Intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter referred to as "intangible cultural heritage") refers to various traditional cultural expressions that exist in intangible form, are passed down from generation to generation by people of all ethnic groups and are regarded as part of cultural heritage, as well as related objects and places. The formation of intangible cultural heritage is related to when, where and how people live, and is a cultural code for examining information about people, places and time.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "It is necessary to do a solid job in the systematic protection of intangible cultural heritage, better meet the growing spiritual and cultural needs of the people, and promote cultural self-confidence and self-improvement." ”
Since human activities 450,000 years ago, Liaoning, as a large province with natural resources such as mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes and grasses, has nurtured a rich and colorful cultural heritage between the heavens, Liaoning, and Ningbo. Among them, intangible cultural heritage has attracted worldwide attention because of its rich and diverse categories. At present, there are more than 1,000 intangible cultural heritage items at or above the municipal level and 294 intangible cultural heritage items at or above the provincial level, including 76 national-level items. It is our bounden duty to tell the story of China's excellent traditional culture and the story of Liaoning.
Liaoning's beautiful mountains and rivers, rivers and vast maritime territory, and the interweaving of diverse natural environments and profound historical heritage have given birth to unique intangible cultural heritage items - from the ancient battlefield legends in western Liaoning to the Manchu embroidery in eastern Liaoning, from the Haicheng trumpet opera in southern Liaoning to the two-person rotation in the northeast of Liaoning, each intangible cultural heritage is an indispensable part of Liaoning culture. They have witnessed the vicissitudes of this land, recorded the changes in the lives of Liaoning people, and in the development of the new era, the organic combination of protection, inheritance and development and utilization has been endowed with a new connotation of the times, showing new vitality and vitality.
Each intangible cultural heritage of Liaoning carries the wisdom and emotions of the people for thousands of years, which have been precipitated and fermented in the long river of time, and finally condensed into a gorgeous and colorful cultural picture, with the warmth of history and the breath of the future, connecting the past, the present and the future.
All things work together, and I look at it.
Liaoning Daily's all-media plan "Tianliao Dining Says Intangible Cultural Heritage", with 34 full pages of four major plates: "Mountains and Mountains", "Blue Sea Tide", "Changhe Lanxing" and "Fengcao Liaoyuan", a panoramic depiction and record of Liaoning's intangible cultural heritage items full of strong local flavor, long history and diversity.
In this issue, the first section of "Mountains and Mountains" will be launched with 8 full pages, so stay tuned.
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Thick as a mountain
The topography of Liaoning is known as "six mountains, one water and three fields", the branches of Changbai Mountain in the east and the mountains and hills in the west mark the altitude of Liaoning, and also stand up the spiritual backbone of Liaoning's regional culture, and the important position of the mountain is obvious.
At the foot of the mountain, there are intangible cultural heritage items with a distinct imprint of Liaoning, and its cultural bloodline continues because of the eternal standing of the mountain. The mountain has accumulated Liaoning's rich cultural history, colorful folk customs and exquisite skills.
The mountains of Liaoning are beautiful and strange - Yiwu Lu Mountain is Manchu, which means "green mountain", and is known as "northern town mountain"; Qianshan is known as the "Pearl of Northeast China"; Phoenix Mountain was called "Black Bone Mountain" in ancient times; The old balding mountain is called the "roof of Liaoning"... These famous mountains contain ups and downs, colorful folk tales, which reverberate in the long river of time.
The mountains of Liaoning are inclusive and open-minded - they will not be difficult to climb because of the steepness, they are deep in the precipitation of history, flashing the glow of ancient civilization: the mountain behind the temple in eastern Liaodong welcomed the first guests in the Northeast 450,000 years ago; Located in Niuheliang in western Liaoning, the Hongshan cultural site represents the first stage of the ancient Chinese civilization... The mountains are not only a tough and upright existence on the geographical map of Liaoning, but also have laid the roots for the cultural development of Liaoning.
"Geographical factors, especially climate and spatial location, are the direct cause of people's physical, psychological, consciousness and cultural differences." This theory shows that the region has a strong shaping effect on folk customs, folk customs, and folk arts. Therefore, we use geographical concepts to reconstruct the logical framework of intangible cultural heritage and its project inheritance, and in this issue, we take mountains as the topic to explore the profound background of Liaoning's mountains and rivers and intangible cultural heritage culture, and feel the power of Liaoning culture.
The painting technique of a thousand mountains has been famous since ancient times. Since the Tang Dynasty, the temple built on the rock on the thousand mountains has colorful colors and delicate ornamentation, and the historical and cultural mountains have provided creative inspiration for craftsmen, and also provided a broad world for the display of craftsmen's skills.
Liaoning Songhua stone inkstone is among the "four major stone inkstones". Liaoning is widely distributed pine stone, only the stone produced by Benxi Qiaotou Town can carve out the pine flower stone inkstone of "color deception stone wind ripple green", the finished product is purple like smoke clouds, green as clear water, yellow like color glaze, bright color, beautiful pattern, known as "talking stone". Today's inheritors keep the original intention with ingenuity, and successfully reproduce the old Tibetan inkstone of the Qing Palace, so that the lost stone inkstone carving skills can be reproduced among the people.
Xiuyan jade carving is smart and simple. The natural features and complex geological structure of the Liaodong Peninsula have given birth to abundant jade resources. Xiuyan jade carving has a steady shape, symmetrical composition, and exquisite carving, which carries great cultural value. The master who deals with jade all day long is infiltrated by the "rustic atmosphere" derived from the mountains and rivers, and the utensils carved by his hands are natural, thick, fresh and precious.
The industrious and intelligent Manchu people have lived in the mountains and deep valleys since ancient times, and the mountains have given them inspiration, and the Manchus have used nature as nourishment to create one skill after another. For example, in the long winter, they are smart enough to use local materials to make a fire kang, embroider the flowers, trees, birds and beasts of nature with silk threads on the hot fire kang, cut out the blessings of life with scissors, and weave daily necessities with tree strips. These works all show the rugged and bold character of the Northeast people, and show the Manchu people's worship of nature and ancestors, and are known as "living fossils of ancient national folk culture".
Relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, the traditional snacks in the mountains are all too familiar to the Manchu people. A bowl of one taste, the mouth is satisfied, warms the stomach of the mountain people, caresses the hearts of ordinary people, and injects a strong Northeast flavor into the food on the tip of the tongue.
Living in the mountains, generation after generation has poured the mountain-like toughness and perseverance into the genes, the mountain is named because of the people, and the people are spiritually because of the mountain, and the intangible cultural heritage items originate from the mountains and are inherited from the people. In this way, the excellent traditional Chinese culture is preserved in our intangible cultural heritage items and passed down. They cross mountains and rivers, communicate and collide with us in the present and in the future, and constantly glow with new brilliance.
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T02
A handful of paper cutouts The story of the mountain can be told for a lifetime
synopsis
Liaoning folk paper-cutting art has a long historical tradition and rich cultural connotation, which is dependent on the unique historical and cultural background and distinctive geographical environment and developed, expressing people's yearning for a better life and happiness. There are five national representative projects of folk paper-cutting art and seven provincial representative projects in our province. In 2009, these five national intangible cultural heritage items were inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
Guan Changsheng, the provincial representative inheritor of Xinbin Manchu paper-cutting, a representative project of national intangible cultural heritage, is demonstrating the smoked paper-cutting technique of Songming. Photo by reporter Zha Jinhui
The mystery of the depths of the mountains leaps onto the page
A small mountain village, a very ordinary house. The woman sat on the edge of the kang, picked up the scissors with her right hand, and cut a few random times on the red paper in her left hand. She hummed a little tune to herself, letting the confetti fall. Putting down the scissors, she shook off the paper, and greeted the sunlight through the window, looking at the cut out of the little doll and smiling.
Her name is Wang Xiuxia, and she is the national representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage representative project Yiwu Lushan Manchu paper-cutting.
In early summer, the six-fold mountains cover the surrounding Yiwu Lu Mountain, the ancient trees are green, and the birds are chirping. Wang Xiuxia lives in Xinli Village, Futun Manchu Township, Beizhen City, at the eastern foot of Yiwulu Mountain, and the flowers in the yard are blooming.
Historically, Yiwu Lu Mountain was the northern town mountain of the feudal dynasty. The unique geographical environment and historical status make it the intersection and integration point of nomadic culture, mountain and forest culture, marine culture and farming culture in Northeast China. The ancestors of the Manchu people living here worshiped the mountains and forests, animals and plants, and the ancestral gods, forming totems, which were expressed in the paper-cutting, and the works not only recorded the Manchu customs, but also showed the integration of farming culture and mountain and forest culture.
Wang Xiuxia has been learning paper-cutting with her mother since she was 4 years old. In 1966, at the age of 19, she married into Xinli Village. Life was hard at that time, and whenever she was sad, she ran into the forest and confided in the mountains. Her way of confiding is very special, holding scissors to cut leaves, seeing birds and beasts, cutting the patterns of birds and beasts, seeing flowers and plants, cutting the patterns of flowers and plants, seeing insects and fish, cutting the patterns of insects and fish, and cutting is a day. In this way, her paper-cut works became more and more expressive. "Ox Head Tree God", "Mama Man", "Mountain God Grandpa, Mountain God Grandma", "Nine Breasts Mother", these famous paper-cut works are all from her hands, the form is dignified and simple, the scissors are bold and rough, not only have the meaning of the conventional prayer, but also can make people clearly feel the mysterious atmosphere from the depths of the mountain.
Song Xiaodong, former director of the Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, was moved by these works, and he commented: "From Wang Xiuxia's works, we can see the worship of nature and ancestors by the Manchu folk paper-cutting of Yiwu Lushan Mountain, and also record the life and cultural state of the northern ethnic groups that have coexisted with the natural world." Wang Guang, a folklorist in Jinzhou, has been systematically studying Manchu paper-cutting since the 80s of the 20th century, and he said: "I was very surprised to see Wang Xiuxia's paper-cutting, because it was very different from the paper-cutting style I had seen before. Wang Xiuxia's cutting method retains the most basic characteristics and the most primitive symbols of Yiwu Lushan Manchu paper-cutting, and has a very strong and distinctive personal style. ”
In 2006, the Yiwu Lushan Manchu paper-cutting project was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list. As one of the inheritors, Wang Xiuxia does not draw drafts when cutting paper, and does not pick tools, but picks up scissors with her hands, cuts with her hands, moves with her hands, and cuts the patterns in her mind by hand, and the finished product has a strong artistic appeal.
Zhao Zhiguo, who lives in Cui Tun Village, Niangnianggong Town, Jinzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone, is also a national representative inheritor of Manchu paper-cutting in Lushan Mountain. Zhao Zhiguo, who was born in 1956, lives by the sea, and his paper-cutting is mainly based on the life scenes of people in this land.
While inheriting the cutting methods of the older generation, Zhao Zhiguo gradually formed his own style. "My paper-cutting has both the rugged and bold of Northeast paper-cutting, and the decorative beauty of Kannai's New Year's paintings. I am really grateful for the land that gave birth to me, and the experience of living in the countryside makes my works very affinable and has a strong sense of life. Zhao Zhiguo said that in terms of artistic modeling, he requires himself not to pay attention to delicacy, but only to pay attention to expressiveness, and use deformation and exaggeration to seize a wonderful moment in a beautiful life, so as to achieve the effect of delicate and full, funny and vivid works.
It is precisely such strict requirements that Zhao Zhiguo's works have been recognized. Among them, "Twisting Yangge" and "Time to Run" were collected by the Chinese People's Association, "Twenty-four Solar Terms Paper-cutting" was collected by the provincial intangible cultural heritage unit, and some paper-cut works were unveiled at the Shanghai World Expo.
It also expresses the worship of nature vividly, as well as Chaoyang Jianping's paper-cutting skills. In 2008, Jianping paper-cutting was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list.
From the perspective of modeling, the Jianping paper-cut shape is similar to the painted pottery and jade unearthed from the Hongshan Cultural Site of Niuheliang, and the shape of some themes even coincides with the shape of cultural relics such as jade pig dragon. The dragon in Jianping paper-cutting artist Zhu Ruilian's paper-cut work "Dragon Playing with Pearls" maintains the traditional style of pig's head, antlers, snake body, chicken feet and phoenix tail.
