According to historical records, China is the first country to use bamboo products in the world. According to archaeological findings, the utilization of bamboo in China can be traced back to the Neolithic Age 8,000 years ago, and bamboo arrows played an important role in people's lives in primitive society. Followed by all kinds of bamboo slips, bamboo fans, chopsticks, pens, bamboo boxes, bamboo mats, bamboo tire lacquerware and so on. The continuous appearance in various times fully proves that bamboo carving is inseparable from the life of the ancients. Bamboo spoons with embossed dragon patterns unearthed from the Western Han Tomb in Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province, bamboo slips handed down from Japan's Zhengcang Palace engraved with "Shochiba", and fragments of the Xixia Mausoleum in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region all show that bamboo carving has always occupied an important position in historical life. Unfortunately, bamboo is not easy to preserve, and it looks too fragmented and lacks a system. It can be said that before the middle of the Ming Dynasty, bamboo carving was limited to daily use, and its function was between collectibles and daily necessities. It cannot be called an independent category, but only prepares conditions for its own prosperity. After the mid-Ming dynasty, with the emergence of commodity economy, a large number of literati loved and sought after it, and the artistry of bamboo carving was greatly improved, which affected the fields of tooth carving and wood carving and gradually matured. The carving skill surpasses the previous generation and is unique in the history of arts and crafts in China.
Bamboo Carvings and Schools in Ming and Qing Dynasties
One of the signs that bamboo carving began to mature in the middle of Ming Dynasty was that some areas bred bamboo carving schools, accumulated profound traditions and produced a large number of outstanding artists. According to incomplete statistics, there were as many as 200 to 300 bamboo engravers who recorded famous works in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Most of the bamboo carving styles in Ming Dynasty are rich and simple, and the composition is full. The knife work is deep and steep, the lines are strong and powerful, and the patterns and ornamentation are all over the body. Bamboo carving products in the early Qing dynasty have the legacy of the Ming dynasty, but the expression techniques are more diverse, and the techniques of shallow carving and shallow relief are used at the same time. If you want to get started in the field of bamboo carving collection, it is very important to understand the schools of bamboo carving in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
1, Jiading brand bamboo carving
Jiading (now Shanghai) was the main center of bamboo carving in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Zhu Ying and Zhu are pioneers and representatives of their bamboo carving skills. Together, it is called "Jiading Three Zhu", which created and improved the style of multi-layer relief and sculpture, and opened the tradition of Jiading bamboo carving. Around them, there are many bamboo sculptors, such as Qin yijue, Hou songzeng and Shen.
About the period from Kangxi to Qianlong, Jiading bamboo carving ushered in its heyday. A number of outstanding masters and generations of aristocratic families have emerged, such as Wu Zhikun, who created the method of "Yang Wen in Thin Land", Feng Xilu, who is good at carving round figures and works in the palace, and his brothers Xijue, Xizhang, sons and nephews Shi Xiao, Shi Qi and disciple Shi Zhanzhang. Creating Zhou Hao, expressing the influence of pen and ink with pure yin seal cutting, has influenced future generations for more than a hundred years; The rest Zhou Naishi, who is famous for his shallow carving of banana and bamboo, Gu Jiegang, who is exquisite and close to micro-carving, Cai Shimin and Cai Shimin, who are good at carving small statues, Shi Xueting, Wang Yi and Deng all have their own strengths. Famous literati painters Li and Qian Daxi also like bamboo carving, which shows the popularity of bamboo carving at that time. Various techniques of bamboo carving, such as round carving, relief, carving, leaving green, intaglio carving, asparagus and so on. , are very mature, with a complete set of technological processes, technical formulas and production tools. There are many kinds of flat land, sandy land, hemp land, hemp seed land and so on just as decorative foil. There are many kinds of utensils, most of which are stationery, followed by furnishings and daily necessities, including: pen container, handrail, pen washing container, Shuicheng, Zi Shan, Ruyi, perfume bottle, crown frame, hairpin, fan bone, figures, animals, flowers and fruits, etc. The contents of decorative patterns are mostly historical allusions, auspicious patterns, landscape figures, calligraphy seal cutting and so on. Composition is deeply influenced by printmaking art, and he is good at adapting famous ink.
