In ancient times, Huizhou woodcarving was mainly used in various buildings. And these wood carvings are not simple patterns. Some of them form a single scene, while others are continuous. They looked at it all the way as if they were reading a story, which was very beautiful. Huizhou woodcarving is very distinctive, and you can't see such exquisite house woodcarving in other places. What is the historical and cultural background of Huizhou woodcarving?
Ancient Huizhou (now Huangshan City) is located at the junction of Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces, with a long history, prosperous writing style and outstanding people. One side of the soil and water nourishes one side of the people, and Huizhou culture has nurtured various art categories, among which Huizhou woodcarving is unique.
As early as the end of the Tang Dynasty, Huizhou ink was well-known throughout the country, and the ink mold was carved with fine concave wood, which was more kung fu than ordinary wood carving. A large number of ink mold carvings in past dynasties have created a group of carving artists. In the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Zhen initiated the typesetting and printing of Huizhou woodcut movable type and the rhyme wheel of movable type, and a number of famous engravers emerged. They not only carved wooden movable type, but also printed and carved various books, illustrations and paintings. Huizhou woodcut prints have a long history, appearing 500 years earlier than European prints. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, with the rise of Huizhou merchants, Huizhou printmaking reached its peak, and Huizhou became the three major book engraving centers in China, which was also the golden age of printmaking in the history of China. Huizhou printmaking has greatly promoted the prosperity of Huizhou woodcarving.
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou merchants gradually rose, which led to the wind of returning home to farm and run houses. In order to show wealth and elegance, the fashion of decorating buildings with carving came into being, and the rise and fall of Huizhou woodcarving also went hand in hand with the rise and fall of Huizhou folk houses. Since the Ming Dynasty, Huizhou merchants became the "star" merchants in the social economy at that time. Following the Confucian cultural tradition, businessmen who made a fortune returned to their native land, reclaimed fertile land, built luxury houses, and competed to carve beams and paint buildings for decoration, which promoted the increasingly strong artistic decoration atmosphere of Huizhou folk houses and formed local cultural traditions. The gene of local culture and the exchange and integration of north and south cultures make Huizhou merchants pursue the charm of Confucian culture more in woodcarving art, and promote Huizhou woodcarving to become a woodcarving art school with distinctive Confucian cultural characteristics.
Because it is widely used in Huizhou architecture, Huizhou woodcarving is also adapted to local conditions, and generally uses ginkgo, camphor, pine and cypress, yew and so on. Cork is not only good for carving, but also good for keeping the humidity balance of the house. Huizhou woodcarving uses high-grade materials, such as rosewood, rosewood and golden nanmu, when carving decorative objects such as classical furniture and hanging screens.
The early Ming Dynasty was the development period of Huizhou woodcarving, with a legacy of Qin and Han dynasties. Mainly in bas-reliefs, the lines are simple and rigid, which is close to the style of portrait bricks in Han Dynasty. Gu Zhuo is unpretentious, with moderately exaggerated characters, solid and simple modeling and rich changes. From the middle of Ming Dynasty to the middle of Qing Dynasty, it was the heyday, and the style became fine, and techniques such as deep relief and round carving were developed to make the decoration taste stronger. In the late Qing Dynasty, it gradually became meticulous, complicated and refined, and more techniques such as deep relief, round carving and general carving were used to show ingenuity and luxury at multiple levels. From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, exquisiteness was fashion, and some words were weakened by excessive carving. By the time of the Republic of China, the composition was influenced by graphic painting, and the sense of realism was strong, but the interest in simplicity was relatively weakened.
In terms of carving techniques, craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty are relatively simple in expression, mainly using several carving methods such as shallow relief, deep relief and round carving. Influenced by the secularization of social culture, craftsmen in Qing Dynasty developed through carving, concave carving, line carving and multi-layer carving on the basis of the former, forming a diversified situation. Some can carve seven or eight layers on a two-inch thick board. There are doors and windows in the woodcarving pattern that can be opened, and the ball in the lion's mouth can be rolled, which shows the change of folk aesthetic psychology.
In addition, as far as carving theme is concerned, the content of woodcarving in Ming dynasty is relatively simple, while in Qing dynasty, it pays more attention to the diversity of content. Themes from traditional Chinese opera stories and folk customs are becoming more and more common, and plots and allusions are also richer. In terms of content and form, there are landscapes, flowers and birds that reflect the elegant taste of literati culture, as well as scenes such as history, stories and operas that cater to the aesthetic preferences of wealthy businessmen.