Jianping paper-cutting mostly serves the people's weddings and funerals, showing the people's joys, sorrows and sorrows, so it has the characteristics of popularity and seasonality.
Yang Zhihong, the provincial representative inheritor of Jianping paper-cutting, said that Jianping paper-cutting is mainly based on white, with lines and surfaces setting off each other, strong contrast, and a sense of rhythm; The shape is rough but not rigid, exaggerated and deformed without distortion. In particular, the animal paper-cutting is romantic but not exaggerated, the shape is rigorous but not rigid, and the action is vivid and vivid, jumping on the paper, which entrusts the good wishes of the locals.
Zhao Zhiguo, the national representative inheritor of Manchu paper-cutting in Lushan Mountain, Yiwu, is a paper-cut work "Picking Bean Seeds". (Photo provided by the interviewee)
Singing while cutting Story folk songs are integrated into thin paper cuts
Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County can be called beautiful mountains and rivers, there is a world cultural heritage - Qing Yongling, and there is the first capital of Houjin, Hetuala. The rich historical culture and unique geographical environment have accumulated a large number of Manchu folk living culture. Among them, the Xinbin Manchu paper-cutting inheritance has a history of more than 200 years.
Xinbin Manchu paper-cutting was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008. Guan Changsheng, a representative inheritor of the provincial level, is 80 years old this year, and his paper-cutting workshop is located in Jiahe Village, Yongling Town. When he was a child, he inherited the art of paper-cutting under the subtle influence of his family.
Guan Changsheng's paper-cut works are concise in shape, rough in line, clumsy and ingenious, rich in meaning, durable, durable, and resistant. His paper-cutting techniques are mainly cut and supplemented by carving, bringing together Xinbin Manchu cultural elements, from design, cutting to framing, there is no draft, a pair of scissors can cut out the desired pattern at will, and he is good at long roll paper-cutting.
Guan Changsheng's representative works include more than 10 sets of Manchu long scroll paper-cuts such as "Manchu Wedding Customs" and "Manchu New Year", and the latest creation of "Qing Dynasty Panorama" Manchu long scroll paper-cut has a total of 4 volumes, consisting of more than 600 pictures, with a total length of 500 meters, all of which are cut by traditional Manchu paper-cutting techniques.
In addition to the traditional Manchu "Mama", flowers, birds, grasses and insects, Manchu folklore, mythological stories, folk customs, etc. are the objects of expression. In Xinbin locality, there is also a unique paper-cutting custom, that is, paper-cutting is specially made for festivals, implying blessings and eliminating disasters, warding off evil spirits and welcoming auspiciousness, such as "Dragon Boat Festival Manchu Hanging Thread Paper-cutting", "Manchu Insect King Festival", etc., with strong Manchu cultural characteristics.
Yin Zhonghua, deputy director of the Liaoning Provincial Cultural Heritage Protection Center (Liaoning Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center), said that the Xinbin Manchu paper-cutting techniques are diverse, including single paper scissors, double paper scissors, three-dimensional combination scissors, color patchwork scissors, Songming smoke scissors, fire head burning scissors, hanging wire animation scissors, etc. In terms of composition, we pay attention to dividing the space with rigid and soft lines, and the performance of objects and images does not block each other, solidifying the characters and plots of different time and space in one picture, so as to break through the limitations of two-dimensional space, make the story have the fluidity of time and space, and enrich the level of the work.
To the reporter's surprise, unlike ordinary paper-cutting, Xinbin Manchu paper-cutting integrates cutting, speaking and singing, which combines Manchu paper-cutting, Manchu folk songs and Manchu stories, and cuts out the works in the form of singing and telling. Guan Suyan, the national representative inheritor of Xinbin Manchu paper-cutting, recalled: "Every year during the Dragon Boat Festival, Nene (Manchu, mother) has to cut window flowers and stick them on the glass windows, saying that it is to ward off evil spirits. At the moment when I opened the window, which had been closed for the winter, I was about to throw a pair of scissors out of the window, and I played the role of picking up scissors. I ran out as fast as I could, getting the scissors back as fast as I could, just to hear Ne sing and tell a story as she cut it. It was so happy to see the spiders, monkeys and other small animals cut out of Nene hanging in front of the window, thinking about the interesting stories that Nene told. ”
More than just cutting, modern technology is infused with ancient techniques
In 2008, Xiuyan Manchu paper-cutting and Zhuanghe paper-cutting were included in the national intangible cultural heritage list.
The shape of Xiuyan Manchu paper-cut is based on the "bottom sample" passed down from generation to generation, pays attention to symmetrical composition, mostly adopts folding and cutting, and expresses the traditional themes that the people like to see, and the images of Fushou, dolls, carp and so on can be seen everywhere in Xiuyan Manchu paper-cutting. In addition, the animals closely related to the life of the fishing and hunting era, as well as the local silkworms and chestnuts, are also enduring themes in Xiuyan Manchu paper-cutting.
Traditionally, Xiuyan Manchu paper-cutting pays more attention to the appearance and demeanor of the subject, and the technique is eclectic, and the arbitrariness is strong. With the Central Plains paper-cutting artists "through the Guandong" came here, the style of Xiuyan Manchu paper-cutting has changed, some artists learn the Central Plains paper-cutting style, the use of zigzag patterns, crescent patterns and other elements when cutting, so that the works in the simplicity of the accumulation of ingenuity.
Wang Xinli, a representative inheritor of the provincial level, is an authentic Xiuyan person, who was taught by his grandparents since he was a child and learned the skills of paper-cutting. Majoring in fine arts at university, her creative methods and cutting skills have improved greatly. From her representative works such as "Manchu Wedding Customs", "Flower Lanterns", "Two Girls Herding Sheep", "Manxiang Dragon Boat Festival", "Partners", "Manxiang Happy Home" and other representative works, it can be seen that she is not only good at cutting traditional styles, but also good at proposition creation, the composition of the works is rigorous, the cutting is meticulous, and the content focuses on reflecting the customs and customs of the Xiuyan Manchu people, with strong ethnic and regional characteristics.
In order to adapt to the development of society, Wang Xinli reformed the materials and themes of traditional paper-cutting art, and developed cultural and creative products. She has developed and created a number of cultural and creative products such as paper-cutting craft fans, paper-cutting pottery plating, acrylic projection paper-cutting, paper-cutting badges, etc., so that the new era of paper-cutting art can enter the daily life of the people, and also broaden the ideas of paper-cutting artists, and inject the technology of the times into the ancient skill of paper-cutting.
Zhuanghe City, Dalian, bordering Xiuyan Manchu Autonomous County, is surrounded by mountains and seas, and its unique geographical space allows artists living here to give free play to paper-cutting.
Zhuanghe paper-cut breaks through all the limitations of time and space in modeling, integrates things of different seasons, different regions and different attributes together, and creates a unique paper-cut artwork with romanticism, which achieves a vivid but not messy, refined but not distorted artistic effect.
In November 1941, Han Yueqin was born in a place called Xiaohedong in Zhuanghe, and she is the representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage of Zhuanghe paper-cutting.
Han Yueqin's works use traditional Chinese paper-cutting forms to shape the characters, draw on the artistic elements of window flowers and shadow puppetry, and absorb the unique decoration, simplicity and simplicity of Chinese folk art, which is very characteristic of folk opera and presents distinctive regional characteristics.
What is rare is that Han Yueqin has published a number of paper-cutting collections, and also published a number of paper-cutting-related papers, summarizing theories with her own practice, and then using theory to guide practice. She is the winner of the highest award in Chinese folklore - "Shanhua Award", and has been rated as a national advanced cultural volunteer, and her paper-cut works have won gold medals in national paper-cutting competitions for many times.
"I regard paper-cutting as my life's work, never leave the folk, never leave the tradition, never put down scissors all my life, and work hard all my life to inherit and carry forward Zhuanghe paper-cutting and excellent traditional Chinese culture." Han Yueqin said.
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T03
The quality is polished, the green voice is clear, and the pine flower stone inkstone in Benxi can speak
synopsis
The Songhua stone inkstone inkstone in Liaoning is known as the four major stone inkstones in ancient China together with the end inkstone, the She inkstone, and the red silk inkstone. Its special material comes from the affectionate gift of the remaining veins of Changbai Mountain - pine stone. Over the past 300 years, the mountains of Benxi have shaped the intangible cultural heritage skills based on stone, and also built a humanistic spirit rooted in ingenuity. From the collision between the mountain and the people, we can find the code for the inheritance and development of the production skills of Liaoning Songhua stone inkstone.
Reproduced Qing Palace Kangxi Imperial Inkstone - Songhua Stone Plum Blossom Picture Inkstone.
"In the east of Shengjing, at the foot of the rocky mountain, there is a stone barrier"
Entering May, a few intermittent drizzles gave the mountain city of Benxi more fresh breath. On the way to Qiaotou Town, you can see endless mountains. The branches are green and red, and the dark clouds give the mountain side a faint ink color.
Benxi Qiaotou is one of the important production areas of Songhua stone. Its unique geological landform has evolved over hundreds of millions of years to give birth to purple marble and green dolomite, which are good materials for making inkstones. As we all know, inkstone can be made of clay, lacquered wood, bricks, tiles, glass or semi-precious stones, etc., and the material and origin are the same as their origin, which determines its category and appearance. Qiaotou Songhua Stone is famous all over the world with the characteristics of "warm and moist like jade, beautiful color, firm and fine, tender and pure color".
In 2014, the Songhua stone inkstone production technique declared by Benxi City was included in the list of representative items of national intangible cultural heritage. The inkstone here is known as "slippery but not flowing ink, astringent but not grinding the pen, and raising ink is the head of the group of inkstones". The exquisiteness of its utensils is the materialization of ingenuity, reflecting the uniqueness of the geographical dimension, accumulating the weight of history and culture, and flashing the brilliance of the craftsman's spirit.
In the mountains near the mouth of the pit in Qiaotou Town, you can see scattered reddish-brown and blue-green pine stones after walking a few steps, but in the eyes of professional quarrymen, shallow weathered stones cannot be used as inkstones. "You have to dig twenty or thirty meters deep to get good material. We don't take the skin material, nor do we take the material from the top of the mountain, and generally start the material below the water level. With such a large mountainous area, the materials that can be used are only a few meters square. Locals say.
Located in Qiaotou Town, a southern suburb of Benxi City, it is famous for its rich production of pine stones. As early as the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, the local people have used pine stone to make inkstones. In the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Kangxi created the imperial Songhua stone inkstone of the Qing Palace, and Benxi Qiaotou and Jilin Antu were the two major stone sites. During the Qianlong period, the Jilin stope was sealed, and the Benxi bridgehead became an important stone supply place, because it was produced in the "land of Longxing", the Qing Dynasty emperor regarded the Songhua stone inkstone as a national treasure.
Speaking of Songhua stone inkstone, we have to mention the three emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. As a stationery used by the Qing Dynasty, Songhua stone inkstone has been respected by the three emperors and has important cultural and historical value. Kangxi praised it as "longevity and quality, green color and clear sound, ink benefit, so its treasure is also". In his "Theory of Making Inkstones", he once mentioned the origin of the Songhua stone inkstone as the imperial inkstone of the palace and the joy of discovering the inkstone: "In the east of Shengjing, at the foot of the stone mountain, there is a stone base, the quality is firm and warm, the color is green and bright, the literature and science are brilliant, and the holding of it is moisturizing and dripping, and there are those who take it as a tool." When I saw it, I thought it was a good inkstone. The life of the work of its small and large square circle, all the quasi-ancient style, the inkstone a number of squares, grinding and trying, far better than the green end, that is, the old pit of the famous products can also be out of the right. This passage makes it clear that the pine stone inkstone material used by the emperor originates from the "foothills of the stone mountain" in the "east of Shengjing". Stone, that is, whetstone, it can be seen that this kind of stone is very suitable for whetstone in the eyes of the people. Later generations consulted the archives and made it clear that the stone mentioned in the text was the bridgehead stone, and further found out that the location of the capital construction office in the Qing Dynasty was the location of the bridgehead in Benxi. In Chang Jianhua's "Kangxi Production and Reward Songhua Stone Inkstone", it is inferred that Emperor Kangxi probably found this stone on the way to worship his ancestors on his second eastern tour in the 21st year of Kangxi (1682).