After Daoguang, the bamboo carvings in Jiading gradually declined. Although there are famous artists such as Cheng and Chen Ningfu, they are mainly intaglio and bas-relief, and their techniques and themes are increasingly narrow. On the contrary, Zhuke Street in the west of Zhongzhou Bridge in Jiading City began to be famous all over the country, and the well-known "Wen Xiu Zhai", "Zhang Wenyu Zhai" in Zhang Xuehai and "Youyangwa" by Zhu Yufu were all successful.
Bamboo Carving was written in the 12th year of Jiaqing (AD 1807), and was written by Jin. This book makes a preliminary summary of the history of bamboo carving, and focuses on the bamboo people in Jiading. It is an important work to study bamboo carving in Jiading.
2. Bamboo Carvings of Jinling School
Jinling (now Nanjing) sent a message to Pu Zhongqian (1582-? ) groundbreaking, famous for paying attention to material selection, performing art according to shape, and not carving.
Pu Zhongqian was active in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and made friends with celebrities such as Qian and Zhang Dai at that time, so as to carve bamboo into the world. "Dream of Taoan" says that "its bamboo wares, one brush at a time, are bamboo inches, sketched with several knives, and the price is two". There are dozens of people who profit from selling his works in Sanshan Street, Nanjing. However, Pu's sculptures do have unique features. "It is strange that smug people must use the tangled roots of bamboo, because they don't care about knives and axes, and they get a heavy price by scraping them with their hands. "It can be seen that he attaches great importance to the selection of materials, sculpting with shapes, and taking simple knives as the representative style. This is quite different from the style initiated by "Jiading Sanzhu", which is characterized by exquisite carving and multi-level profundity. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty Jin Zhuren Zhi listed Pu as the founder of Jinling School, also known as Jiading School.
Pan Xifeng is another master who consciously followed the style of Jinling School after Pu Zhongqian who lived in Yangzhou during the Qianlong period. He befriended Zheng Banqiao, was good at shallow carving, and used simple and vivid knives. Handed down from ancient times, the bamboo root carved plum blossom pen holder is patchy and childlike, which reflects Pan Shi's skill.
Generally speaking, Jinling school is not as centralized as Jiading school, with deep tradition and many famous artists, but rather loose. More often, it is a personal choice made by artists who admire Pu Zhongqian's pioneering style, but in any case, Jinling School has formed a different look and enriched the expressive force of bamboo carving.
3. Identification of other famous bamboo carving artists
In addition to Jiading School and Jinling School, there are also several famous bamboo carving artists in China who also have extraordinary attainments.
Zhang was a bamboo carving artist in the early Qing Dynasty. Jiangyin, Jiangsu, or Jiaxing, Zhejiang. Carving bamboo can find another way to expand the expressive force of the skill of staying green and become a person who can compete with Jiading bamboo carving. He can divide the extremely thin bamboo skin into layers, and set off the effect of "five colors of ink" by changing the thickness left, such as brush rendering. The theme of sculpture is mainly landscape pavilions similar to boundary paintings, which are applied to pen holders and handrails. Few works have been handed down, but most of them are fine works.
In the middle of Qing Dynasty, the bamboo engraver was a great scholar. He is good at techniques such as green and relief, and can also carve materials such as teeth, wood and stones.
Cai Zhao, a native of Xiaoshan, Zhejiang, Han Chao, a native of Lin 'an, Jiangsu, Zhou Zhili, a native of Wujiang, and a native of Changzhou in the late Qing Dynasty, all had their own strengths.
At the same time, in addition to the literati's artistic bamboo carvings, the palace during the Qianlong period also produced bamboo wares and a number of bamboo products imitating the bronze patterns of Shang and Zhou Dynasties, emphasizing classical charm and precise skills. They are isomorphic with folk bamboo carvings for daily use, forming a rich historical picture.
Market Status of Bamboo Carving
The auction time of bamboo carving was earlier, reaching 1994. In the past two years, five auction houses, including Sotheby's, Christie's, Duoyunxuan, Guardian and Hanhai, have auctioned bamboo carvings, among which there are many high-priced bamboo carvings in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. However, what impressed me the most was the Christie's Spring Auction in 2000, in which seven sages of a bamboo forest sold for a high price of 423,500 yuan, and then in 200 1 year, a pen container with a diameter of 65,438+04.7 cm on the Paris Tower sold for 540,000 francs (about 40./kloc-0.60 billion yuan). At that time, the price of fine bamboo carvings in China was still very low, and there was no sky-high price of one million yuan. Until the autumn of 2003, a special auction of "Wang He and Yuan Quanyou Collected China Art" was launched at the Guardian Autumn Auction in China, which achieved excellent results. Among them, two bamboo carvings sold for millions, namely the bamboo root carving of the old monk Zhu in the Ming Dynasty, with a transaction price of 2.64 million yuan, and the other was the return of Zhu in the Ming Dynasty. Some insiders said that if these bamboo carvings were taken two or three years later, a zero should be added after the transaction price.
