Hulu Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Wenshui gourd-making craft is documented in writing as early as the Ming dynasty and has a history of more than 600 years. In the early 20th century the Wenshui folk artisan Liu Guangwei grew gourds in his own fields, carved characters and burned pictures on them, and went from street to street making a living by his skill; the craft has been transmitted mainly from master to apprentice down to the present, through seven generations.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Wenshui gourd-making craft is a technique of painting on gourds by such methods as needle engraving, pyrography, colour painting, openwork and relief, and is a perfect combination of gourd culture and the art of painting. It originated in Wu Village, Nanzhuang Town, Wenshui County, Shanxi Province, and reaches into the surrounding area. Wenshui lies in the middle of the Fen River valley, half mountains and half plains, with three great rivers — the Fen, the Wenyu and the Ciyao — running across its whole territory. It has a temperate continental monsoon climate and soil that is half sandy and half clay, known locally as “sand over loam”, which is very favourable for growing gourds. The favourable natural environment and convenient transport provided conditions for the emergence and development of the Wenshui gourd-making craft. The Wenshui gourd-making craft is one of the representatives of China's traditional gourd-making techniques. Taking the gourds that are a local speciality as the medium for creation, and after a series of process steps — peeling, air-drying, sunning, colouring and selecting the material — the gourds undergo artistic treatment such as carving, pyrography, colour painting and openwork to produce Wenshui gourds of a distinctive style. The painter first draws a rough sketch on the gourd in pencil and then works it with a branding pen; an experienced painter can dispense with any preliminary sketch and create directly on the gourd. “Taking iron as the brush and fire as the ink” is the common feature of all pyrographic gourds, but the Wenshui gourd-making craft uses a “copper pen” and a “silver pen” in addition to the “iron pen”. The burn marks of works made with the “copper pen” take on a copper hue with the passage of time rather than the original black, giving a stronger, more vivid visual effect, sense of layering and tonality; the “silver pen” is used where the colour is pale and the strokes are fine, so that the delicate ornament appears in every detail. Today as many as a hundred people have mastered this traditional handicraft.
Archival Records of Process Steps
Taking the gourds that are a local speciality as the medium for creation, and after a series of process steps — peeling, air-drying, sunning, colouring and selecting the material — the gourds undergo artistic treatment such as carving, pyrography, colour painting and openwork to produce Wenshui gourds of a distinctive style.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The transmission and development of this craft has driven the growth of related local industries in cultivation, processing and packaging; it is gradually becoming an important industry of the county economy and plays a part in promoting the sustainable development of the local society and economy.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Hulu Making Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Pyrography on gourds requires a certain grounding in fine art; only when the techniques are well applied do the works come out elegant and beautiful, simple and refined, and lifelike — of value both for viewing and for collecting. The Wenshui gourd is an important part of gourd culture; it is extremely expressive and widely used in marriage customs, folk custom, the home, medicine and religion, and has considerable artistic and historical-cultural value.
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)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。