For finding materials, it is not the most difficult for people to walk deep and shallow into the mountains, and in many cases, there is no way to find materials. Moreover, people in the industry know that the puddle material has good water retention and a warmer and more tender texture, so every year in the rainy season, local quarrymen and inkstone craftsmen will look for material by the stream below the mountain. Kick up your water boots, wade down the river, bend over, flip rock after stone. Every time I turn over a piece of good material, all the fatigue disappears, and I look at it carefully, and I think about what kind of inkstone I can carve with it.
Feng Yueting, a national intangible cultural heritage representative project, is making inkstones and provincial representative inheritors of Songhua stone inkstone production skills.
"Look for three months, think for two months, do a month"
On the yellow and white square inkstone, an ancient plum probes out from behind the longevity stone. Plum blossoms have positive sides, upside, down, buds, and blooms. The color is yellow and white, completely the natural color of the stone, convex and concave, vivid. The upper left side of the cover is carved with two lines of seven-word poems: "The middle of the moon is extraordinarily spiritual, and the snow has a lot of flavor." Two seals are attached below: "ice" and "heart". The stone inkstone is green, the ink pool is embossed with a phoenix that spreads its wings and is about to fly, the bas-relief of the three sides of the pond is carved with 4 antique dragon patterns, and the central part of the inkstone is engraved with the inscription: "To be quiet for use, is to be eternal." ”
This exquisite carving of pine stone plum blossom inkstone, is a 1:1 replica of Kangxi imperial inkstone, now collected in an intangible cultural heritage workshop in Huanxiling, Mingshan District, Benxi City. In the workshop, Feng Yueting, the provincial representative inheritor of the production skills of Liaoning Songhua stone inkstone, a national intangible cultural heritage representative project, and a group of inkstone craftsmen are working hard.
Feng Yueting introduced that the pine stone is buried in the depths of the mountain, which was originally the seabed silt, which has been deposited, covered and pressed into stone after hundreds of millions of years. Turquoise stone has a rich color and texture, and is the only stone suitable for making both inkstones and exquisite inkstones. There are several types of Songhua stone inkstone, such as conformal, bionic and rectangular. In the shape of inkstone, rectangles are more common, and there are also irregular shapes such as ruyi head shape, gourd shape, bamboo shape, and melon shape. In addition to the bionic shape, there are also dragons, phoenixes, antique patterns, hook cloud patterns, peach, Ganoderma lucidum and other auspicious ornaments. Songhua inkstone boxes are often inlaid with fossils, glass, shells, etc.
In the Chinese inkstone forest, the Songhua stone inkstone made by the Qing Dynasty is a special existence - it must be made according to the royal system, and there are not many surviving in the world, only some of them exist in the Palace Museum in Beijing, the Palace Museum in Taipei, the Tianjin Museum, etc., and there are few private collections.
Feng Yueting is most proud of the successful reproduction of a batch of old Qing palace pine flower stone inkstones, the already lost palace inkstone skills have been rediscovered here, and the inkstone that was once favored by the royal family has returned to the public eye. Walking in the exhibition hall of the workshop, the ingenious stone inkstones are like mirrors, reflecting the skillful skills and unremitting pursuit of the craftsmen represented by Feng Yueting's father and Feng Jun, the fourth-generation inheritor of the Songhua stone inkstone production skills.
The inkstone is different from other stone carvings, "look for three months, think for two months, and do a month", which is the secret handed down by the older generation of carving masters. Obsessed with details, calculating the difference of millimeters, the so-called "close to ingenuity" is this truth. There are more than 100 manufacturing processes and 9 large processes.
Stone selection is the first step. Pine stone is rich in color, there are dozens of kinds of yellow-green, yellow-white, purple-green, pure yellow, pure green, pure purple, etc., but because there are many cracks, so the selection of stone is very important. The materials used to make inkstones must be firm and moist, and the color is pure or rich, not only to not destroy the structure of the original stone, but also to ensure that the stone will not be wasted and make the best use of it.
The second step is to stake out the material, draw the sample according to the size of the stone, and then cut it on the saw. The hardness of turquoise is between 3.5 and 4 degrees on the Mohs scale, which is softer than that of granite.
The next step is to go to the stone skin and cut down the wasteland. After leveling the material gauge, use a chisel to remove the upper and lower stone skin parts.
The next step is to raze, use a wider carving knife to shovel off a layer of rough stone coating on the outside of the inkstone, expose the delicate pine stone stone, and then refine the blank.
The fifth step is pattern design, design and draw drawings according to the stone, and draw the designed drawings on the stone to prepare for the next step of carving.
The sixth step is very important. Use special tools for making inkstones, such as flat-mouth knives, round-mouth knives, carp belly knives, etc., to carry out rough carving and fine carving of utensils and shapes, and each line must be adjusted to the tension and introverted and rounded, presenting the beauty of neutralization.
Next, the water grinding is carried out, and the inkstone is patiently polished with oil stone and sandpaper in turn, and water needs to be added continuously during the grinding process, and the lines of the knife are polished and smoothed, and then waxed and polished. After the wax on the whole inkstone is completed, the key parts need to be dewaxed and polished.
The last step is packaging, and the pine stone inkstone is generally equipped with an inkstone box, and the material is also pine stone. In addition to the use of pine stone boxes, there are also wooden boxes and brocade boxes.
In the process of making inkstones, each major process is responsible for the "palm eye" by a special master. Gao Yufa is a master of the carving link, 18 years old began to enter the industry, from the material, material selection, more than 20 years of work, is now an excellent arts and crafts artist in Liaoning Province. When I saw him, he was trimming a semi-finished piece with the thinnest carving knife. He didn't raise his head and said: "The feather state should be pressed one by one, and the feeling carved out by this student is like a phoenix being frightened, a little 'fried hair'." A few words are the most vivid and simple annotations to the craftsman spirit of "can be skillfully continued to be clumsy, not mediocre to be refined".
"I won't say anything, I just know to do this one thing well for the rest of my life." When the reporter asked for an interview, Master Gao nervously rubbed his hands. The right hand holding the carving knife has a deformed thumb.
The shrill roar of the machine filled the cutting workshop, and Zheng Li, who was full of slurry, was operating the cutting machine. "The hardness of this stone cannot meet the requirements of making inkstones, so it is used to make inkstones." He explained. Feng Yueting added: "Many people think that such a large piece of stone can be used all, but in fact, only the place where the material eye is available is available. ”
The years are silent, only the stone can speak. A group of people who have worked hard for the carving of Songhua stone inkstone are accompanied by each other, turning their hearts into pens, caring for the intangible cultural heritage treasures that have been passed down for hundreds of years, and making the "talking stone" glow in the new era.
"The ancient method is handmade, and the new 'pine flower' falls into your home"
In 2017, Songhua stone inkstone, Xiuyan jade, Fuxin agate, and Fushun coal carving were known as the new "Four Treasures of Liaoning". In 2018, the production technique of Songhua stone inkstone was selected into the first batch of national traditional craft revitalization catalogue announced by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. In 2019, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Gongwangfu Museum and the Liaoning Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, and undertaken by the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition and Research Center, Benxi Municipal Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Radio, Film and Television, and Benxi Cultural Development Service Center, the "Blessing Naxiang - Liaoning Songhua Stone Inkstone Production Skills Exhibition" was held in Prince Gong's Mansion in Beijing.
The older the technique, the more it needs a fresh, youthful expression, and the more it needs to integrate into the new spirit of the times. In recent years, on the basis of the original traditional court skills of Songhua stone inkstone, a new generation of inheritors will integrate traditional skills such as jewelry and jade processing into the carving and production of Songhua stone inkstone, and the traditional cultural genes resonate with the times, and they have developed 9 kinds of high-tech products of Songhua stone, so that Songhua stone appears in more diverse application scenarios and spaces. All kinds of Songhua stone cultural and creative derivatives have entered the Forbidden City in Beijing, Guozijian, Shenyang Marshal's Mansion, Jinzhou Bijia Mountain and other scenic spots. While protecting the newly developed craft skills, the intangible cultural heritage workshop also does not forget to inherit and carry forward, and all related crafts are open to the public and taught free of charge.
In addition, they will also make research projects such as ink research and stone inkstone pattern rubbing, and popularize the relevant knowledge of the literature to the public, which has become a popular and interesting activity. "In fact, the original intention of doing these things is to let more young people know about Songhua stone inkstone. Only by being affirmed by more people, our inkstone-making business will develop better, and more people will be willing to learn this traditional skill. Feng Yueting said frankly.
It was getting late, and Feng Yueting began to release the live broadcast preview of the night in the fan group: "The ancient method is handmade, and the new 'Songhua' flies into your home." Today, there is a super cheap welfare product Hequ inkstone, listen to me slowly talk about the exquisiteness behind it...... Xiangyun mini inkstone is also on the shelf, suitable for carrying and playing; Songhua stone maple leaf refrigerator magnet, good-looking and practical...... "The Internet era has opened up a new track for intangible cultural heritage craftsmen, and on the small screen, the traditional skills that have come out of the distance of history and the depths of the mountains are more vivid, moving and down-to-earth.
Songhua stone is a song written by nature to the mountains and rivers, and the inkstone craftsmen will sing this song to the present and the future.
4
T04
Dinner on a plate, wine in a cup, the tip of the tongue memory of the mountain forest people
synopsis
"The people take food as the sky", the traditional snacks of the Manchu people in Xinbin were the necessities of the survival of the ancient Liaodong forest tribes, and these delicacies formed over the years can still be tasted from the table of the Manchu people. Jiang Lilu, the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Manchu traditional snacks, is busy every day, preparing various snacks for guests. The intangible cultural heritage items in the Xinbin area are closely related to the daily life of the Manchu people, and there is a certain connection between the projects.
Jiang Lilu, the representative inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of the Xinbin Manchu traditional snack project, is making dumplings. Photo by reporter Guo Ping
Authentic and living culture contained in traditional food customs
Driving all the way east from downtown Shenyang, after Fushun, the scenery outside the car window has changed significantly, and the vast fields are no longer visible, replaced by rolling mountains and reckless forests. People who are slightly familiar with the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties will feel that if you walk into the valleys of the mountains in this direction, and then go upstream, you will enter the Manchu people who live here.
Fu Bo, director of the Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County Cultural Center, has been engaged in mass cultural work for 30 years, and in order to investigate the local intangible cultural heritage protection project, his footprints are all over the mountains and mountains here. He said: "The relatively closed environment of the Xinbin area has enabled many Manchu folk customs and folk culture to be well preserved. Authentic! ”
After comprehensive investigation and research, Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County now preserves 35 intangible cultural heritage items in eight categories, which is one of the few county-level densely distributed areas of intangible cultural heritage in our province. The dilemma parallel to the protection of intangible cultural heritage is the modernization of the local economy. In Fubo's view, although there are many representative items of intangible cultural heritage in Xinbin area, compared with the situation in the 80s of the last century, some protection work is still late, such as the traditional snacks of the Manchu people in Xinbin, which are just a local specialty snack in the eyes of young people, and in the eyes of the elderly in the northeast, what is awakened is a deep memory of Manchu history.
"The area around Xinbin is mostly low hills and does not have large areas of arable land, so the local agricultural products are mainly small grains," Fubo said. This natural condition determines that the traditional Manchu ingredients are less crops in the fields, and the people living here have formed a dietary preference of sticky food, pasta and sweets as the mainstream, and the method of processing food is mainly steamed and boiled, and occasionally the leaves of Sucotyledon and Quercus (also known as glass leaves, quince leaves) are collected in the mountains and forests to improve the taste of food. ”
Manchu traditional snacks were listed as a provincial intangible cultural heritage project in 2015, and their production skills are a necessary life skill for the elderly living in Northeast China, but with the development of the times, the rich and diverse selection of ingredients, these skills have gradually faded out of the vision of Northeast people, and now they need to be passed on through the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County is located in the eastern mountainous area of Liaoning, approved by the State Council in 1985, the first Manchu Autonomous County of New China was established here, more than 400 years ago, the Jurchen tribe was here to gradually develop and grow, and finally established the Qing Dynasty, the unique geographical environment and profound history and culture make a large number of Manchu folk living culture preserved here.
