Cloth Paste Painting
01 · Historical Records
Through development and innovation across successive eras, the “buhua” (floral applique) technique gradually evolved into today's Buhua painting (cloth-paste painting), which the Teng family has handed down from generation to generation up to the present.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Buhua painting originates in the traditional Manchu “buhua” (applique) art; on the basis of inheriting the traditional cloth-applique art of the Qing imperial court, it is a traditional Manchu folk technique that gathers the accomplishments of many crafts — painting, pile embroidery, silk figurines, relief, thangka, embroidery, pasting, cloth-patch pictures, paper-cutting, and cloisonne — and it circulates in Fengning Manchu Autonomous County, Hebei Province. To complete a single Buhua painting, it must pass through nine manual process workflows — drafting the design, decomposing it, making the plates, shaping, preparing the materials, cloth-pasting, assembly, decoration, and finishing the painting. The materials are numerous, chiefly true-silk fabrics such as ling (figured silk), luo (gauze), and duan (satin), along with more than a hundred others such as wood, cardboard, sponge, silk flowers, and jewelry. Buhua painting takes “buhua” (applique) as its matrix, changing “patching” into “pasting”, and draws on the essence of many traditional crafts to bring forth the new. Since it took shape, Buhua painting has had a history of several hundred years to the present day. The Jurchen ancestors, in order to decorate garments, shoes, hats, bow cases, and other articles, used cloth of different colors as the face, filled it with cotton or wool, sewed flowers, patterns, and animal heads with needle and thread, added colored-ink outlines, and patched them onto garments, shoes, hats, and other objects; this was called “buhua” (patching flowers). When Nurhachi proclaimed himself khan, the square rank badges worn on the chest and back of officials were called “buzi” (rank patches). After the Qing entered the Central Plains, the “buhua” technique became a craft reserved exclusively for court use.
Archival Record of the Process Steps
To complete a single Buhua painting, it must pass through nine manual process workflows — drafting the design, decomposing it, making the plates, shaping, preparing the materials, cloth-pasting, assembly, decoration, and finishing the painting. The materials are numerous, chiefly true-silk fabrics such as ling (figured silk), luo (gauze), and duan (satin), along with more than a hundred others such as wood, cardboard, sponge, silk flowers, and jewelry.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Buhua painting circulates in Fengning Manchu Autonomous County, Hebei Province; the county lies at the northern foot of the Yanshan Mountains and the southern edge of the Bashang Plateau, and the Manchu-settled towns and villages are the principal places of transmission of this technique, with the Teng family forming the backbone of the continued lineage. At present, Buhua painting has four major categories and more than a hundred varieties, encompassing artworks, gifts, architectural forms, and urban and rural landmarks; its patterns draw on a wide range of materials and embody the aesthetic preferences of the masses and their prayers for a better life.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present, Buhua painting comprises four major categories and more than a hundred varieties of high-end artworks and decorative pieces; representative works include “Dragon-and-Phoenix Wall”, “The World's First Buhua Temple”, “Phoenix Baoxiang Vase”, and “Yamantaka, the Great and Fearsome Vajra”, which demonstrate its ethnic, traditional, novel, and regional qualities. The patterns of Buhua painting draw on a wide range of materials, embody the aesthetic preferences of the masses, and express prayers for a better life, containing a deep ethnic-social psychology; they are highly beneficial to the continuation of ethnic culture and the promotion of Manchu tradition. Buhua painting encompasses not only artworks and gifts but also architectural forms and urban and rural landmarks, and is of positive significance for enriching the cultural life of the public and raising its cultural quality; it also has reference value for research on Manchu history, ethnology, aesthetics, and other fields.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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