Baisha Maolongbi Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Baisha Maolong brush of Jiangmen City in Guangdong Province originated in the Ming dynasty and has a history of more than five hundred years. The founder of the Baisha Maolong brush was Chen Xianzhang, a Ming-dynasty Neo-Confucian scholar, poet, and calligrapher who was also known as Master Baisha (Baisha xiansheng); the brush takes its name from him.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Baisha Maolong brush is made primarily from the reed grass (mao) of Guifeng in Xinhui, crafted through multiple meticulous process steps. The making of this brush successfully pioneered a new approach of using plant fibers to produce writing brushes, making it an outstanding representative of traditional handicrafts. The Baisha Maolong brush is simple, antique, and elegant; its tip is highly elastic: the brushwork is dry and astringent, and it yields excellent 'flying white' (feibai) and connecting-stroke effects, suiting running-cursive script and also serving to outline landscapes. Because the Maolong brush tip is elastic, its strokes are vigorous and weighty with a distinctive, unorthodox character. Works written with the Maolong brush are powerful and forceful, with a bold and uninhibited vitality. Chen Baisha's representative 'Maolong calligraphy' works, such as the 'Stele for the Ciyuan Temple' (Ciyuan miao bei) and the 'Poem Scroll on Planting Castor Beans' (Zhong bima shi juan), are pure, singular, and magnificent, boldly expansive, and constitute precious artistic cultural relics. The Maolong brush is meticulously crafted, luxurious and refined, simple and unpretentious, and rich in natural aesthetic appeal. Since the Reform and Opening-up, with the sustained development of the social economy, farmers have left in large numbers to seek work elsewhere, and the reed grass is left unharvested, resulting in a shortage of raw material for making the Baisha Maolong brush. At the same time, the Maolong brush technique is unique and its production steps are relatively complex, so output is limited and its market reach is narrow. Making the Maolong brush can be divided into three stages: first, harvest the reed grass from Guifeng in Xinhui, removing impurities and selecting the best; next, repeatedly pound and comb the grass fibers and twist them into the brush core; finally, trim the tip, mount the shaft, and fit the ferrule to complete the brush. The middle stage is the most labor-intensive—the fibers must both hold the tip together and retain the reed's natural astringency; once over-pounded, the connecting-stroke and flying-white effects disappear. In using plant fibers to make a writing brush, the Maolong brush stands out as a prominent representative of traditional handicraft. Its brushwork is dry and astringent, with excellent connecting-stroke and flying-white effects, suiting running-cursive script and also serving to outline landscapes; because its tip is elastic, its strokes are vigorous and weighty, of a character all its own, and works written with it are powerful and forceful, with a bold and uninhibited vitality. Chen Baisha's representative 'Maolong calligraphy' works such as the 'Stele for the Ciyuan Temple' and the 'Poem Scroll on Planting Castor Beans' are pure, singular, and magnificent, boldly expansive, and constitute precious artistic cultural relics—and the brush technique in turn constrained the making of the brush.
Archival Process Records
The Baisha Maolong brush is made primarily from the reed grass of Guifeng in Xinhui, crafted through multiple meticulous process steps.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The craft of the Baisha Maolong brush is concentrated in the Xinhui area of Jiangmen City, with the villages around Guifeng Mountain as the focal point for gathering and making. Guifeng reed grass has a short growing period and fine, supple fibers, making it a material that is hard to substitute from elsewhere; thus, since the Ming dynasty this craft has been bound together with the reed-harvesting families of the Guifeng area: the villagers of Xinhui cut and sun-dry the reeds in their spare time from farming, then carry the bundled reeds back to the workshop, and only then enter the multiple process steps of brush making. The local writing customs here also nurtured a market for the brush. The regional calligraphic style values vigorous strength and dislikes slick lightness, which matches perfectly with the Maolong brush's weighty, resistant strokes; it is used for shop signs, clan genealogies, and couplets alike. Chen Xianzhang, known as Master Baisha, produced works such as the 'Stele for the Ciyuan Temple' and the 'Poem Scroll on Planting Castor Beans' that were handed down through the ages; thereafter the Guifeng reed came to be recognized together with his ink traces, and makers identified its provenance accordingly. From then on, the Maolong brush developed broadly along two lines: one supplied scholars and literati for writing, the other served local shops and lineages for practical use. Both the raw material and the technique have nearly lapsed at the same time—such is the predicament of this craft in recent years. With the sustained development of the social economy, farmers have left in large numbers to seek work elsewhere and the reed grass is unharvested; compounded by the relatively complex making process, limited output, and narrow market reach, the reed fields beneath Guifeng Mountain and the brush craftsmen have shrunk together. The Baisha Maolong brush making technique has therefore fallen into an endangered state and urgently needs protection, revitalization, inheritance, and promotion.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The above reasons have brought the Baisha Maolong brush making technique to an endangered state, and it urgently needs protection, revitalization, inheritance, and promotion.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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