Umbrella Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
In ancient times, umbrella canopies were all made of silk. By the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the rulers and officials of the Northern Wei had already adopted canopy covers made of gauze and silk for their outings; the size and color of the silk umbrellas used varied according to the rank of the bearer. After Cai Lun of the Eastern Han succeeded in papermaking, umbrella canopies gradually changed from silk to paper, and by the Song dynasty oil-paper umbrellas appeared. According to the records of the 'Luxian County Annals', the Fenshui oil-paper umbrella of Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, originated in the late Ming and early Qing and has a history of more than four hundred years to this day.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The umbrella is a tool used in daily life for shading from the sun or sheltering from the rain. It can be opened and folded, and is easy to carry. China's umbrella-making craft has a long history. According to legend, during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, Wang, the wife of Lu Ban—the renowned craftsman of the State of Lu—split bamboo into fine strips, covered them with animal hide, and made a device that opened like a canopy and closed like a stick; this was the earliest umbrella. In ancient times the umbrella was also called 'gai' (canopy), 'huagai' (ornamental canopy), and 'sangai' (umbrella canopy), among other names. During the Western Jin, when emperors and high officials went on inspection tours, attendants often followed holding umbrellas, which thus became part of the ceremonial guard. China's oil-paper umbrellas are produced in Sichuan, Hunan, Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Guizhou, and other places, and they were a daily necessity of working people. Today, because of the widespread popularity of folding nylon-silk umbrellas, the traditional oil-paper umbrella and silk umbrella have quietly receded from people's lives, and the related craftsmanship has gradually faded into obscurity. The Fenshui Umbrella Factory is the inheritor of Luzhou's oil-paper umbrella craft; the tung-oil paper umbrellas it produces by traditional handcraft still display the unique value of the ancient technique to this day. The Fenshui oil-paper umbrella selects its materials with great care, applies thick coats of oil, and is painted with elegant and beautiful designs, manifesting the artistic character of folk tradition. The Fenshui oil-paper umbrella is made from locally abundant Luzhou materials such as tung oil, nan bamboo, water bamboo, rock-paulownia wood, and bark paper. The umbrella body is light and beautiful, and the canopy combines poetry and painting, possessing a rich local flavor; it is a common item in folk wedding celebrations and primitive religious activities. The craft of Luzhou oil-paper umbrellas is complex in its process; a single oil-paper umbrella must go through more than ninety process steps—such as sawing the supports, threading and binding, edging the mesh, pasting the paper, tying, oiling, and hoop-firing—before it is finally completed, and not one step can be omitted. The finished product is of excellent quality: it can be opened and closed more than three thousand times without breaking, soaked in clear water for 24 hours without the ribs coming loose, and walked with against force-five winds without losing its shape. The Luzhou Fenshui oil-paper umbrella is deeply favored by users and folk collectors.
Archival Record of Process Steps
The craft of Luzhou oil-paper umbrellas is complex in its process; a single oil-paper umbrella must go through more than ninety process steps—such as sawing the supports, threading and binding, edging the mesh, pasting the paper, tying, oiling, and hoop-firing—before it is finally completed, and not one step can be omitted.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The oil-paper umbrellas of the Fenshui area of Luzhou use tung oil, nan bamboo, water bamboo, rock-paulownia wood, and bark paper as materials. More than ninety process steps run from sawing the supports, threading and binding, and edging the mesh all the way to pasting paper, tying, oiling, and hoop-firing—not a single step may be skipped before the umbrella leaves the factory. The finished umbrella can endure being opened and closed more than three thousand times without breaking, and soaking in clear water for twenty-four hours without the ribs coming loose. The 'Luxian County Annals' record that this craft began in the late Ming and early Qing, more than four hundred years ago. Bi Liufu was born into the Bi family of umbrella makers at the Fenshui Umbrella Factory, and by the age of ten could independently complete all seventy-two process steps.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Umbrella Making Craftsmanship · Umbrella Making Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Bi Liufu (per the official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in September 1957, a native of Luzhou City, Sichuan Province. A representative inheritor of the third batch of the national-level intangible cultural heritage item 'Umbrella-Making Craft (Oil-Paper Umbrella Craft).' The Bi family is a long-established family of oil-paper umbrella production. From childhood he learned the oil-paper umbrella craft from his father, Bi Linze. By the age of ten he could independently complete the seventy-two process steps of oil-paper umbrella making. In 1980 he became the foreman of the production workshop at the Fenshui Umbrella Factory, and was sent to the Dongshan Machinery Factory in Wuhan to study the manufacture of steel-ribbed cloth umbrellas. In 1993, he led the design and construction of the 'King of Chinese Oil-Paper Umbrellas,' 8 meters tall, with a canopy diameter of 12 meters, weighing 500 kilograms. Having practiced the craft to this day, he has thoroughly mastered every process step of oil-paper umbrella making, and especially has deep expertise in boiling tung oil. His representative works include handmade-paper oil-paper umbrellas and octagonal plum-blossom umbrellas, among others.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Bi Liufu 03-1405
- Song Zhiming 03-1406
- Dai Gensheng
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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