Brief introduction of Huizhou woodcarving

Huizhou woodcarving is mainly brick carving with distinct three-dimensional characteristics, which is mainly used in ancient buildings.

Huizhou woodcarving has a wide range of themes, including figures, landscapes, flowers, animals, fish and insects, cloud heads, palindromes, eight-treasure Bo Gu, tin couplets and various auspicious patterns. The characters are mainly soft stories of celebrities, literary stories, opera songbooks, religious myths, folk customs, folklore and social life. The landscape materials are mainly Huizhou scenic spots, such as Huangshan, Xin 'anjiang and the representative landscapes of Huizhou counties. Animals, flowers, trees and patterns are generally in the form of continuous patterns, and can also be painted independently.

Huizhou wood carving is based on the needs and possibilities of building objects, using round carving, relief carving, through carving and other forms of expression. Wood carving is usually used for beams, joists, eaves, floors, tiles, windows, railings and other places, carving flowers and making flowers, rich and magnificent. The border of woodcarving is generally carved with tangled branches, which flows tactfully and dazzles people. Wood carving not only considers beauty, but also attaches importance to practicality. Generally, there are many reliefs on railings and eaves under windows and around patios. Round carvings are widely used in beam supports, bucket arches, sparrows and even moon beams.

In terms of furniture, beds and wardrobes are widely used in wood carving. These furniture are generally made of high-grade wood, and the surface of wood carving is decorated with red paint and gold foil to make it more vivid.

In the early Ming Dynasty, Huizhou woodcarving had begun to take shape, with simple and rough style, mainly based on plane bas-relief techniques. After the mid-Ming Dynasty, with the strengthening of the financial strength of Huizhou merchants, the awareness of villages and towns in Yao Ju became increasingly strong, and the art of wood carving gradually shifted to fine and exquisite carving, and multi-layer through carving replaced plane shallow carving as the mainstream. After entering the Qing Dynasty, the pursuit of decorative beauty of woodcarving became more intense. Although it is exquisite, it is sometimes too complicated.

Nowadays, exquisite wood carvings can still be seen everywhere in the counties under the jurisdiction of ancient Huizhou. A residential building in Huangcun, a county, is carved on beams, imitations, poles, arches and sparrows, decorated with animal spirits, birds, bats and palindromes, with strict layout and beautiful shape. The 24 floors carved around the patio are separated by the back door, the upper part is a continuous pattern leaking window, the lower part is a relief flower-and-bird partition, and the middle horizontal plate connecting the upper and lower parts is carved with opera stories, all of which are from the operas of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Above the entrance of the building on the right in front of the hall, there is a woodcarving painting with relief and engraving. The background is the winding path of mountains and bamboo forests. In this picture, a young woman leans against the room and looks out. A man came from the mountain road, carrying an umbrella and a bag. This is a picture that reflects Jian Peijun's distant ancestor's "business trip back to China" when he went abroad for business. The characters in the picture are only inches long, but they are engraved with eyebrows and eyes, which are lifelike, especially the women who lean against the room and look at them with sad and focused expressions, showing their feelings of looking forward to the return of their loved ones; Travelers travel in a hurry, eager to return. Its exquisite composition and vivid shape can be called the hat in existing Huizhou woodcarving. Huizhou woodcarving art has been famous for generations. Liu Tiebi, Wang Sheng, Wang Lao Wu, Huang Yiren and Zhang Lifu are all recorded in local chronicles. Their woodcarving art has been handed down from generation to generation and is now more developed.