She Inkstone Making Craftsmanship

01 · Historical Records

She inkstones appeared as early as the Han and Jin periods, and their fame grew steadily from the Tang dynasty onward. In the Song dynasty She inkstones developed rapidly: varieties increased and fine stones emerged continually, and their range of names, fineness of texture, and excellence of carving were unsurpassed among all inkstones. After the mid-1980s, She inkstones entered the forefront of China's inkstone industry and, for their excellent quality, received the National Quality Product award, a gold award for export earnings, and a "National Treasure" certificate from the relevant authorities.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

She inkstones are one of the four famous inkstones of China; their principal place of production and the place where they gained their fame is She County in ancient Huizhou, hence the name She inkstone. Wuyuan County in Jiangxi Province was formerly part of Huizhou, and its products are also called She inkstones. After the Kaiyuan era, Longwei inkstone stone was discovered, and She inkstones came to be treasured even more by the world. Li Yu, the last ruler of the Southern Tang, regarded She inkstones as "the finest under heaven" and established an inkstone office (yanwu) in Shezhou, promoting the inkstone craftsman Li Shaowei to serve as its director; the standing of She inkstones rose sharply from then on. From the late Yuan to the early Qing there are no records of official quarrying of She stone, and She inkstone making was merely maintained in a diminished state. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, She inkstone production developed for a time, and gold-star (Jinxing) She inkstones reappeared. After the reform and opening-up, She County and Wuyuan County successively established She inkstone factories, craft factories, and Four Treasures of the Study companies, with a full range of operations from quarrying inkstone stone and making products to decoration, and developed new varieties such as "douban" (bean speckle), "green brushed silk", "She red", and "purple cloud". The She inkstone making technique centers on carving and consists of many process steps, including stone selection, conception, finalizing the form, pattern design, carving, polishing, and fitting the inkstone case; according to the stone's veining, She inkstones are divided into five major categories - rib (luo) pattern, eyebrow (mei) pattern, gold star, gold halo, and fish roe - with more than one hundred varieties. The stone has a fine, dense texture, combining hardness with moistness; it is slightly abrasive without holding back the brush, and smooth without repelling the ink. She inkstones are praised as "the crown of all mountains' stones" and "a famed pearl of the inkstone realm". At present, raw She inkstone stone is extremely scarce and the traditional craft lacks successors; protection efforts urgently need to be increased.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Wuyuan County in Jiangxi Province was formerly part of Huizhou, and its products are also called She inkstones, listed together with those produced in She County; Wuyuan inkstone stone is mostly taken from water-quarried stone in the mountain streams of the county's east, black with a bluish cast and hard as jade; the inkstones made there are matched to the scholars' studios of Huizhou residences, so their forms often take their cue from the tilted inkstones (qi yan) of the Song dynasty. Today Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province, protects She inkstone making as a separately established project, with the Wuyuan County Cultural Center as the project protection unit.

Other submitting regions for the same item: She Inkstone Making Craftsmanship.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Wang Hongxin (official archival record of an associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born February 1977, from Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province. Representative inheritor of the She inkstone making technique, a fifth national-level batch intangible cultural heritage project. She inkstone production technician. In 1990 he studied She inkstone carving under Yu Huaiyuan, a carver of Daban; after several years of practice he mastered a variety of inkstone-carving techniques, and is especially known for his thin-relief (baoyi) work. His works cover a wide range of subjects and are shaped according to the material, emphasizing expressive spirit and artistic conception; he is particularly skilled at cleverly using the stone's veining to design carvings, and in 2000 founded the Hanshan Art Museum, dedicated mainly to the transmission of She inkstone making. His works have won the gold award at the 7th China Arts and Crafts Masters Quality Products Exposition held by the China National Light Industry Council, and have been included in Yanlin Jisheng (A Collection of Fine Inkstones) and Inkstone Works by Contemporary Chinese Masters. In 2014 he wrote Zhongshan Yanyu (Words on Inkstones in the Mountains). He actively engages in the transmission and dissemination of the She inkstone making technique: since 1994 he has taken on more than thirty apprentices, cooperated with media such as China Central Television and Phoenix Satellite TV on feature reports, and participated in various intangible cultural heritage exhibitions.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Cao Jieming 01-0187
• Zheng Han 03-1335
• Wang Zuwei 04-1860
• Cai Yongjiang 05-2770
• Wang Hongxin 05-2771

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. She Inkstone Making Craftsmanship (Wuyuan, Jiangxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Wang Hongxin · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