Mubanshuiyinjiyi
01 · Historical Records
Rongbaozhai's woodblock water-printing originated from the woodblock printing of ancient China. In 1896 Rongbaozhai set up a block-cutting and printing workshop, hired master carvers and printers, and produced large quantities of exquisite poetry letter papers and correspondence cards. During the Republican era Rongbaozhai reprinted the "Shizhuzhai Manual of Letter-Paper Designs" (Shizhuzhai jianpu), ensuring the continuation and development of color registration printing and the "embossed without ink" (gonghua) technique. After the founding of the PRC, Rongbaozhai's woodblock water-printing advanced from printing only poetry and letter papers no larger than a foot to reproducing, with vivid likeness and full spirit and form, large-scale artworks such as "Galloping Horses" (Benma tu) with its dashing, uninhibited brushwork, "Court Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers" (Zanhua shinv tu) by Zhou Fang of the Tang dynasty, and "Spring Outing" (Tage tu) by Ma Yuan of the Song dynasty. This marks the pinnacle of carved-block printing and shows that Rongbaozhai's woodblock water-printing technique had truly matured.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Rongbaozhai is located at No. 19 Liulichang West Street, Xuanwu District, Beijing, and its woodblock water-printing technique is truly unrivalled. The "douban" (separate-block) registration method — so-called douban printing — separates the image into plates according to the brushstrokes of the original (their thickness, length, curvature, squareness, roundness, firmness, softness, dryness, and moistness) and the color's depth, density, lightness, warmth, coolness, and the light-and-shade facing of hues; it is traced and carved into several blocks, then printed in layers from dark to light, stroke by stroke in sequence, striving for an exact, faultless likeness of the original, to the point of being indistinguishable from the real thing. This purely manual printing craft has basic process steps of tracing (plate separation), carving (plate making), and printing, along with special techniques of cutting, scraping, dusting, and outlining. Using brush, knife, brush (shuazi), scraper (pazi), Chinese painting pigments, and water as its basic tools, it aims to restore the artistic form, brushwork, and spirit of traditional calligraphy and painting. The earliest carved-block printing in China with a definite reign-year date comes from the Sui dynasty.
Dividing the painting into plates
The painting is divided by stroke, tone and hue into separate plates, then printed from dark to light until the sheet matches the original.
The carvers of Liulichang
Carvers and printers lived and worked for generations in Liulichang, where painting trade and block printing have run side by side since the Ming.
Printed entirely by hand
Each sheet is brushed by hand with a palm-fibre brush, so a set takes days, and damaged areas are repaired with new paper and colour.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The woodblock water-printing craft is represented by Rongbaozhai on Liulichang West Street in Xuanwu District, Beijing, and extends to other painting shops around Liulichang. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties Liulichang has thrived in both the trade of calligraphy and painting and the carving and printing of blocks; many carvers and printers have lived there for generations. Rongbaozhai is the protecting unit of the project.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Rongbaozhai's woodblock water-printing inherits China's traditional carved-block printing technique and carries it forward; its process has appreciative value and should be protected and transmitted. Today woodblock water-printing is undergoing the trial of a lack of successors and high market operating costs; it needs assistance from the relevant quarters to help resolve its difficulties and climb out of its low ebb. Chong Defu (per the official archive of the associated inheritor): male, Manchu, born in 1954, a native of Beijing. He is a representative inheritor of the woodblock water-printing craft, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the first batch, a senior technician at Rongbaozhai, and a high-skilled talent with outstanding contributions in Beijing. Chong Defu began working at Rongbaozhai at age 17 and apprenticed under veteran block-carving technicians such as Zhang Yanzhou, Sun Rixiao, and Zhang Jinshen, assimilating the carving methods of the masters. He devoted himself to studying various folk carved-block printing techniques and, in response to Rongbaozhai's need to reproduce large-scale calligraphic and painted artworks, worked out a set of his own experience and methods. When carving, he holds the knife as if it were a brush, moves it with ease, and channels his own breath combined with force through hand and wrist into the knife tip. Chong Defu is recognized at Rongbaozhai as a backbone and authority in block carving. He led the carving of classic works such as "Along the River During the Qingming Festival" (Qingming shanghe tu), "Sun Tzu's Art of War in a Hundred Calligraphic Styles" (Sunzi bingfa baijia shu), Xu Beihong's "Herd of Horses" (Qun ma), and Qi Baishi's figures and insects, and he re-carved some blocks of the "Shizhuzhai Manual of Letter-Paper Designs". In the transmission of the craft he served as a bridge between past and future, inheriting and developing the skills of the older generation while passing them on without reservation to his four apprentices. To enhance his artistic expressiveness he diligently studied traditional calligraphy and painting; through long-term accumulation and training he cultivated a steady and precise operational control, and acquired a high level of skill in using the carving knife to reproduce and re-embody the spirit of the original. Wang Liju (per the official archive of the associated inheritor): female, Han, born in 1959, a native of Beijing. She is a representative inheritor of the woodblock water-printing craft, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the first batch, and a senior technician at Rongbaozhai. In 1980 she had the opportunity to take part in the work of dyeing and aluming silk; this silk is used exclusively for printing fine works, and its making technique is very strict, with complex process steps. From steaming paper and removing work, to brushing and dusting color, from padding paper and burnishing prints to burnishing dry-brush prints, from reproducing paper-based works to finely printing silk-based works, from gongbi (fine brushwork) to xieyi (freehand), and from color printing to embossing (gonghua), she is thoroughly at ease. The works she participated in printing include "A Collection of Chinese Woodcuts", the "Shizhuzhai Manual of Letter-Paper Designs", and "Painting Album of the Old Man Baishi", among others. Today she is a backbone of the printing workshop and a leader in tackling technical problems; she has also trained three apprentices, continuing to transmit this traditional craft.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chongdefu 01-0189
- Wang Liju 01-0190
- Gao Wenying 03-1336
- Jiang Min 03-1337
- Xiao Gang 04-1862
- Wei Lizhong 05-2773
- Zheng Mingchuan
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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