Xinbin Manchu Eight Dishes and Eight Bowls - In 2013, it was listed as a Fushun Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Project. (Data map)
Eight plates and eight bowls Open a feast for the palate that means auspiciousness
When we arrived at Hetuala, we stopped at a three-room house with blue bricks and gray tiles, which is a Manchu restaurant run by Jiang Lilu, the provincial representative inheritor of Manchu traditional snacks, a provincial intangible cultural heritage project. The restaurant is fenced with fine wooden piles, a wooden nailed gatehouse, a stone mill in the courtyard, and a three-room tiled house with a door in the middle and traditional Manchu lattice windows.
Walking into the courtyard, the snort was immediately filled with the aroma of food. Turning his head, he saw smoke coming out of the blue brick chimney erected on the east side of the house. Cooking well is the usual way of welcoming guests of the Manchu people. During the wait-and-see period, Jiang Lilu had already opened the door to greet her, and when she stepped into the stove room in the middle of the three tiled houses, there was a crackling sound of firewood in her ears, and the sound of firewood was mixed with the sizzling sound of boiling water in the big iron pot on the stove, as if she was playing a unique welcome song for people in a mountain village.
Greeting guests from afar, Jiang Lilu and her companions wore a smock with a bright red background and printed with phoenix birds and peony patterns, she said: "This is no longer a traditional Manchu costume, but bright colors and auspicious patterns are the common preference of Manchu people." ”
Jiang Lilu's mother, Leng Chunfang, is the inheritor of the traditional Manchu snacks of Xinbin. After the death of her mother in 2017, Jiang Lilu took on the responsibility of inheriting this intangible cultural heritage.
Due to the limitations of production time and place, Jiang Lilu simply prepared ingredients such as Su Ziye dumplings and sour soup, and after welcoming the guests into the door, she immediately got busy. The prepared glutinous rice noodles, sticky cornmeal, cleanly washed Su Zi Ye, and the red beans that have been boiled and mashed earlier, next to a large bowl full of white sugar, Jiang Lilu only has the last two processes left - wrapping the Su Ziye Dumpling into shape, and then putting it into an iron pot to steam. These two processes are particularly lively and festive because of the participation of many people.
In fact, there is a lot of preparation before this. Glutinous rice flour and sticky cornmeal need to be reconciled early and fermented at an appropriate temperature, so that the steamed dumplings will taste softer.
This scene is particularly evocative of childhood memories for older people. In the memory of that generation, it was a pleasure to cook adzuki beans on a stove: from time to time you could lift the lid and watch the adzuki beans tumble in the boiling water, drooling and smelling the aroma of the pot. The most anticipated is the process of pounding bean paste, you can sprinkle brown sugar or white sugar into it while pounding, and the sugar jar that is usually strictly guarded by your mother can be used at will at this time, and you can take the opportunity to taste the sweetness of the bean paste, and you can eat it in a grand way, and you don't have to look at the face of the adult.
There is a Northeast dish, Jiang Lilu is not a specific inheritor, but she is often asked to show by guests who come to visit, this is the Xinbin Manchu Eight Dishes and Eight Bowls that were listed as Fushun Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage Projects in 2013. She said: "The declaration of this intangible cultural heritage item was researched and determined by my mother and the master in the county when she was alive. ”
As the name suggests, the utensils used to hold dishes are eight bowls and eight plates (in the Jurchen period, there was no distinction between plates and plates, and they were all called feila, which has been passed down for hundreds of years and is still called "eight dishes and eight bowls"). Legend has it that during festivals, the Manchu chieftain would order the children of the Eight Banners to serve a plate, a bowl and two dishes, and eventually gather together. The eight bowls are all stews, and the eight dishes are divided into four cold and four hot, which means four flat and eight stable.
The daily life of the Manchu people is auspicious and blessed. In addition to snacks, there are also two large fish that often appear in Manchu paper-cutting, and the fish scales are represented by two copper coins, one large and one small, implying that there is more than enough every year and a wide range of wealth; In the Manchu costumes, there are more five bats surrounding the Fu character pattern, which means that the five blessings are accompanied and the five blessings are enjoyed......
Delicious and beautiful Trace the dietary preferences that originated in the forest
The history of the development of the Manchus can be traced back to the Su Shen people, and it is recorded in the "Historical Records": "Zhong Ni said: The falcon is far away, and this Su Shen arrow is also." "By the time of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the ancestors of the Manchus were also known as the Beji people, where Beji was pronounced as "woji", which means forest.
In the 30s of the last century, Liu Shuang edited the "Jilin New Chronicles" recorded: "All the northern Xing'an Mountains and the mountain ranges of this province (Jilin Province) are mostly green and verdant, endless, and uncut forests...... Off the beaten track. Yang Bin, a cultural streamer in the early Qing Dynasty, described in his geographical treatise "Liubian Jilu": "From the Tongjiang River (Songhua River) to Ningguta, Woji Fan Er, said that Mu Woji, said that color out of Woji. The wooden nest is forty miles, and the color is sixty miles out of the nest, and each has a bounded ridge. Among them, thousands of trees are towering to the sky, and they are in contact with each other, and there is no room for rulers...... or for several days, or for tens of days. ”
It is conceivable that when people who lived by hunting in the forest, when they were hungry, they randomly plucked the leaves of the soycotyledon or the leaves of the oak tree around them and heated them in the fire, making it easier to understand the unique dietary preferences of the forest people. People may have tried various kinds of leaves back then, only to find out later that the leaves of the soycotyledon and the leaves of the oak tree are more effective in improving the taste of the dumplings.
Fubo said: "'饽饽' is a Manchu language, which is a general term for all kinds of Manchu pastries. As a nomadic people, they have been hunting and fighting in the wild for a long time, and carrying sticky food is both trouble-free and hungry. Slowly, the Manchus developed the habit of eating gluttony in their daily diet at home. ”
This is true, in the "Manchu Old Files", which records the early events of the Manchus, the word "gluttony" appears many times, which records: "Give ...... Five taels of silver, three taels of silver for servitude, and sent people to send four willow buckets and a large bottle of honey. It reflects that it was also one of the items that the Manchu leaders rewarded their subordinates for.
Jiang Lilu doesn't talk much, but she is quick to handle things in the stove, and she specially arranged for the guests to make Xinbin Manchu traditional snacks - sour soup.
Sour soup is a type of coarse noodles made from flour ground from corn and fermented, and the complete production process takes more than ten days. Jiang Lilu demonstrated the last step of making sour soup, where the fermented dough is scalded with boiling water, then mashed, and evenly mixed with water to form a paste, called the dough soup. Then, she wears a small funnel made of iron sheet on her index finger, holds a ball of noodles in the palm of her hand and squeezes it into the boiling water of the iron pot.
When she was free, Jiang Lilu guided the reporter to look at the beams of the stove house, where there was a row of rectangular squares wrapped in white paper, and she said: "That's a big sauce cube." These sauce blocks are also related to a municipal intangible cultural heritage protection project - Xinbin Manchu sauce making skills.
According to reports, the Manchu people have a long history of making soybean sauce, as early as the Sui and Tang dynasties, the ancestors of the Manchus planted soybean sauce. The Book of the New Tang Dynasty records the "soybean bean of the city", in which the soy bean is the food brewed from beans. The "History of Jin" records: "The Jurchens used beans as sauce, made soybean paste, and seasoned them with garlic, mustard, and vinegar. In the Qing Dynasty's compilation of the "Manchurian Yuanliu Examination", it is recorded that the Jurchens "made wine with millet rice, used beans as sauce, and used turnips as turnips", which means that the Manchu ancestors made wine with sticky rice, made sauce with soybeans, and ate it with mountain vegetables.
According to the ancestors, there is a relatively complete set of specifications for the art of making miso sauce, which is usually cooked and then mashed on the first day of the lunar month or the first day of the second lunar month, and piled into a one-foot-long and half-foot-wide sauce cube, wrapped in paper, and placed on a wooden board on the roof of the house, waiting for fermentation.
On the 8th, 18th or 28th day of the fourth lunar month, people will break up the fermented sauce pieces and put them in the sauce jar, add salt and water, seal them with cloth and put them in the garden to wait for further fermentation. After about a week, the miso is made with a sauce rake with a small wooden board fixed to one end, and the unique aroma of the miso is made.
Fubo said: "The intangible cultural heritage items in the Xinbin area are closely related to the daily life of the Manchu people, and there is a certain connection between the projects. "This is especially true when it comes to diet.
Not only to eat, in the West House of this Manchu house, we saw some "galaha" on the kang. "Galaha" is a Manchu language, also called "sheep crutch", the scientific name is "patella", is a bone in the joint part of the hind legs of sheep, pigs, cattle and other animals. Now, "Grasping Galaha" has become a county-level intangible cultural heritage protection project in Xinbin as one of the activities of "Xinbin Manchu Game". In the eyes of the elderly in Northeast China, "Galaha" is an important game project that accompanies their childhood, waking up a group of dolls in the long winter, from the kang head to the kang tip......
5
T05
The old craft comes from the wisdom of mountain dwellings
synopsis
Huanren Manchu Autonomous County in Benxi City is full of mountains, and the area of mountains accounts for 80 percent of the total area of the county. The mountains beautify the environment of Huanren, cultivate people's temperament, stimulate their wisdom, temper their skills, and derive a series of old crafts. For thousands of years, Huanren people have gotten along with the mountains and blended with the mountains, and have explored the way of life and production skills that adapt to the mountain dwellings. Behind the old craftsmanship passed down orally is the thousand-year-old dialogue between Huanren people and the mountains.
An important process in the national intangible cultural heritage project Huanren Pankang technique - paving the kang surface slate. (Photo provided by the interviewee)
Pankang technique A hot kang to protect against the cold winter
At the beginning of May, Tongtian Village in Huanren Manchu Autonomous County was still a little cool, and as soon as the reporter walked into the home of villager Xu Fusheng, the old couple greeted with a smile: "It's cool down today, hurry up and warm up on the kang." Sitting down on the edge of the kang, a warmth struck, and the strangeness of the county-level inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage representative project Huanren Pankang skills at the first time also disappeared in a warm atmosphere.
The father and son of the Xu family are both inheritors of pankang skills. His father, Xu Fusheng, was a mason, and he was building a house while also building a kang. Sitting on the warm kang, Xu Fusheng told reporters about his unique work.
The fire kang of the Northeast people is generally composed of three parts: the pot stove, the kang body and the chimney. The kang body is a low wall made of small adobe barriers, which plays a load-bearing role. The kang of the low wall is arranged horizontally and vertically, called "Huadong Kang", and the Huanren Pankang technique is based on summarizing the traditional "Huadong Kang" technique, combined with the characteristics of new masonry materials. The so-called "pan" is the meaning of building and building, and the pankang is commonly known as building kang and playing kang in the folk. The pankang includes 12 processes, such as design positioning, material selection, mud recovery, flue setting, hanging kang layout, building kang wall, paving earth ramming foundation, laying flue, paving stone slab, mud application, pouring soup greasy joints, and burning kang with martial fire.
Xu Fusheng told reporters that the 12 processes test the kung fu and practical experience. For example, when building a masonry hanging kang, the pay-off position should be determined according to the size of the kang board, which is similar to laying water pipes and wires in the house in advance during modern decoration; and mud are particular, and the watering process must be slow and urgent; When laying the soil ramming foundation, a certain slope should be formed from the kang head to the kang tip, so that it is convenient to climb the smoke. Especially in the last step, the kang plate needs to be dried after it is ready, first with a rapid fire, and then with a slow fire, until the kang is dry before the fire can be stopped, otherwise the kang surface layer is easy to peel and is not resistant to stepping on, forming the folk commonly known as "sandwich kang". "Failure to do a good job in any link may lead to the fire kang not burning for a long time, or choking on smoke. Although it is rough work, it has to be done carefully. Xu Fusheng said.
With more than 40 years of experience in pankang, Xu Fusheng has felt the changes in this skill. "A paved kang surface looks similar, in fact, the internal structure has been changing with the pattern of the kang, and the masons have continuously optimized their skills in practice, and have come to the experience of making the kang heat more evenly, not easy to pour smoke, and not easy to collapse." Xu Fusheng took the reporter from the house into the kitchen, and then pointed to the chimney outside the house to explain.
