Furniture Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
After the Kangxi era of the Qing dynasty, Ming-style furniture spread to England, France, and other countries, exerting a considerable influence on eighteenth-century European furniture. Some furniture of the Qing dynasty continued the style and craftsmanship of the Ming dynasty and is therefore also called "Ming-style furniture". Ming-style furniture in China today is produced mainly in Suzhou, Beijing, and Guangzhou; inheriting the fine traditions of Ming furniture, it has formed three major systems: the Su (Suzhou), Jing (Beijing), and Guang (Guangzhou) styles. By the end of the Ming dynasty, Guangshi furniture was already in use at court. In the early years of the Qing dynasty, Guangshi furniture became a principal type of court furniture because its luxurious style suited the needs of the imperial family. In the mid-Qing dynasty, influenced by the European Baroque and Rococo styles, Guangshi furniture developed further in form and decoration, and its proportions became increasingly sumptuous. During the Republican period (1912–1949), the Guangshi furniture industry declined under the impact of war, and only gradually recovered after the victory in the War of Resistance against Japan.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Ming-style furniture is the most famous category of traditional Chinese furniture: it achieved brilliant results in the history of ancient Chinese furniture and is regarded as the model of traditional furniture, while also occupying an important place in the history of world furniture. Building on the furniture-making traditions of the Song and Yuan dynasties, Ming-style furniture achieved great innovation in materials, processing techniques, styling, and structure. The craft uses hardwoods of great density and fine grain as its material—zitan (red sandalwood), huali (rosewood), hongmu (mahogany), wumu (ebony), tielimu, and jichimu (chicken-wing wood)—taking full advantage of their grain, texture, and luster, and striving for a simple, pure structure and dignified form free of superfluous ornament, suited to a wide range of uses and to the needs of the human body. Most praiseworthy of all, Ming-style furniture is built entirely on frames joined by mortise and tenon (sunmao), with the various joints ingeniously fitted together and not a single nail or drop of glue used; the resulting furniture is precisely constructed, solid, and sturdy, and has won the admiration of experts in the field around the world. Metal fittings made of white copper, red copper, or gilded metal—such as corner braces, hinges, and feet—are likewise of exquisite form and soft hue, matching the furniture so that each sets off the other. Ming-style furniture comes in a great variety of types, falling mainly into six categories: seating, supports, beds, storage pieces, racks, and screens. Chairs, stools, and drum stools belong to the seating category; incense stands, flower stands, tables, and desks to the support category; beds and couches to the bed category; boxes, chests, cabinets, and cupboards to the storage category; washbasin stands, mirror stands, and clothes racks to the rack category; and standing screens and folding screens to the screen category. At present, for various reasons—a shortage of hardwood raw materials, a workforce that is mostly elderly, and the relatively poor skills of young craftsmen—the production of Ming-style furniture has run into problems. In addition, the market has been flooded with counterfeit and inferior hongmu furniture, which has also caused difficulties for the production of authentic Ming-style furniture. The Guangzuo hardwood furniture craft is a representative traditional folk handicraft of Guangzhou, and its history can be traced back to the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The Guangshi furniture craft is an important branch of Chinese furniture craftsmanship: while inheriting China's traditional furniture-making techniques, it also absorbed and adapted Western furniture culture, giving rise to strong Lingnan artistic characteristics. Guangshi furniture making emphasizes the careful selection of fine materials and meticulous workmanship; its carved areas are both broad and deeply cut, and its inlaying technique is applied with ease, opening a new fashion in furniture making. Guangshi furniture comes in a great variety of types and styles: besides the traditional tables, chairs, stools, beds, and small stands, there are types found in no other region or rarely seen elsewhere, such as the kang bed that can be used for both sleeping and sitting in the living room. Under the impact of mass-produced modern furniture, most Guangshi furniture factories have had difficulty operating, and few enterprises still persist in producing typical Guangshi furniture. The Guangshi furniture-making process is complex, and such important process steps as carving, inlaying, planing, and preparing blanks are all difficult to master. With old artisans dying one after another and new artisans not yet fully trained, a break has appeared in the transmission of the Guangshi furniture craft. Problems such as these obstruct the smooth transmission and development of the Guangshi furniture craft and urgently require plans to resolve them rationally.
Archival Records of Process Steps
The Guangshi furniture-making process is complex, and such important process steps as carving, inlaying, planing, and preparing blanks are all difficult to master. With old artisans dying one after another and new artisans not yet fully trained, a break has appeared in the transmission of the Guangshi furniture craft.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Guangzuo hardwood furniture craft is practiced in Guangzhou and the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong Province. In the Ming and Qing dynasties Guangzhou stood at the frontier of overseas maritime trade, and most timber was imported from Southeast Asia, so the material used is chiefly suanzhi (blackwood) and Burmese huali rosewood. Guangshi furniture is bulky in form and densely carved, and together with the regularity of the Jingzuo and the elegance of the Suzuo it ranks as an important strand of Ming–Qing furniture. The Guangzhou Woodcarving Furniture Craft Factory is the designated protecting institution for the project.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Ming-style Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Ming-style furniture is a treasure of China's and indeed the world's furniture industry, with research value in many fields, including the history of Chinese and foreign furniture, the history of cultural exchange between China and other countries, the history of social life, and folklore. There is an urgent need to rapidly train high-level successors so that this precious traditional handicraft can be effectively transmitted and soundly developed. At present, the scarcity of precious timber makes it difficult for Guangshi furniture to obtain its materials, and production is hindered. Yang Xia (per the official records of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Han ethnicity, born in October 1937, a native of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. Representative inheritor of the furniture-making craft (Guangzuo hardwood furniture craft), a third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. Technician of the Guangzuo hardwood furniture craft and senior craft-art designer. From childhood he learned the Guangshi hongmu furniture craft from his father; in 1958 he entered the Guangzhou Woodcarving Furniture Craft Factory, where for forty-five years he was responsible for the design and technical improvement of Guangzuo hardwood furniture. Proficient in creative design and technically versatile, he applied ergonomics to transform the former upright high-seated hardwood chairs into low seats with curved backs, adapting to contemporary lifestyles and winning wide popularity. He compiled a set of craft-management standard manuals for hardwood furniture making, covering production procedures, technical standards by grade, and quality standards for each stage of work by grade.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xu Jianping 03-1318
- Zhongguiyou 03-1319
- Yang Xia 03-1320
- Cao Yunjian 04-1846
- Yang Jinrong 04-1847
- Huang Fuhua 05-2757
- Wang Zhaoqi
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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