Yinni Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
Seal paste originated from the "sealing clay" (fengni) of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. At that time there was no paper, and people used bamboo slips (slips of bamboo used for writing) as their writing material. References to seal paste already appeared in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wenxin Diaolong) of the Liang dynasty of the Southern Dynasties (502–557). The Eight-Treasure Seal Paste produced in Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, was founded in the twelfth year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty (1673). Its founder, Wei Chang'an, originally ran the Yuanfeng Pharmacy; the Eight-Treasure medicinal ointment made in the shop was costly to produce, and few customers came to inquire about it.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Seal paste is a kind of coating used when stamping a seal. Because its principal raw material, cinnabar, is bright red, in ancient times it was also called "cinnabar paste" (danni) or "seal cinnabar" (yinzhu), among other names. When delivering official documents, the letter was covered with a blank bamboo slip, tied with string, and then coated on the outside with clay, onto which a seal was impressed as a mark of sealing. This clay was the sealing clay, also called "seal paste." After the invention of paper, both bamboo slips and sealing clay fell out of use. Yet people still followed the method of sealing clay, impressing seals onto proclamations, letters, and the like, using seal paste as the coating. Seal paste uses cinnabar as its principal ingredient. Mugwort leaves are first pounded into a cotton-wool-like state, then repeatedly mixed with aged castor oil together with cinnabar and other ingredients; the resulting paste is brilliantly bright in color and does not fade for a long time. During the Tang and Song dynasties, as calligraphy and painting flourished, the craft of making seal paste steadily advanced. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, traditional calligraphy and painting had developed widely across the land, and the making of seal paste improved correspondingly; the related craftsmanship has been passed down to the present day. Wei was fond of calligraphy and painting. Once, by chance, he used the medicinal ointment to make an impression, which proved extraordinarily vivid and effective; thereupon, on the basis of the ointment, he developed the "Eight-Treasure Seal Paste." This craft abandoned the honey-applied-with-cinnabar method used through the ages and overcame the defect of seal color easily flaking off. Later, Wei Chang'an opened the Lihua Studio to exclusively sell Eight-Treasure Seal Paste, and presented it as a tribute item, spreading its fame far and wide. After using Zhangzhou's Eight-Treasure Seal Paste, Mr. Sun Yat-sen also spoke highly of it. In 1956, Song Yuejiao, a successor of the original Lihua Studio, brought the formula into the Zhangzhou Stationery Factory (the predecessor of the Zhangzhou Eight-Treasure Seal Paste Factory) and developed a new formula, so that the production and innovation of Eight-Treasure Seal Paste have continued to this day. Today's Eight-Treasure Seal Paste produced in Zhangzhou is refined from a variety of precious materials—pearls, agate, gold leaf, and others—using special processing methods. In making it, the various ingredients are ground fine in a porcelain jar, then aged sun-dried oil, mugwort fluff, and so on are added, and the mixture is repeatedly worked; after complicated manual operations, the Eight-Treasure Seal Paste is finally produced. The finished product is clear, smooth, moist, and clean; it dries easily and neither flakes off nor clots, neither sticks nor freezes. It possesses eight great advantages: vivid and saturated color, fragrant aroma, resistance to dissolving in water, lasting freshness of hue, no drying in arid weather, no mildewing in rainy weather, no oil seepage in summer, and no coagulation in winter. For these reasons Zhangzhou Eight-Treasure Seal Paste earned the praise: "stamped on paper, the peach blossom seems to smile; pressed in red, the ink's charm is enhanced."
Beating the floss and blending the oil
Cinnabar is worked with beaten-down floss of mugwort and aged castor oil, stirred repeatedly into a paste of brilliant, lasting colour; the fineness of the floss governs the evenness of the impression.
Grinding in the porcelain jar and ageing the oil
Pearl, agate and gold leaf are ground with aged sun-exposed oil and mugwort floss in a porcelain jar, stirred again and again by hand until the paste is finished.
Improving imitation-gold sizing
The inheritor Yang Xiwei has worked from the ancient method since 1988, improving heat and water resistance, curing hardening and bleeding, and developing a multi-coloured paste.
The eight tests of the paste
Eight properties mark a good paste: it dries easily, neither cakes nor sticks, holds its colour in water and damp weather, and does not ooze in summer or freeze in winter.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The craft of Eight-Treasure Seal Paste is concentrated in the urban area of Zhangzhou, handed down from the old Lihua Studio. After 1956, when Song Yuejiao, a successor of the original Lihua Studio, brought the formula into the Zhangzhou Stationery Factory (predecessor of the Zhangzhou Eight-Treasure Seal Paste Factory), it was transformed into a workshop-factory system.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Yinni Making Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Yang Xiwei (per official archive records of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in January 1964, a native of Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province. Representative inheritor of the Seal Paste Making Craft (Zhangzhou Eight-Treasure Seal Paste), a national-level intangible cultural heritage project, in its fifth batch. He entered the Zhangzhou Eight-Treasure Seal Paste Factory in 1987 and began preparing Eight-Treasure Seal Paste according to the ancient method in 1988. He continuously refined, improved, and enhanced its heat- and water-resistance, solved its solidification and bleeding problems, and successfully developed multi-colored Eight-Treasure Seal Paste. He was twice awarded the title "Treasure of the Nation" by the China Association of Four Treasures of the Study. He was named one of Zhangzhou's Ten Outstanding Inheritors by the Zhangzhou Folk Artists Association, and was granted the title of Fujian Provincial Skilled Craftsman by the Fujian Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Gao Shixiong 03-1397
- Fu Jiliang 03-1398
- Yang Xiwei 05-2829
- Fu Haixian
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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