Now, Xu Fusheng no longer works as a bricklayer for a living, but teaches his son Xu Zhiwei all the skills he learned from his father. "Since I was a child, watching my dad pankang, the picture of him spreading the reconciled yellow clay on the stone slab and smoothing it with a brick knife will always appear in front of me. As long as it's my dad's pan, everyone who has used it gives a thumbs up. Xu Zhiwei said that when he took over his father's brick knife, he also felt the heavy responsibility of the pankang craftsman, and as the saying goes, "the three major difficulties in the countryside" are among them, and the "kang that is not easy to burn" is among them, which shows the importance of the pankang to farmers.
In 2021, the Pankang Technique (Huanren Pankang Technique) was included in the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. In Northeast China, why can the ordinary and accustomed rural fire kang be rated as a national intangible cultural heritage project?
Inseparable from! This is the most fundamental reason.
Huanren has a long and cold winter, and the summer is wet and rainy, especially after October every year, when the snow covers the mountains and the ice and snow until May of the following year. According to the records of Huanren County, the average annual temperature in Huanren area is only 6.3°C, and according to the dryness grading index, the whole county is humid. The geographical environment surrounded by mountains and the humid weather have made the Huanren people set up ondols to warm up and dispel the tide when building houses since ancient times.
Archaeological results show that the pankang technique has been practiced in Huanren for a long time. The existing early ondol site in Huanren is in Wangyigou, Shengjia Street, Beidianzi Village, Beidianzi Township, and experts have verified that the age of the ondol site should be from the Warring States Period to the Han Dynasty, and its flue shape is basically the same as the current shape. This means that the pankang technique has been passed down in Huanren for 2,000 years.
To this day, the kang is still an indispensable part of rural families in the northern part of the mainland. Li Jiuxu, director of the Huanren Manchu Autonomous County Cultural Center and director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Center, told reporters that even today, when the living conditions in rural areas are getting better and better, the number of rural families using boilers and air conditioners for heating is still not more than 20%. The pankang technique is unique to the northern region, so when applying for a national intangible cultural heritage project, Huan Ren chose this project under the guidance of experts.
It is understood that there are currently more than 300 masons in Huanren, and most of them are over 50 years old. The panyi kang is about 4,000 yuan, the cost is high, the area is large, and the time is long, how to inherit this national intangible cultural heritage skill is a problem that Huanren intangible cultural heritage workers have been thinking about. In recent years, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Center of Huanren Manchu Autonomous County has innovated the way of intangible cultural heritage skills transmission and learning, and promoted poverty alleviation with intangible cultural heritage, which has been well received by the villagers. "Organize the inheritors of the pankang to go to the poor households to make pankang for free, and everyone discusses how to make the best kang. After an activity, poor households saved 4,000 yuan, and we also carried out technical training, killing multiple birds with one stone. Li Jiuxu said.
Cao Wenqing, the representative inheritor of Liaodong weaving skills, a representative project of provincial intangible cultural heritage, is compiling baskets. Photo by reporter Zha Jinhui
Strip weaving technique A bundle of branches to weave patterns
One side of the water and soil to support the other side. In Xiuli Village, Balidianzi Town, about 50 kilometers away from Tongtian Village, every household has a fire kang. In the early morning, when the veteran craftsman Cao Wen woke up, the kang was still warm.
Now is not the best season to go into the mountains to cut slivers and pick mountain vegetables, but spring is coming to an end, seeing the green on the mountain in front of his house, Cao Wenqing can no longer hold back, and goes out with an apricot basket. For the 84-year-old, the title of "Provincial Inheritor of Liaodong Weaving Skills" is still a little unfamiliar, and the various plants in the mountains are particularly kind and familiar.
After cutting a bundle of apricot and elm strips with skin, the old man came down from the mountain and went to buy a fish and put it in a basket of wattle sticks. "When I was twelve or thirteen years old, I went down to the river to net fish, and I learned the method of adults to weave baskets. In this way, he learned the craft of basket weaving that has been passed down from generation to generation since he was a child.
The Huanren area is high and densely forested, and the forest area is in the transition zone between Changbai flora and North China flora, with a wide variety of plant species, lush growth, and a forest coverage rate of 80.4%, which provides convenient conditions for strip weaving skills. Liaodong strip weaving handicraft has a unique and complete compilation program, cutting, selection, bubble strips, open strips twisting strips, edge strips, lock edges, wrapping beams and so on are essential steps.
Moving a small bench to sit at the gate of the small courtyard, with his back to the mountain, Cao Wenqing skillfully twisted the apricot strips and weaved the basket, and said slowly: "The fresh tree strips cut back from the mountain can be used after three or two days of sleepiness, or dried and taken as you go, and soaked in water before use." Taking basket weaving as an example, apricot strips need to be soaked in water, and then twisted after soaking soft can strengthen toughness, which is often used to lay a foundation; If you soak it after opening, you can make edge strips. Cao Wenqing said that in the past, the countryside did not use plastic bags, but carried a big basket to the county town to catch the market, and the basket was filled with oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, and some also contained children. Under normal circumstances, there is a base under this kind of large basket, and people can sit down against the hillside to rest for a while when they are tired, and after resting, they can stand up at once by the rebound force of the base. Listening to Cao Wenqing's words, a picture of life in the market with a basket on his back vividly presented in front of the reporter.
In 2020, Liaodong weaving skills were included in the list of provincial intangible cultural heritage representative projects. Its products are widely used in daily life: the apricot basket is light and can be used to pick mountain vegetables and mushrooms; The elm basket can be used to pick up manure and filter manure; The wattle basket can be used to carry grain, net fish, and can also be used as a nest for hens to lay eggs; Wax sticks can be woven into earthen baskets, grain hoards, and children's carts; The wicker texture is soft, the color is white, and it can be woven into dustpans, fences, and baskets; The locust strip is slightly hard, and the wall grate can be weaved, and the ancestral hand-woven techniques are numerous, and everything can be knitted.
To this day, strip knitting products are still in demand. This skill records the geographical features and cultural customs of Huanren, and is a part of the history and culture of Huanren. Nowadays, flower baskets, fruit plates, pet kennels and other novel products that exude the fragrance of plants have also entered the market with a back-to-basics attitude. Zhao Dan, deputy director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Center of Huanren Manchu Autonomous County, said.
Leaning on the mountain to eat the mountain, the forest is under the mountain, and the ginseng is rich in farmers
The loving mountain not only provides the means of production and livelihood, but also ignites the hope of people to get rich. In the Huanren Mountains, it is not difficult to find precious Chinese medicinal materials, and wild ginseng takes root and grows. Huanren mountain ginseng is recorded in the ancient books of the Jin Dynasty, well-known in the Qing Daoguang period, and has been the "opening ginseng" of some big ginseng in the country since then. Using the resources in the mountains, after hard work, Huanren people not only continue the old craftsmanship, but also form an industrial advantage based on the mountain.
Mountain ginseng is a special gift given to people in this mountainous area, and ginseng resources have long become Huanren's business card. The mountains, forest belts and soil in Huanren provide a unique natural environment for the growth of ginseng under the forest. For thousands of years, people have gradually mastered the growth habits and distribution of ginseng in the practice of "digging ginseng in the mountains", and formed a set of skills for planting and digging ginseng. It is understood that among the 104 intangible cultural heritage items in Huanren, 7 are related to mountain ginseng. In 2010, the cultivation and processing technology of Huanren mountain ginseng (long reed ginseng under the forest) and the ancient production technology of Huanren Zhang's red ginseng were rated as the municipal intangible cultural heritage of Benxi City.
Yang Guoxiao, the city-level inheritor of the project, told reporters that the ancestor Yang Zuoyun put the mountain in autumn, brought back the collected seeds, planted them in the nearby deep mountains and dense forests, and gradually mastered the secret of cultivation and processing of long reed ginseng under the forest. After inheriting this skill from his grandfather and father, he and his elder brother Yang Guojun painstakingly studied and developed a series of ginseng finishing products based on more than 20 processing processes such as washing, sorting, tying, cooking, needle arrangement, sugar filling, drying, packaging, and storage.
The cultivation of mountain ginseng has a wide base of people in eastern Liaoning, and the customs spread in the process of planting and processing mountain ginseng are the topics that the people of Huanren talk about, and the mountain worship custom that was rated as a provincial intangible cultural heritage project in 2015 is one of them.
According to the record of "Huanren County Chronicle", the sixteenth day of the third month of the lunar calendar is the day of worshiping the mountain god, and the farmers eat the rest of the sacrifice together, which is commonly known as the "birthday of the old leader". The old leader refers to the leader or experienced person among the "mountain goers" who go into the mountain to dig ginseng, so the "mountain goers" set this day as the day to worship the mountain. The customs of Huanren Mountain include three major contents: sacrificial preparation, sacrificial ceremony, and ritual and common food, and there is a complete set of ritual procedures. With the development of society, this custom has been recognized by people from all walks of life such as mountain release, ginseng planting, forest farming, mining, farming, etc., and has become a very important folk activity in Huanren area.
In 2020, the Benxi Municipal Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Radio and Television identified the Mountain Ginseng Valley, located in Cash Tree Village, Dianzi Town, Erpeng, as the transmission base for the intangible cultural heritage project of sacrificial mountain customs. Every year on the 16th day of the third month of the lunar calendar, the mountain ginseng valley will attract villagers from near and far, as well as domestic and foreign merchants and people from the traditional Chinese medicine industry to come, like a small ginseng industry fair.
The mountains not only give spiritual sustenance to the people living here, derive a series of intangible cultural heritage skills, but also help people achieve a prosperous life. "Most of the wealthy households in Huanren are people who grow ginseng and release mountains, and the common people rely on the mountains to make a fortune, and the countryside relies on the mountains to achieve revitalization. Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, and a good ecology itself contains infinite economic value. Huanren has always paid attention to the construction of the ecological environment and the protection of green mountains. Relying on the mountains, we will pass on our old crafts and customs. Li Jiuxu said.
6
T06
The clay statue paints a new face, and the thousands of mountains are painted with heavy colors
synopsis
Since the Tang Dynasty, there are ancient temples in the Qianshan area, and the painting of Qianshan colored sculptures has also started from here. For thousands of years, the unique mountains and rivers have shaped the people of Qianshan and nurtured a unique intangible cultural heritage. Among them, the provincial intangible cultural heritage representative project Qianshan color sculpture painting is the most eye-catching. The combination of "plastic" and "painting" represents the core expression technique of Qianshan color sculpture painting art, coupled with the atmosphere created by the clear sound and elegant rhyme from the south, it is also a rough and unrestrained mark for Qianshan color sculpture painting.
Zhang Shiman, the representative inheritor of the provincial intangible cultural heritage project Qianshan Painted Sculpture and Painting, is painting the building. Photo by reporter Zhu Zhonghe
With wood as the bone, thousands of mountains and rice husks clay shape it
Changbai Mountain is vast and beautiful, extending the remaining veins to the south. Therefore, in the territory of Liaoning, from north to south, a majestic and dangerous peak divides the plain and the hill in two.
This dangerous peak is a thousand mountains.
It is the remnant vein of Changbai Mountain, and it is also backed by the remnant vein of Changbai Mountain, so the thousand mountains present a majestic and magnificent mountain and river style. For thousands of years, this thousand mountains, known as the "Famous Mountains of Liaoning", have accumulated a rich and unique history and culture, attracting a large number of literati and tourists to stop and give birth to unique intangible cultural heritage items. The provincial intangible cultural heritage representative project "Thousand Mountains Painted Sculpture and Painting" is one of them.
In early summer, we stepped on the colorful falling flowers into the mountains, trying to find the root of the "Thousand Mountains Colored Sculpture Painting". The further you go into the mountains, the more quiet the mountains become, and occasionally one or two birdsong breaks through the sky, making the mountains even more tranquil. The eyes are full of green, sandwiched with pink mountain flowers, green and pink, near and far, outlining the best perspective effect.
