Fan Making Craftsmanship

01 · Historical Records

In the Han dynasty, silk-leaf fans were popular at court, also called 'palace fans.' In the Southern Song period, the capital Hangzhou became a center of folding fans, and Shanzi Lane near Hefang Street was where the fan workshops of the day clustered. In the Yongle years of the Ming dynasty, Suzhou became a center of folding fans, and famous fan-makers known throughout the land such as Li Zhao and Ma Xun emerged. The bamboo-splint silk fan of Zigong, Sichuan, was created by the famous fan-maker Gong Juewu during the Guangxu years of the Qing dynasty, and is thus called the 'Gong fan,' its face resembling held silk gauze. The elegant fans of Hangzhou have been famed throughout the land since ancient times; in the Southern Song period, many Hangzhou fan-making workshops concentrated between Qingtai Street and Hefang Street in present-day Hangzhou, connected one to another over a length of two li, and the place was thus named 'Shanzi Lane (Fan Lane).' In the first year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing (1875), Wang Xingzhai founded the Wang Xingji Fan Shop in Shanzi Lane, Hangzhou; with fine workmanship and a distinctive craft he stood out among many shops, and through continuous development the Wang Xingji fan finally became representative of Hangzhou fans. As early as the Qing dynasty, the black paper fan was presented to the court as a Hangzhou specialty, earning the name 'tribute fan.'

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The history of fan-making in China is very long; as early as the Shang dynasty there appeared feather fans made of the tail feathers of the long-tailed pheasant. In the Eastern Jin period, the cattail-leaf fan began to be popular. The folding fan was anciently called the 'folded fan,' also the 'opened fan'; folded it closes, opened it spreads, and when spread the leaf forms a half-round (circular) shape, gathered at both head and tail, hence also the 'gathered-head fan.' China's fan products are mainly produced in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, and Guangdong, and include paper folding fans, sandalwood fans, feather fans (Huzhou, Zhejiang), silk fans, wheat-straw plaited fans (Pujiang, Zhejiang), ivory fans, bamboo-splint fans, cattail-leaf fans (Xinhui, Guangdong), and peacock-plume dance fans, among many varieties. Among them, the ribs of folding fans are best made of brown bamboo, mottled bamboo (Xiangfei bamboo), or ebony, some adorned with bamboo carving; the leaf is pasted from mulberry-bark paper and the like, with famous calligraphers and painters inscribing poems and painting on it, the saying being that a small piece surpasses a large one. Some folding fans are further fitted with embroidered fan cases. The Hangzhou Wang Xingji Fan Shop is known for making black paper fans, the leaves brushed with persimmon lacquer so they are impermeable to rain and do not warp in sun-a beauty summed up as 'a fan is half an umbrella'-and its craft has been passed down through generations to this day. Small pendants such as tassels, silk knots, or jade and peach-pit carvings are hung beneath the handle, swaying gracefully. Sandalwood fans and cattail-leaf fans often bear pyrography on the leaf, with shades light and dark and clear layers. From this it can be seen that fan-making is a comprehensive traditional manual craft integrating carving, painting, calligraphy, weaving, knotting, mounting, lacquering, and bamboo weaving, of high artistic value. With the change in social life, people now commonly use air conditioning or electric fans in the height of summer, causing a sharp drop in demand for fans. Over the past hundred-odd years, the artisans of the Wang Xingji fan enterprise have inherited and carried forward tradition, gathering the wisdom of fan-makers across the ages, and developed the Hangzhou fan-making craft; at present the Wang Xingji Hangzhou fans have reached fifteen major categories, over four hundred kinds, and more than three thousand patterns, sold far to over forty countries and regions. The Wang Xingji fan-making process is complex and fine, and its ornamentation is especially exacting; combined with the skills of calligraphy and painting, carving, inlaying, and cut-pasting, it greatly raises the artistic grade of the fan. The Wang Xingji fan is most typical in its black paper fans and sandalwood fans, winning awards repeatedly at home and abroad and long praised by the world. Many celebrated calligraphers and painters of past dynasties left masterworks on Wang Xingji fan leaves, adding important wealth to the treasury of Chinese culture.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Wang Xingji fan is centered on Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, and, like the Huzhou brush of Shanlian and the Huzhou brush of Wang Yipinzhai, appears on the market under the character 'Hu.' Since the Southern Song, Hangzhou has been a Jiangnan commercial metropolis; the fan market stood adjacent to the book market, so the fan trade was able to develop alongside book engraving and mounting. The Wang Xingji Fan Factory is the item's protection unit, and its rib material is best the bamboo of the Suzhou and Huzhou area.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Fan Making Craftsmanship · Fan Making Craftsmanship · Fan Making Craftsmanship · Fan Making Craftsmanship · Fan Making Craftsmanship.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

At present many famous fan-makers have passed away one after another; some fan-making crafts such as the Suzhou folding-fan rib technique are on the verge of being lost, and the related rescue and protection work is urgent. In recent years, the Wang Xingji fan has often been used as a national gift to international friends and collected by museums everywhere, becoming a bridge for cultural exchange between China and the world. The Wang Xingji fan-making craft has made a positive contribution to the transmission of Chinese fan culture and possesses unique historical and cultural value. Sun Yaqing (per the official archival record of the associated inheritor): Female, Han ethnicity, born July 1959, a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Representative inheritor of the fifth batch of the national-level intangible cultural heritage item 'Fan-making Craft (Wang Xingji Fan).' A fan-making technician. She entered the Hangzhou Wang Xingji Fan Factory to learn and practice the craft in 1976, and for over forty years since has rather systematically mastered fan-making, excelling in rib and leaf craft creation and design, pictorial art creation, and fan appreciation. She established archival materials in text, audio, and video, and founded the Wang Xingji Fan Museum and experience venues. She studies the traditional fan-making craft and innovates upon it; her products have repeatedly won provincial-and-ministerial-level or higher arts-and-crafts awards, and she led the creation of gifts for international meetings such as the G20 Leaders' Summit. Her works have repeatedly won provincial-and-ministerial-level or higher awards, and she has traveled to the United States, Spain, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Japan, and other countries for exchange. She received the Third China Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor Xunchuan Award issued by the Chinese Academy of Arts (Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding of China), and was named a Zhejiang Craftsman by the Zhejiang Provincial Federation of Trade Unions.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Xu Yilin 01-0193
• Chen Zifu 03-1339
• Xing Weizhong 04-1864
• Sun Yaqing 05-2777
• Wang Mingde
• Liu Zhengwen

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Fan Making Craftsmanship (Hangzhou, Zhejiang) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Sun Yaqing · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