The reason is that the first auction was after SARS in 2003, when the price of artworks rose in an all-round way, and bamboo carving appeared in the auction as a more important literary category. Secondly, Mr. Wang's portfolio is really excellent.
From 2004 to 2006, the auction price hit record highs. In 2004, three pieces sold millions, and in 2005, two pieces of bamboo carvings sold millions and tens of millions 1. This record has never been broken, that is, in the spring of 2005, Hong Kong Christie's Kang high relief landscape figure pen holder 1, 2 1. In 2006, there were 5 million collections, which were sold by Christie's in Hong Kong (2 pieces), China Guardian (2 pieces) and Beijing Hanhai (1 piece).
In 2007, the art market as a whole showed a downward trend. There are still three bamboo carvings in Beijing Shi Kuang, Shanghai Jiatai and Hong Kong Christie's for 100 yuan. In 2008, the financial crisis swept the world, and the art market was also impacted to some extent. In the autumn auction of Christie's in Hong Kong in 2008, a special exhibition of "Good Bamboo Carvings" was held as scheduled, and 52 pieces were auctioned, with a total turnover of1260,780 yuan, with a turnover rate of 59.62%, which was satisfactory. At the same time, it also shows the good toughness of bamboo carving works.
The carving of bamboo and wood corners is mostly small pieces, but it is a unique and important art category in the history of sculpture in China. People will be endowed with various skills according to different materials to create unique artistic treasures. Judging from the market price, the material of bamboo carving is not as precious as ivory rhinoceros horn and precious wood, so the price is mainly reflected in the artistic value and added value of cultural connotation of its works. Specifically, the artistic value mainly includes carving techniques and creative ideas. Carving technology is technical, and a good craftsman and sculptor should have the minimum quality. On this basis, if the creation is ingenious and far-reaching, the identity of the object will rise from a high-quality "handicraft" to a rare "artwork". Nowadays, people always pay attention to the masterpieces of famous artists and care whether the bamboo carving works are signed by famous artists. It is also because the cultural accomplishment and accomplishment of famous artists are far above that of skilled craftsmen, and the lofty artistic conception of their works and the combination of poetry and books are very incomparable. This is also the added value mentioned above. In addition, as an organic bamboo carving device, it is not easy to preserve, so the appearance is also the main factor affecting its price.
For the identification of bamboo carving, we must grasp several points: knife work; Age; Artistic standards; Correspondence with standard instruments and literature records; Save the state, etc. Only in this way can we recognize whether it is a masterpiece and its value geometry.
Collection and Maintenance of Bamboo Carvings
Bamboo is a fragile material, and the preservation technology can not be ignored. If it swells when wet, shrinks when dry, and cracks when wet, the best preservation environment for bamboo carving is to control the temperature at about 20℃ and the humidity at about 60%. In the south, Huangmeitian can put bamboo carvings in plastic bags filled with camphor and tie them tightly to avoid moisture absorption; To prevent cracking in dog days, try not to take it out for appreciation and avoid exposure. Generally, once every 1-2 years, lightly rub with raw tung oil, walnut oil and pine nut oil to keep it moist. This method only needs to wrap walnuts and pine nuts in gauze and rub them on bamboo carving products.
Bamboo carving research books
In addition to the records of bamboo people, there are not a few bamboo people's figures and works recorded in Ming and Qing notes, but most of them are scattered. Local chronicles compiled in Jiading and other places over the years can also be used for reference, and the "products" part will also collect information in this regard.
Jin's best friend wrote Xiao Yan, a bamboo engraving manuscript, as a bamboo engraver, which was compiled by my nephew Wang. It is the first book to systematically record the history and creative techniques of bamboo carving. Wang's long introduction, The Complete Works of China Fine Arts, is also a very important reference. Dr. Ye Yi devoted himself to the collection of bamboo carvings in his early years, and wrote The Art of Bamboo Carvings in China. His collection and research achievements have an important influence on the collection of bamboo carvings in Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas.
Content source: National Cultural Market Survey and Evaluation Center (Art Lecture Hall)