At the foot of the mountain, in a quiet courtyard, we met Zhang Shiman, the 67-year-old representative inheritor of the Qianshan Painted Sculpture Project. In the depths of the courtyard, the inconspicuous bungalow was transformed into an exhibition hall by Zhang Shiman.
Pushing the door in, it was a little cold in the bungalow. After turning on the lights, all kinds of colorful sculptures and painted works with exaggerated shapes or strong colors come into view, as if they are immediately lively and dizzying. In fact, the mountains of these works in the exhibition hall are only a few of the many statues that Zhang Shiman has shaped, and most of his works have been arranged in various scenic spots in Qianshan for tourists to see.
According to historical records, in the thousand-year-old wind and rain, the painted sculptures of thousands of mountains were damaged. In 1978, Qianshan, as the first batch of restoration units in the country, took the lead in the restoration of ancient buildings. At that time, Han Menglin of Haicheng, Gu Jingyang of Liaoyang, and Guan Qingyuan of Qianshan and other third-generation inheritors of Qianshan color sculpture and painting took on this important task. Zhang Shiman is Han Menglin's personal disciple.
In the exhibition hall, we stand in front of a half-finished painted statue. This is a seated figure of less than half a meter, he has kind eyebrows and kind eyes, and his expression is calm, although his whole body has not yet been painted, but we can already imagine the dignified elegance and extraordinary charm when it is fully completed.
For this solemnity, Zhang Shiman devoted himself to studying for half a century. In 1979, 22-year-old Zhang Shiman happened to hear that Qianshan was recruiting apprentices in color sculpture painting, and as a city man, he resolutely signed up and moved his luggage roll from his home to a temple in the mountain, and lived for a lifetime. "At that time, everyone around me thought I was crazy, and everyone else was trying to get into the city, but I went out of the city and lived in the mountains." After living in the mountains for a long time, Zhang Shiman was reluctant to socialize with others, and even this interview was agreed to after repeated persuasion by his daughter Zhang Yinan.
Time has aged Zhang Shiman, and he has also refined the color sculpture painting skills he has mastered. From the exhibition hall to the office, from the operation room to the design room, Zhang Shiman has been chatting with us and explaining to us every detail in the operation of Qianshan painted sculptures.
Taking clay sculpture as an example, from a pinch of loess to the final color sculpture, it is necessary to go through the three major steps of "building a god platform, fixing the large shape, and shaping the details".
"These three steps are just a rough, general overview of the process. In fact, in each step, there are many operational details. For example, in the stage of 'fixing the big shape', it is necessary to first 'establish the god bone', that is, to make the skeleton according to the shape of the statue, and then nail some nails on the skeleton and tie the grass for use. There are also requirements for the stage of tying grass mud, that is, it can not be tied too tightly, as long as the rice husk mud can be pasted, and there is room for the subsequent process...... "Zhang Shiman, who is not good at politeness, explained every operation step of the color sculpture, but he gushed endlessly. Under his narration, the pile of mud in the reporter's mind gradually turned into a statue in front of him.
In fact, the process of color sculpture is far more cumbersome and detailed than Zhang Shiman's description, and there are many kinds of clay materials used.
For example, the last link in clay sculpture - "detail shaping", after the large shape of the statue is fixed, the keel is formed, and the grass and mud are dry, you can enter the step of detail shaping. This step requires the artist to have a certain modeling ability and the ability to control the tools, and it is also the most important step in color molding.
In the face of the statue at the end of the stage, the craftsman must first use the thinner rice husk clay to outline the details of the clay statue on the statue like a painting, such as the eyes, nose, mouth, hair bun and clothing direction of the face. In fact, the rice husk mud is not the final effect, and after the rice husk mud is dry, a layer of fine mud must be smeared on top of it.
The preparation of fine mud is very particular. Zhang Shiman said that it is necessary to soak the fine mud in advance with two shovels (10 grams of cotton) and put it into a paste, put it on the operating table, and then take a small amount of cotton and shoot it into the mud, and then pat the cotton evenly into the mud, and then add sand to it. The amount of sand should be rubbed by hand and it will not feel sticky.
"When smearing fine clay, you need to pay attention to the accuracy of every detail of the clay image, because this is the final stage of shaping. Use the fine clay to accurately shape the clothing pattern, hands and face of the statue, and the fine clay must start from the feet of the clay statue and shape it upward. This leaves room for modification. If you find that a certain part is short and thin, you can increase height and fatten, and vice versa. If you shape it from the clay head downwards, there is no way to remedy it. Zhang Shiman went on to say that after the fine mud process, it entered the stage of "suppression". Because the shape of the part to be "suppressed" has been shaped very accurately, the use of pressure technology is demanding, and it generally requires three calendering and compaction processes. The first "suppression" force must be light, flat, and accurate. After returning the water, press the second and third times. After the pressure is completed, the shape shaping stage of the clay figure is completed.
Comparison of painting process (the left is the original appearance of the statue, and the right is the effect after painting). (Data map)
Take the image as the base and paint its meaning
In 2020, "Thousand Mountains Painted Sculpture and Painting" was listed as a representative project of provincial intangible cultural heritage. Painted sculpture here is two distinct and related techniques. Zhang Shiman said that the painting of Qianshan painted sculptures is divided into two parts: "clay sculpture" and "color painting", and "color painting" is divided into two aspects: "clay statue painting" and "architectural color painting".
After the statue is shaped, it is time to enter the clay statue painting process. Clay painting is different from architectural painting, the former is to paint on the three-dimensional portrait, in addition to the decoration on the clothes, but also to paint the head, hands, hair bun and so on of the clay statue.
Before painting the clay statue, the craftsman fills the cracks on the clay statue and then brushes it with glue water, a process called "caulking".
Just like painting on paper, before the official coloring, the craftsman first draws a sample on the clay sculpture with a good background color, mainly for the decoration of the garment. According to the identity, era, and background of the clay statue, the design of patterns that meet the characteristics of the characters, some patterns are exclusive, can not be used wrong, mixed, this is the same as architectural painting. Then drain the powder on the painted pattern, and when the powder is colored, the thickness of the lines is required to be uniform, smooth and smooth, such a seemingly simple process, but it tests the patience and skill of the craftsman. The next step is the coloring process. The process of coloring is more detailed, and it should be carried out from three stages: large color, two colors, and small colors. The color combination is mainly blue, red, yellow and green. In the place where the gold is ready to be pasted, it should be colored yellow.
Finally, I have to give the clay like hands and a complexion on my face. The upper color should be carried out after the background color of the hands and faces is completely dry, and the required gas color powder (iron oxide red, red clay, carbon black, ultramarine, etc.) is dipped in cotton, and rubbed on the hands and faces of the statue, so that the color on the face has the texture of the skin.
Different from clay painting, architectural painting refers to the painting of decorative patterns and murals on the beams, roofs, buckets, and corridors inside and outside the building, and there are many types. For example, the "gold top ink" is characterized by all the lines and animal patterns to be plastered with gold, so when designing the pattern, it is necessary to consider whether the painted pattern is suitable for gilding. Generally, the gilt pattern is mostly beasts, such as dragons, phoenixes, lions, unicorns, etc. In addition, there is a pool that does not drain powder and does not paste gold, and it is painted with figures, landscapes, flowers and birds, etc. The bottom of these pools is mostly undercover gold bottom or hemp gold bottom. The colors of the color painting are blue, green and gold (Liaoning tradition calls the color on the building Gaozhao), this kind of color painting is gorgeous, solemn and elegant.
Since the age of 22, Zhang Shiman has lived in the mountains for 45 years. Before her daughter Zhang Yinan went to elementary school, she had been walking through the major temples of Qianshan like him.
For thousands of years, Qianshan has provided a living space for different groups of people. Today, this historical and cultural mountain not only provides Zhang Shiman with a platform to inherit the skills of his ancestors, but also provides him with a stage to display his talents, and also provides him with abundant inspiration materials for intangible cultural heritage creation. It can be said that Zhang Shiman and Qianshan are difficult to separate.
has been in the industry for decades, and Zhang Shiman has also been confused halfway. He is not satisfied with the simple inheritance of skills, but also wants to make breakthroughs and innovations in color sculpture and painting. To this end, he studied the history of a thousand mountains again and again, and climbed over and over again to find inspiration for innovation. Luckily, he found it – and now, the traditional painted figurines have taken on a new style and a variety of cultural connotations.
"It should be said that a thousand mountains are the source of my creative inspiration." For Qianshan, Zhang Shiman is grateful.
Take elegance as the music, and the south rhyme and the north play its sound
"The Thousand Mountains are also known as the 'Thousand Lotus Mountains'. It has nearly 10 names, and it is a rare cultural phenomenon for a mountain. Therefore, from the perspective of name, Qianshan in Liaodong can be described as the first 'famous' mountain in the world. Behind each name of Qianshan, it must be a vivid portrayal of the region, humanity and customs of Qianshan in a certain time and space, which can be regarded as the ancient, long-standing and culturally rich letter history of Qianshan. Zheng Jiyu, secretary of the general party branch and director of the school history museum of Anshan Normal University Library, who has long focused on the research of regional history and culture of the Liaodong Peninsula, said.
It is precisely because of the rich historical and cultural heritage of Qianshan that Qianshan Painted Sculpture and Painting, as an intangible cultural heritage item, will have a unique style.
If Qianshan provides creative nutrients for the provincial intangible cultural heritage representative project Qianshan Painted Sculpture and Painting, then the "Qianshan Temple Music", which was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects in 2006, is even more prosperous because of the unique culture of Qianshan.
In the 20s of the 20th century, some southern travelers came to Anshan one after another because of their admiration for the name of a thousand mountains, and at the same time, they also brought the music of the south to the northeast. Because Qianshan is located in southern Liaoning, the song cards of the "instrumental" part of the Qianshan temple music are mostly the same as the sheng pipe music circulated among the folk in southern Liaoning, forming a new tune that integrates the north and the south.
The blending and exchange of northern and southern cultures makes the music of Qianshan Temple unique after absorbing the strengths of others: it not only has a mysterious and pure cultural color, but also has a strong local flavor of southern Liaoning. Its rhythm is rigorous and the rhythm is bright, especially with the help of the sheng pipe to accompany the form of chanting, which highlights the strong northern rhyme style.
From this, we can say that Qianshan has given this unique music a different character.
7
T07
Grinding stone chisel heavy tool Xiuyu carving needs to be meticulous step by step
synopsis
Xiuyu and Xinjiang Hetian jade, Shaanxi Lantian jade, Henan Dushan jade and known as China's "four famous jade", Xiuyu has achieved a large number of craftsmen who take jade as their industry, driven by the national representative inheritors of the national intangible cultural heritage representative project, they are upright and innovative, so that the jade is smart, and the jade is shining, especially famous for "plain life". In the inheritance, young craftsmen make bold breakthroughs and form new artistic styles. From mine to jade, from jade to people, Xiuyan jade carving is radiating new vitality.
Wang Yunxiu, the representative inheritor of Xiuyan jade carving, a representative project of national intangible cultural heritage, is carving jade works.
The carving workers of the north and south schools gather Xiuyan and the "plain work" craft is famous throughout the country
Viewed from the sky, Xiuyan Manchu Autonomous County resembles a dark green, stretching lotus leaf – with clear veins and folds. The "folds" here are the continuous hills under the overlook, which are connected end to end and stretch endlessly; And those clear veins are highways that connect various traffic nodes after digging holes through the mountains, with the county as the center and diverging outward.
In this way, Xiuyan is surrounded by mountains and is famous for producing Xiuyu.
Xiuyu and Xinjiang Hetian jade, Shaanxi Lantian jade, Henan Dushan jade and known as China's "four famous jade". The jade produced in Xiuyan has achieved a large number of craftsmen who are engaged in jade carving. They are upright and innovative, so that the jade is smart, and the jade shines, and Wang Yunxiu, the representative inheritor of the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects Xiuyan jade carving, is one of them.
The car departed from the county seat, made a few turns, and stopped at a small village on the outskirts of the city. From the main road in the village to the north, passing through several houses, is Wang Yunxiu's jade carving studio. This 67-year-old outstanding folk artist in Liaoning Province, who has been buried in the Xiuyu industry all his life, is standing at the door to greet us. At this time, the mountains are shining and the sky is clear.
