangxu reign of the Qing dynasty, Xie Guangfang of Juancheng, through repeated practice, created a distinctive brick-sculpture technique.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The distinctive brick sculpture of the Xie family of Juancheng retains the characteristics of traditional folk modelling and earthenware craft: ingenious and complete in conception, plain and forthright in technique, clearly ordered in layering, crisp and fluent in line, and vivid and true to life in form, suffused with a strong rustic air and a popular spirit. Decorative elements made with the Xie family's brick-sculpture technique for temples and ancestral halls are widely distributed in eastern Shandong and western Henan, and the family's fame extends for a thousand li in all directions. Brick sculpture uses local clay as its material and is moulded before firing, the finished pieces being blue-grey earthenware. The Xie family's craftsmen mostly combine high relief with low relief; human figures and animals are modelled through distortion, exaggeration and simplification, while drapery and feathers are distinguished by incised lines. Piled up layer upon layer, the pieces show clear contours from a distance and crisp lines at close range, combining an archaic simplicity with a forthright rustic quality.
The Xie family craft founded by Xie Guangfang
Xie Guangfang devised the technique in the Guangxu reign and it has since passed through three generations of his family.
Opera brickwork and bird-and-flower brickwork
The craft divides into opera scenes, the larger part, and bird-and-flower panels, the former moralising through familiar stage stories.
High and low relief combined
Xie Xueyun combined high and low relief, shaping figures by distortion and generalisation in the manner of the stage.
Grey pottery fired after modelling
The pieces are grey earthenware fired after modelling, their thickness carefully managed so they do not crack in the kiln.
Ridge ornaments and corner piers
The ornaments were made in sets, each position on the roof or wall corner taking a subject and scale to suit it.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Juancheng brick sculpture has been passed down from generation to generation by the Xie family. Its works are mostly decorative elements such as ridge ornaments, chitou (gable heads) and gate towers on temples, ancestral halls and dwellings, and are sold in the countryside along the border between Shandong and Henan provinces. The Juancheng County Cultural Relics Management Office (the Lujin Museum of China) is the protecting unit, and remnants of the Xie family's brick sculpture can still be seen on old temples and ancestral halls within the county.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
From Xie Guangfang to Xie Zhenqian and on to the present Xie Xueyun, Juancheng brick sculpture has been handed down in the Xie family for three generations. Juancheng brick sculpture mainly comprises two types: opera-themed and flower-and-bird brick sculpture, with the former accounting for a relatively larger share of the whole output. The makers often choose opera stories that the masses love to see and hear, and by castigating evil, treachery and ugliness they blend ideology into aesthetic creation, giving full play to the moral-educative function of traditional art and providing vivid first-hand material for the study of folklore, traditional ethical thought and local history and culture. At present, owing to the widespread adoption of modern architectural forms, the brick sculpture of the Xie family of Juancheng, as a traditional art of architectural decoration, is increasingly declining and urgently needs vigorous protection. Xie Xueyun (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): His brick carving combines high relief with low relief; he mostly uses distortion, exaggeration and simplification to shape his images, with subjects drawn largely from opera and from flowers and birds. His products are widely welcomed: all who build temples, restore ancestral halls or put up houses place orders with him. Male, Han ethnicity, born in July 1928 and died in July 2015, a native of Juancheng County, Shandong Province. He was a representative inheritor of Brick Sculpture (Juancheng Brick Carving), an item of national-level intangible cultural heritage included in the third batch. For many years he persisted in transmitting the brick-carving craft: besides teaching his several sons, he trained other apprentices as well, ensuring that successors would carry on the art of brick carving.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xie Xueyun 03-1296
- Xie Xinjian
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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