Huizhou woodcarving is the most outstanding performance of Huizhou ancient buildings, especially the railings around the patio and the window railings on both sides of the main hall (both for decoration and viewing), which are the first choice for artists to display their talents, and also an important carrier to show the financial resources and craftsman strength of householders. Any sculpture on the construction site must be cleverly conceived and designed before production. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the painting schools in Huizhou, such as Ding, He Jiayou, Li, Li Yongchang, Jian Jiang and Tu Youyou, were outstanding among them. It was inevitable that they often went to Huizhou merchants to talk about poetry and painting and help them plan and design. Planning division of labor is a combination of "part" and whole, which is coordinated and compatible from beginning to end. The theme is prominent and complementary, so as to achieve harmony and unity. At the same time, due to the tradition of cooperation between painters and craftsmen, these are all important factors of Huizhou woodcarving with high artistic value. Huizhou woodcarving has a strong local flavor and local characteristics. The woodcarving art with landscape as the theme takes Huangshan Mountain and Baiyue Mountain as the strangest and most steep scenery, and the "Ten Scenes" in Shexian County and Jixi County and the "Eight Scenes" in Xiuning County, yi county County, Qimen County and Wuyuan County, such as Huangshan Mountain without stones and scattered stones, are unique in green. Buildings covered with Huizhou woodcarving are layered and strewn at random. The pine, stone, cloud, spring and exotic flowers on wood carvings on white walls, black tiles and horsehead walls with the same length are typical scenery in Huizhou mountainous areas.
Huizhou woodcarving shows a wide range of contents, including celebrity anecdotes, literary stories, dramas, religious ethics, customs, folklore, social life and so on. Eight immortals crossing the sea, harmony between two immortals and Guo Ziyi's birthday are common figures. Lifting the Pavilion and Lantern Festival are full of local characteristics; The Tattoo of Mother-in-law, Twenty-four Filial Pieties, Hundred Endurances, Yang Jiajiang, Qi Jiajun, Changbanpo and Taoyuan Sanjieyi show the theme of loyalty and filial piety. There are also "fishing", "firewood", "ploughing" and "reading" that show the style of daily life. Among many themes, "filial piety" is the main theme of Huizhou woodcarving and the core of Confucian ethics. The story of Yao, Shun and Yu reflected in Huizhou woodcarving is one of the 24 filial piety pictures in China culture, and the completeness or authenticity of the details endows it with an imaginative understanding. The filial piety feelings of folk artists and original owners are presented in woodcarving. "Righteousness" is also a widely respected theme. Righteousness is the ideological personality and important quality considered by Confucianism, and it is the perfect spiritual realm pursued by life. It advocates "seeing profit and forgetting righteousness", and spiritual goodness is more than material interests, forming the soul of China in the traditional sense.
The atmosphere and style of Huizhou woodcarving are also different from other areas. For example, the window lattice of an equal number of woodcarvings "Wang Wen's Visit to the Immortal" and "Liu Bei and Ma Yue Leaping over Tanxi" collected by the author after Qianlong and Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty mainly describes figures and historical stories such as emperors and generals, literati and poets, and highlights the themes of "loyalty", "filial piety", "festival" and "righteousness", showing the strong local flavor and distinctive local characteristics of Huizhou woodcarving. Deep relief multi-layer carving and relief line carving present a multi-dimensional situation of carving technology, reflecting the cultural creation, the last tradition and the last glory of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and conveying the social life information that nature directly accepts the exquisite and complicated artistic style, competition luxury and aesthetic standards of the Qing Dynasty. These themes are vividly portrayed by the masters, with vivid and full composition, full picture tension, vivid characters, rough and unrestrained expression, strong sense of movement, and the style and temperament of Shen Xiong and Gu Zhuo.
Huizhou ancient woodcarving art is the accumulation of China regional culture, with distinctive theme, diverse content, rigorous composition, distinct levels, vivid image and rich connotation, which runs through the orthodox thought and ideology of China traditional culture and forms a unique cultural and artistic personality. It is a cultural heritage that has been filtered and evolved for hundreds of years. Studying and analyzing it will help to enlighten the wisdom of modern people and explore the true connotation of traditional art in China.