In 2006, Xiuyan jade carving was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage items. Its history is long, according to historical records, Xiuyan ancient jade production began in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, and gradually flourished in the Daoguang and Xianfeng periods. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, a jade street with more than 300 people engaged in the Xiuyan area was formed, and the jade carving "Eight Great Craftsmen" headed by Jiang Baotang and the "Suhuo Erli" represented by Li Dechun appeared.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, craftsmen from Beijing, Hebei and other places came to Xiuyan and brought different jade carving skills. From the 50s to the end of the 80s of the 20th century, Xiuyan jade carving factories sprung up one after another, attracting many southern jade carving craftsmen to come here. As a result, after learning from and absorbing the delicacy of the southern school carvers, Xiuyu's living technology has been further improved and developed.
"Suhuo" is the jargon of jade carving, which refers to the carved things that are different from people, flowers, birds, animals, flowers and other biological shapes, and it generally includes jade utensils such as furnaces, bottles, scents, tripods, cups, pots, bowls, plates, and washes. Most of these exclusive shapes draw on bronze artifacts since the Qin and Han dynasties, which are dignified and magnificent, graceful and luxurious, and pay attention to stability and balance. In terms of carving techniques, it is good at three-dimensional round carving and hollow carving, which can be seen on all sides and transparent inside and outside.
Wang Yunxiu is famous in the Chinese jade carving industry because of his Xiuyu living skills. In order to vividly show Xiuyu's living style, he set up a miniature exhibition hall in his studio for a panoramic presentation of Xiuyu's works: jade carvings are majestic, graceful, luxurious, gentle and pure, shining dazzling in the light. These Xiuyu Su living vessels are atmospheric, but do not lose details, thick and round, and exquisitely clear. In particular, the ingenious use of crafts such as "drilling and digging", "taking the chain and live ring" and "shoulder and ear production" shows the ingenuity of Xiuyu Suhuo.
In fact, in the Chinese jade carving industry, Xiuyu Suhuo has always been proud. Wang Yunxiu said that the reason why Xiuyu carving can stand out with Suhuo is that on the one hand, it is due to the uninterrupted inheritance of Suhuo skills in Xiuyan for hundreds of years, and on the other hand, it is due to the rich variety of Xiuyu and the ability to excavate large-scale jade ore. "It can be said that this is the unique treasure resource that the mountain has given us Xiuyan people." Wang Yunxiu said.
Xiuyan people are undoubtedly happy. The continuous hills formed by the remaining veins of Changbai Mountain contain rich jade resources here.
The jade produced by Xiuyan is of unique quality and is favored by the domestic jade carving industry. First of all, Xiuyan jade is large, which is the most prominent feature of Xiuyan jade. The second is that there are various kinds of jade, and Xiuyan jade can be divided into more than a dozen varieties in two categories: river mill jade and Xiuyu. Xiuyan is one of the few regions in the world that produces both serpentine and tremolite. The third characteristic is that the color is diverse, Xiuyu is divided into dark green, light green, yellow-green, yellow, light yellow, white, black, gray, red, blue and other colors. Old jade and river mill jade are divided into chanterelle yellow, yellow and white, green and white, green, black and other colors.
There is a craft in the jade carving industry called "Xiuyangong", which refers to the Xiuyan jade carving is deeply influenced by the Beijing school of jade carving, absorbing the essence of the southern jade carving and gradually forming a distinctive artistic style and craft characteristics of the carving skills, this kind of jade carving works not only show a majestic, atmospheric, bold side, but also is known for its delicate, exquisite, and exquisite. "Xiuyan Gong" will be used according to the material, the waste is skillfully made, the dirt is removed, the flaws are turned into Yu, and the crafts such as beautiful color, relief, round carving, openwork inlay assembly and so on are skillfully used. In recent years, Xiuyan jade carving has made great progress in traditional plain living, jade ingenious carving, beautiful carving, etc., and has been at the domestic first-class level.
The abundant jade mineral resources and the jade carving skills that are accustomed to fine carving have sublimated the spiritual world of Xiuyan people, and their excavation of the great beauty and inner beauty in the regional culture is not only reflected in the jade carving works, but also reflected in their hearts.
The design is unique, the inheritance pays attention to both ability and political integrity
Every day at 4 o'clock in the morning, Wang Yunxiu would get up early and come to the studio. Turn on the light, calm down, pick up the pen, and paint the details and patterns that I had conceived in my mind the night before on the jade one by one. This is an important part of jade carving.
At dawn, the apprentices came to the studio one after another. At this time, Wang Yunxiu had been working for several hours. After explaining to the apprentice face-to-face, Wang Yunxiu withdrew from the studio, ready to complete the next job. At this time, in the studio, the sound of jade was everywhere, and another busy day began.
This is not only Wang Yunxiu's daily work rhythm, but also the steps he deliberately maintains in his "passing on the band". As a representative inheritor of national intangible cultural heritage items, Wang Yunxiu not only regards the above-mentioned work rhythm as a necessity, but also regards every operation link in Xiuyu's life as a necessity.
The completion of a Xiuyu Suhuo work generally has to go through several steps such as jade mining, material breaking, design, carving and polishing. "Only by being meticulous step by step can we finally reflect our ingenuity." Wang Yunxiu said that the reason why Xiuyu Suhuo has attracted much attention is not only because of its large shape, but also because the artist should skillfully use relief, openwork and other skills to carve out a clear outline of the ornament, if necessary, but also skillfully use the internal carving technique to carve out several layers of interlocking ornaments from the inside to the outside. Most of these ornaments are full of strong local colors, they complement each other with the shape of the vessel, the rough reveals the fine, and the heroic hides the ingenuity, which is the unique skill of "Xiuyangong".
The inheritance of Xiuyu's living skills is clear. Wang Yunxiu introduced that the first and second generations of Xiuyu Suhuo are Li Dechun and Li Fu, and the two are father and son. The third generation, He Desheng, created openwork and openwork carving on the basis of traditional techniques. "I'm the fourth generation." Wang Yunxiu said.
In Wang Yunxiu's view, the so-called "inheritance" is not only to teach the apprentices the carving skills and the spirit of Xiuyu craftsmen to strive for excellence, but also to inherit the excellent traditional Chinese culture carried by Xiuyu Suhuo. "Xiuyu Suhuo is the embodiment of the excellent traditional Chinese culture in jade carving works, and it is necessary to do a good job in inheritance." Wang Yunxiu said that tradition and inheritance have become the daily practice of the inheritor of national intangible cultural heritage items. For every apprentice who comes to apprentice, Wang Yunxiu will first give them a lesson in righteousness. For this reason, Wang Yunxiu always said: "To be a good jade carving craftsman, you must first be a good person." ”
Having both ability and political integrity is not only Wang Yunxiu's requirement for his apprentices, but also the requirements of the Xiuyan local government for jade carving craftsmen. Up to now, Xiuyan has cultivated and recommended 10 Chinese jade and jade carving masters, 1 Chinese arts and crafts master, 1 national intangible cultural heritage inheritor, 14 Liaoning arts and crafts masters, more than 100 Liaoning provincial jade carving masters, and several Anshan arts and crafts masters and jade carving masters. The cultivation and reserve of talents ensure the improvement of the level of Xiuyan jade carving technology.
Wang Yunxiu's tower Xun carved with river grinding jade.
Bold breakthroughs and innovations, old craftsmanship is rejuvenated
Mountains and museums, jade and people, art and the countryside. A private jade carving museum brings together these things that don't fit together.
Xintun Village, Qianying Town, Xiuyan County, has a simple shape and a unique interior - Tang Shuai Art Museum.
Tang Shuai Art Museum is named after the owner Tang Shuai. Although it lives in the countryside, the temperament of the art museum is very different from the traditional jade carving museum and village homestay. Thanks to the increased field area on the perimeter, this modern art gallery is in harmony with its surroundings.
Not only is there a great breakthrough in the exterior modeling, but the thousands of jade carvings on display inside the museum also break people's original perception of Xiuyu's works. They are free, free and easy, eclectic, and there is no shadow of traditional jade carving works.
For example, a large piece of light green Xiuyu has been carved into waves, and they are unrestrained, gushing freely, and full of the rhythm of life. For another example, a group of jade carvings called "Home in the Northeast" vividly shows the optimism, boldness and informality of the Northeast people "carved" with Xiuyu against the backdrop of lights and snow.
If Wang Yunxiu's plain work has passed down the traditional Xiuyu carving skills in an authentic way, then Tang Shuai, a new generation of Xiuyu carving masters, has found another way, skillfully excavating the characteristics of Xiuyu itself, trying to not only observe the regional culture and traditional humanities in his works, but also extract the spiritual driving force from modernization, forming a new artistic style and jade carving language.
This is exactly what the local government of Xiuyan is happy to see. As a national intangible cultural heritage, the success of Xiuyan jade carving is of course due to a combination of many factors, among which the "human" factor is particularly important. The local government believes that both jade carving designers and carvers should continuously improve their level, especially cultural literacy and artistic accomplishment.
"We want to play a celebrity effect, and we want to set up a master studio. Cultivate newcomers through the way of famous teachers and apprentices. Yu Wenxin, director of the Xiuyan Manchu Autonomous County Bureau of Culture and Tourism, said.
Since last year, Tang Shuai has been running his own art gallery while focusing on another project, the China Jade Carving Master Creative Industry Park. On the one hand, the representative of the young Zhuang faction of Xiuyan jade carving realized Xiuyan's demand for "Xiuyu master", and on the other hand, he also realized that as a national intangible cultural heritage project, Xiuyu carving wants to upgrade and strive for perfection, and the only way to work hard is to work the training of jade carving masters. In this way, a base aimed at cultivating Xiuyu carving masters through a variety of support methods has sprung up, and it is expected to be officially put into operation by the end of June this year.
The jade is hidden in the deep mountains, carved into a peerless. The endless mountains contain not only Xiuyu minerals, but also the source and inspiration for the creation of countless Xiuyu carving craftsmen. From mine to jade, from jade to people, Xiuyan jade carving is radiating new vitality.
8
T08
The multicolored thread hand bottom needle embroiders the hot and hot northeast wind
synopsis
Manchu folk embroidery records the historical changes of the Manchu people from fishing and hunting, nomadic life into farming and settlement life, and Suzhou embroidery, Hunan embroidery, Shu embroidery, Guangdong embroidery, is one of the excellent national traditional crafts in China. In contrast, the Manchu embroidery works are more layered and three-dimensional, rough atmosphere, bright colors, flexible stitching, with strong northern regional characteristics, vividly expressing the living customs, cultural tastes and aesthetic habits of the people in Northeast China.
Wu Limei, the provincial representative inheritor of Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery, a national intangible cultural heritage representative project, is embroidering. Photo by reporter Yang Jing
Bone is made of needles and skins, and embroidery is born in the mountains and forests
At the end of April, Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County, Yongling Town, Hetuala Village, Xingjing Manchu Embroidery Workshop. The spring sun poured in through the window and shone on several embroidery girls, who were concentrating on flying needles and threads.
"Small needle, wrapped in green linen, what is hidden in the green linen? Green linen white, green linen new, green linen inside the flower arrangement needle. 51-year-old Sang Ju is the representative inheritor of the city-level intangible cultural heritage of Xinbin Manchu embroidery, and she has been singing this children's song since she was a child. A yellow robe doll made by her is hung in a corner: a silk fabric, embroidered with auspicious clouds between the dragon and the phoenix, implying that the dragon and the phoenix are auspicious. This work won the second prize in the embroidery category at the first Liaoning Provincial Arts and Crafts Competition in 2021. Sang Ju said that this baby dress is a daily dress worn by the Manchu people, and it is embroidered with mulberry silk.
The stitches of Xinbin Manchu embroidery mainly include flat embroidery needle, seed punching needle, panjin embroidery, roller needle embroidery, etc. Panjin embroidery is one of the traditional embroidery methods of Xinbin Manchu embroidery, with gold and silver thread as the main embroidery thread, its embroidery is highly decorative, dazzling and dazzling, giving people a graceful and luxurious look.
