Yinshi Forging Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
She festivals provided sustained demand for silverware: the March 3rd Festival, market fairs, grand sacrificial ceremonies, weddings and funerals all called for a complete set of silverware. The Zhenhuatang silver engraving of the Ye lineage of Fu'an has been handed down for nearly two hundred years and has been the key intermediary through which She silver engraving has long engaged in dialogue with Han Chinese silverware techniques.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Silverware entered She life very early; festivals such as the March 3rd Festival, market fairs, grand sacrificial ceremonies, weddings and funerals are all inseparable from silverware. Silverware is also one of the symbols by which the She people display the wealth a household or lineage has accumulated over generations. Successive generations of the She people attached great importance, even reverence, to traditional silverware making, and continually advanced its development. Over the course of long ages, She silverware technique gradually formed its five core techniques — cao (working the metal), zao (chiseling), qi (raising), jie (splitting) and pi (shaping and laying on) — amounting to more than thirty hand process steps in all. Among She silverware techniques, the Zhenhuatang silver engraving of the Ye lineage in Fu'an, Fujian, is especially outstanding and has been handed down for nearly two hundred years. She silverware is a typical expression of the fusion of traditional Chinese silver engraving with She culture and a crystallization of the wisdom of the She people; it fully reflects the historical continuity of Chinese civilization, records the changing course of She culture — a culture that has language but no writing — embodies the superb skill of its silversmiths, and has considerable historical, cultural and scientific value. In recent years She silverware making has faced a prominent problem of transmission: market efficiency is low, the craft is hard to learn and takes a long time to master, most young people are unwilling to learn it, and with old craftsmen continually passing away the problem has become acute. Therefore, excavating and rescuing the She silverware craft will play a positive role in protecting and transmitting outstanding She culture and in enriching and improving both the history of Chinese She silverware making and the history of Chinese silverware making as a whole.
Archival Record of Process Steps
Over the course of long ages, She silverware technique gradually formed its five core techniques — cao (working the metal), zao (chiseling), qi (raising), jie (splitting) and pi (shaping and laying on) — amounting to more than thirty hand process steps in all.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Geographically, Fu'an silverware is renowned for its five methods of cao, zao, qi, jie and pi; its more than thirty process steps each have practitioners with their own specialties, and such a fine division of labor is rarely seen elsewhere. Silverware is at the same time a display of a family's means: at festival occasions the number and variety of pieces worn as sets often determined whether a household stood in good standing. Lin Shiyuan has co-run specialized classes with local schools, breaking the complete set of skills once held only in silversmiths' hands into teachable process steps — a rare institutional experiment for this technique.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Miao Yinshi Forging Craftsmanship · Miao Yinshi Forging Craftsmanship · Yinshi Making Craftsmanship · Yinshi Making Craftsmanship · Yinshi Forging Craftsmanship · Yinshi Forging Craftsmanship · Yinshi Forging Craftsmanship · Yinshi Forging Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Lin Shiyuan (record of the associated inheritor's official archive): Male, Yi ethnicity, born February 1955; native of Fu'an, Fujian Province. Representative inheritor of the silver ornament forging technique (She silverware making technique), a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the fourth national-level batch. Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts. Beginning in 1975, he studied She silverware making under Ye Rufa. His works both carry on traditional techniques and highlight the aesthetic outlook of the She people, with a markedly ethnic character. Representative works include Along the River During the Qingming Festival, The Twelve Beauties of Jinling, Golden Dragon Sporting with a Pearl and Dragons Rising over Five Continents. Together with local schools he has jointly run specialized classes, lecturing on and promoting the She silverware making technique; he has trained more than sixty successors, playing an important role in protecting She culture and refining the She silverware making technique. Beyond teaching, he has also collected many related precious objects and materials.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yang Guangbin 01-0160
- Long Migu 03-1316
- Ma Maoting 03-1317
- Lin Shiyuan 04-1842
- Leigushari 04-1843
- Wu Shuigen 04-1844
- Lin Lingxiang 05-2748
- Yang Zhenggui 05-2749
- Tai Yinyan 05-2750
- Mubinglin 05-2751
- Cunfabiao 05-2752
- Li Zhengyun
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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