In the Zhejiang Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing hangs a piece of art named The Splendorous West Lake. Revealed within the textures therein is the gorgeous scenery of West Lake, located in the city of Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province. Many stop to take in the remarkable view through this artwork, which is neither an oil painting nor a traditional Chinese painting, but a Dongyang wood carving. Dongyang wood carving is among the first group of arts to be designated as being part of China’s intangible cultural heritage.
Ringed with mountains, Dongyang City in Zhejiang Province offers a pleasant climate and boasts abundant products, especially timber. Thus, local people engage in agriculture during the busy farming season, and take up wood carving as a sideline occupation during the slack season. Because wood carvers can be found all over the city, this place is known as “The Home of Wood Carving.” The wood carving of Dongyang evolved a distinctive style over the course of 1,000 years of development.
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Attention to detail. by Wang Yongqiang |
It is said that Master Hua, a prestigious carpenter of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), was put in charge of constructing halls in the mansions of two high-ranking officials, the brothers Feng Su and Feng Ding. However, when it came time to erect the principal pillars, all the 180 nanmu roof beams were found to be about 0.367 of a meter shorter than specified and required. Quite annoyed and concerned, Master Hua couldn’t readily conceive of a solution. It was then that an old man approached Hua asking for fish and meat, and he received cordial treatment. The old man put two fish on the rim of two adjacent bowls, so that the two tails of the fish joined each other. He used a chopstick to string the fish, and then left without a word. Suddenly enlightened, Hua had his workers fashion 360 wooden fish-head sculptures and attach them to the end of the roof beams. This made up for the lacking in length.
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Exquisite ox-leg wood carvings in the Lu’s Residence. by Wang Yongqiang |
The fish-head capping of roof beams became an original form of structural art. The pronunciation of the word “fish” in Chinese is similar to that of the word “affluence.” Thus, this form of craft is considered quite auspicious. Later, an ox-leg design was added to the fish-head pattern, forming the earliest Dongyang wood carving.
Dongyang wood carving is an art taking plane relief sculpture as its core. With multi-gradation relief sculpture, the designs of Dongyang wood carving are plane - a distinctive feature of the art. Since the art attaches great importance to the preserving of the wood’s natural color and texture, the finished product is usually light in color, and the form is also known as white wood carving. Materials selected for Dongyang wood carving are typically light in color, such as basswood, white peach wood, and gingko wood. And heavy coatings are not applied to the carvings, thus most preserve a natural color.
During the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) Dynasties, the development of Dongyang wood carving achieved great prosperity. As an adornment on architectural structures and furniture, Dongyang wood carving gained in popularity and formed a complete artistic system during that period.
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This imperial chair and screen, fashioned by Dongyang craftsmen for the Imperial Palace in Beijing, are now preserved in Shenyang’s Imperial Palace, the integrated royal architectural complex. newsphoto |
Employing traditional techniques, Dongyang wood carving is mainly hand crafted. Employed in the process are more than 30 carving knives in six categories. Although the tools are simple, to achieve an exquisite pattern, nine production processes and 11 carving methods come into play.
During the Ming Dynasty, the use of wood carvings on architecture reached a peak. Located in Dongyang City and completed in 1462, Suyong Hall in Lu’s Residence represents the supreme artistic level of Dongyang wood carving. Wood carvings in the mansion are so finely crafted that a saying came to be: “Imperial Palace in the North, Lu’s Residence in the South.”
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Characters made vivid in wood. by Li Xin |
The art of Dongyang wood carving was passed down through the generations. Today, there are about 200 enterprises in the city engaged in the production of wood carvings, and more than 2,000 family workshops are active in wood carving production. Prestigious Dongyang-made products include the wood carving entitled Back from a Journey, a gift from Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, presented when the region returned to the motherland, and the large-scale wood carving in the rebuilt Pagoda on Thunder Peak in Hangzhou.