Manchu folk embroidery works are practical and diverse, mainly including clothing, daily necessities and accessories, such as cheongsam, shoulders, lace, shoes, hats, pillows, aprons, etc., almost covering the daily wear of Manchu people. Manchu embroidery ornamentation is rich and colorful, pay attention to the "all pictures must be intentional, intentional must be auspicious", mainly there are character stories, landscapes, auspicious birds and beasts, flowers, trees, fruits and vegetables, folk life, etc. In 2020, Xinbin Manchu folk embroidery was selected into the list of provincial intangible cultural heritage representative projects.
Man Yi, a scholar of Manchu costume culture and a professor at the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, said that because it is related to the mountain, the earliest fabric used in Manchu embroidery is not cloth but animal skin or fish skin. The thread is not an ordinary silk thread, but a thin strip cut from animal tendons, animal skins, and fish skins. The needles are made from animal or fish bones. Manchu embroidery has been integrated into the mountain culture of Northeast China since its birth.
Later, the Manchus integrated into the farming life, planted cotton and hemp, and learned to embroider with cotton and linen silk in cultural exchanges with the Central Plains.
There are hundreds of baby clothes design drawings painted by Sang Ju, and more than 100 pieces have been completed in the embroidery workshop. Most of the doll clothes are embroidered with landscape and cloud patterns, and the cliffs stand in the sea, implying unity and prosperity, showing the unique artistic charm and style of full embroidery.
"Not only is it sturdy and durable, but also the hand can feel the three-dimensional sense of the embroidery." Sang Ju added that the main process of Xinbin Manchu embroidery includes eight steps, including pattern selection, sketching, base material selection, stretching, hooking, wiring, embroidery, finishing and mounting. Embroidery products are divided into leather, cotton and linen according to the material. Cotton and linen embroidery can also be subdivided into patches, stacked silk, panjin and so on.
Different from the delicate and delicate style of Suzhou embroidery and small jasper, Manchu embroidery is more suitable for expressing the atmosphere, roughness and bold Northeast style. In terms of modeling, it is more exaggerated, rough and simple than southern embroidery such as Suzhou embroidery and Guangdong embroidery. In terms of color, the contrast between cold and warm tones is strong and dignified. In terms of composition, it is full and symmetrical, with the characteristics of northern ethnic groups.
"We can learn about Manchu folk embroidery through common stitches. Because Suzhou embroidery has the greatest influence on Manchu embroidery, we might as well use Suzhou embroidery as a reference to explain. "Manyi comparative analysis, Suzhou embroidery is thin and transparent, skilled embroiderers will split a strand of embroidery thread into 16 threads when using embroidery thread, talking about slow work out of fine work. The mulberry silk embroidery thread of Suzhou embroidery is very harmonious with the mulberry silk fabric, and the embroidery has almost no undulating three-dimensional feel, which is the beauty determined by the thread and fabric of Suzhou embroidery, which is silky. The Manchu embroidery is born on the animal leather of the technique, the Manchu embroidery will twist a few strands of silk thread into a thick embroidery thread, and ordinary people directly use their own twisted cotton thread to embroider, the thick thread with coarse cloth, giving people a rough three-dimensional, atmospheric and bold feeling, reflecting the character of the Northeast people.
The same is Manchu embroidery, Shenyang Manchu embroidery was brought into the folk from the court by the ancestors of the Zhen family, and was selected into the list of representative projects of provincial intangible cultural heritage in 2020. She has been exposed to embroidery skills from her ancestors, mother and aunt since she was a child, and her skills are exquisite and her stitching skills are more comprehensive. She innovated composition and shape, gradually incorporating modern art and passing on her skills to her daughter. At present, Shenyang Manchu embroidery is mainly inherited and developed in Liaoshen area.
Zhen Xiaoli told reporters that Shenyang Manchu embroidery has typical Manchu traditional embroidery characteristics, the work is made of home weaving or textile fabrics, with blue and light blue, black and yellow, white and blue, black and white as the main colors, with thick lines modeling, outlining the outline, showing rough, simple, vivid characteristics, mainly used in clothing, wedding and longevity, door curtains, table curtains, pillow top bedding, home decoration, etc., with typical Manchu folk auspicious cultural symbols, implying wishes for a better life.
Xia Liyun's embroidery work "Duxiu Tiger". (Photo provided by the interviewee)
Three-dimensional magnified relief embroidery stunt shocking four
Jinzhou is located in the western Liaoning corridor, and has historically been a place where the Central Plains culture and the Northeast culture are integrated. For this reason, Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery is more strongly influenced by the new trend of thought than Xinbin Manchu embroidery, and it is more fashionable.
On the one hand, Jinzhou Manchu embroidery retains the simple and heavy craft style of Manchu leather embroidery, with patterns such as "Tree of Life", "Mama" and Manchu myths and legends, on the other hand, it absorbs the embroidery skills of the Han nationality such as Lu embroidery in the Central Plains and Suzhou embroidery in the south of the Yangtze River and the artistic nutrition of literati painting, and integrates delicacy into the rough style, showing the richness and inclusiveness of Jinzhou culture.
In 2008, Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery was included in the national list of intangible cultural heritage, and Xia Liyun is the national representative inheritor of this project.
Xia Liyun was born in Yi County. Influenced by her mother, she loved Manchu embroidery since she was a child, and began to learn embroidery methods at the age of 10. Although she only embroidered all kinds of purses and socks at first, she was ingenious and diligent, and by the age of fifteen or sixteen she had mastered most of the embroidery methods of Manchu embroidery.
In 2008, she walked into the Beijing Olympics with Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery, and her relief embroidery "Shengshi Dragon" was amazing. This is a dragon embroidery scroll with a length of 1.9 meters and a width of 0.8 meters. What is surprising is that the dragon presents a three-dimensional sense of leaping and soaring, and this is also the beauty of the unique stunt "relief embroidery" of full embroidery. "Relief embroidery is a characteristic embroidery method of full embroidery, which is not available in other embroidery, especially the dragon scale part, which is embroidered piece by piece." Xia Liyun said.
"Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery, also known as 'needle embroidery', 'tie flowers' and 'embroidery'. It pays attention to practicality as Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery and Xinbin Manchu embroidery. Most of the works are clothes, hats and daily necessities, such as clothes, shawls, belly bags, trousers, aprons, embroidered shoes, hats, pillow tops, door curtains, handkerchiefs, cushions, etc., all of which are carriers for Manchu women to show their wisdom and skills. Man Yi said.
There are many embroidery methods of Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery, including flat needle embroidery, satin embroidery, cut embroidery, mending embroidery, bag embroidery, weaving embroidery, yarn, seam needle embroidery, seed embroidery, flower picking, etc. Its technical requirements can be summarized as: Shun, Qi, Ping, even, clean 5 words. "Shun" means that the straight line is straight and the curve is round; "Qi" means that the pins are neat and there is no unevenness at the edges; "Ping" means that the gesture is accurate, the embroidery surface (the base cloth of embroidery) is smooth, and the silk strands are not skewed; "Even" means that the needle distance is consistent, and the bottom cannot be exposed or overlapped; "Clean" means that the embroidery surface is smooth and clean, without stains, etc.
Xia Liyun said that Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery embroidery thread is very particular, in addition to cotton, silk and other material differences, the structure of the thread also has a single strand, double strand, four strands, six strands. The selection of the material and thickness of the thread should be combined according to the material of the base fabric, the type of embroidery, and the characteristics of the pattern. For example, in embroidery on satin, a single thread is split into strands, and the needle size is extremely delicate.
The theme of Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery is very wide, auspicious patterns, flowers, birds, fish and insects, vegetables, melons and fruits can be embroidered, myths and legends, local operas, words and poems, geometric patterns are all-encompassing. The mountains and rivers of their hometown, the vast land, the flowers and plants in the courtyard, the harvest and other common scenes in life also brought inexhaustible inspiration to Manchu women.
Historically, with the integration of ethnic groups, many myths and legends of the Han nationality with beautiful meanings are also well known to the Manchus, such as "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea", "Liu Hai Playing Golden Toad", "The Legend of the White Snake", "Jiang Taigong Fishing" and other traditional stories are expressed in Jinzhou Manchu folk embroidery, and have unique features in terms of conception and conception. For example, some works are based on the historical story "Yang Jiajiang" series; Some works are based on the classical masterpieces "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin"; There are also works based on traditional two-person turns.
Patterns and needles are more bold and innovative to embroider "oil paintings"
Compared with Xinbin Manchu embroidery and Jinzhou Manchu embroidery, Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery has a stronger folk atmosphere and emphasizes practicality.
Xiuyan is located in the middle of the mountains. The women who live here will embroider their innermost yearning for spring and their expectations for a happy and beautiful life in their works. Since ancient times, Manchu women have learned to draw patterns and embroidery since childhood, and will embroider dowries by hand, so that embroidery skills and artistic styles have been passed down from generation to generation through mother-daughter communication, sister-in-law exchanges, sister-in-law exchanges, and neighborly teaching.
In 2008, Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery was included in the national list of intangible cultural heritage, and 60-year-old Wu Limei is the representative inheritor of the provincial level.
Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery has a long history, has a history of nearly 400 years, embroidery patterns are rich and colorful, there are mountains and rivers, flowers and trees, the sun and the moon and other types. The needle method is also flexible and changeable, and it is interspersed with needles, needles, needles, needles, needles, and flower needles. The shape and composition of its embroidery are very exquisite, continuing the traditional mainland of "peeling skin layer by layer, sparse and dense." The folk composition rules of "sparse and impermeable", the organic combination of points, lines and planes, and the ingenious interspersing of triangles, diamonds, squares and circles, have a high artistic level. Its color scheme is eye-catching and gorgeous, with strong contrast, bright and vulgar, reflecting a simple and warm artistic style.
In an embroidery workshop in the Shuixiang Scenic Area of Xiuyan Manchu Autonomous County, we met Wu Limei.
Wu Limei is compiling the book of full embroidery - a book for future generations to consult the history and techniques of full embroidery, using words, graphics, pictures and other simple explanations of various techniques of full embroidery, is a textbook for beginners to learn full embroidery.
In order to compile the embroidery score, Wu Limei visited more than 100 "old embroiderers", because the original embroidery of the Xiuyan Manchus was in the hands of these old people. Wu Limei said: "To reflect the traditional style of Manchu embroidery, we must use the local language of Xiuyan to describe the techniques of Manchu embroidery, rather than the language of Suzhou embroidery, so as to ensure the local color of Xiuyan Manchu embroidery, which is the biggest difficulty in the process of compiling embroidery scores." Those old people who have embroidered flowers all their lives can't express themselves in words at all, they can only do all kinds of embroidery movements, so I need to read the relevant records by myself to understand the local cultural customs and language characteristics to express accurately. Up to now, Wu Limei has summed up 28 techniques of full embroidery.
Wu Limei is straightforward, pungent, such a character just embroidered delicate works, forest, tiger, eagle, phoenix, peony, plum blossom, etc. are all lifelike in her embroidery, the technique is eclectic, or rough and bold, or delicate and simple. Wu Limei said that it was the mountains and rivers here that nurtured her and inspired her to create.
Man Yi likes Wu Limei's works very much, and thinks that her works inherit a variety of embroidery methods in Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery, including tie embroidery, satin embroidery, cut embroidery, repair embroidery, bag embroidery, weaving embroidery, etc. Among them, cut embroidery is the characteristic embroidery method of Xiuyan Manchu folk embroidery: embroidery, put two pieces of firm and thick fabric together on the brace, and then use the method of pricking the needle to line the front and back, change the color of the color line according to the needs of the picture, the stitches are as close together as possible, and properly grasp the tightness of the color line. After embroidery, use a wide knife to cut the color thread evenly from the middle of the two pieces of embroidery, that is, into an identical pair of embroidery.
Wu Limei is not satisfied with the existing techniques and continues to innovate. She boldly absorbed the techniques of Suzhou embroidery, combined with her own understanding, to create new embroidery works. She spent 4 years embroidering an oil painting called "The Drunken Concubine". "I ended the history of our Manchu embroidery without showing the background stitching of the picture, and the variation of this stitch can well show the air flow effect of the Peking Opera characters throwing their sleeves in the picture, and I feel that I am worth it." Wu Limei said.
The folk embroidery of the Manchu nationality not only enriches the historical and cultural connotation, but also contains the creativity and wisdom of the Manchu people.
Source: Liaoning Daily