The Production Process of Jiejiang Calligraphy Paper

72 handmade processes to show the masterpiece

Jiejiang handmade paper craft should be born in the right place at the right time, its production process and the Ming Dynasty, "Tiangongkaiwu" documented in the process is fully consistent with the raw material from bamboo to a complete paper, a full need for 15 links . It is summarized in 24 words: "Cutting the hemp, removing the green, impregnating the ash, cooking with fire, washing with water, pounding with mortar, copying with curtains, and brushing with wall". This means cutting bamboo and hemp, pounding, steaming, rinsing, macerating, pounding, bleaching, copying, pressing, and brushing. Among them, papermaking tools mainly include paper troughs, paper curtains, paper mortar, paper brushes, paper tearing markers, bamboo flax knives, paper trough hoes, bamboo flax hammers, grasping rakes, material knives, paper spear knives, paper cutters and paper cutters.

As early as the beginning of the last century, jiejiang rice paper because of its white and dense, by zhang dachan and anhui rice paper together and called "two treasures of the country". Jiejiang bamboo paper production techniques were included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. Yesterday, the county held a display of 72 handmade paper-making processes.

Jiejiang County, Ma Village Township, accompanied by very local characteristics of the original music - bamboo hemp horn "yoho" sound, the local nine respected elderly holding bamboo sticks, wooden sticks, around a pot of about 3 meters high rhythmically pounded hard, they do is the paper making process, the paper is the first to be included in the national intangible cultural heritage list. What they are doing is the most basic papermaking process of steaming bamboo hemp, when inherited for thousands of years of ancient crafts again in front of the people, the people present were amazed.

"Shu paper township": handmade paper millennium inheritance

The mention of the history of paper making in Jiejiang County have to say that the county was named "paper scholar" Yang Zhanyao old man, he told reporters that: "Our family was migrated from Xiaogan, Hubei Province, to the countryside. The family is from Hubei Xiaogan migrated to Jiejiang County, because the local bamboo forest is dense, the idea of papermaking was raised, and now passed on to me here is already the 13th generation." In fact, the Yang family is not the first paper family in Jiejiang County, according to historical records, in the Jin Dynasty, China appeared "new-style bamboo paper" when the clever Jiejiang people began the history of handmade bamboo paper.

Jiejiang environment is suitable for the growth of bamboo, the local in the Tang Dynasty that began to "bamboo handmade paper", bamboo paper production techniques in the Ming, full in the Qing Dynasty. Since the Tang Dynasty, Jiejiang has enjoyed the reputation of "the hometown of Shu paper". Jiejiang paper is famous for its good quality, many varieties, large scale and fine technology, and was once designated as the tribute paper by Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty.

About Jiejiang handmade paper craft, it is reported that a white handmade bamboo paper needs paper workers over three months, through malleting, pulp ash, steaming, soaking, fermentation, pounding, plus bleaching, under the slot, copying, squeezing, brushing, finishing and cutting paper and other complicated processes to make out. In the ancient Buddhist temple in Jiejiang was erected in the Qing Dynasty Daoguang nineteen years of the "Cai Weng Tablet" on the paper-making technology in Jiejiang has a more concise description, engraved on it, "cut its hemp, remove its green, impregnated with ash, boiled with fire, washed with the head, pounded with a mortar, copied with curtains, brushed with the wall," the twenty-four words, summarizes the handmade paper making in Jiejiang composting, steaming, pounding, copying of four links, the whole process of 72 processes. The whole process of 72 procedures.

72 procedures: show exquisite skills

With the change of times, because of the emergence of papermaking machines, at the end of the last century in Jiejiang County has been very difficult to see handmade paper workshops, Jiejiang handmade paper production is facing a crisis, because of the raw materials and papermaking process has a fairly strict requirements, many handmade workshops are facing difficulties. In the most prosperous handmade paper Ma Village Township, many papermakers also because of the complicated production process, slow production and give up the art of handmade paper to machine production. Therefore, although there are more than 1,000 paper-making workshops in the county, but the strict sense of traditional handmade paper production has been rare, a serious situation that makes the inheritance of a thousand years of technology is in danger of being lost.

According to the famous handmade paper people in Jiejiang County, Jiejiang made of rice paper toughness, absorbent, easy to book easy to draw, from ancient times there is a "stand up a mirror when the mirror, lay up a touch like silk," said, which makes the copying of paper inside the handmade paper inside the most technical content of the process. From the paper trough copied pulp, all rely on experience to control the thickness of each sheet of paper, pulp copied unevenly, a sheet of paper will be one side of the thick side of thin.

But once the handmade paper-making skill is lost, the loss of our traditional culture is also incalculable, so it is very necessary to protect and rescue the intangible cultural heritage with historical, cultural and scientific value of the bamboo paper making skill of Jiejiang, and excavation.

In the expectation of Leshan people, Jiejiang bamboo paper making skills become the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage approved by the State Council and determined by the Ministry of Culture.

After learning the news, Yang Zhanyao, the paper-making family with the longest heritage in Macun Township, Jiejiang County, said excitedly, "To be able to pass on this skill to the descendants, I feel gratified as a paper township, and proud that I can contribute to the inheritance of this tradition."

The 72-process demonstration of the national intangible cultural heritage - Jiejiang bamboo paper making technique held recently in Jinhua Village, Macun Township, Jiejiang County, is a proof of Jiejiang people's unremitting efforts.

Protection and development: Jiejiang calligraphy and painting paper to make a comeback

For the future of calligraphy and painting paper, Jiejiang papermakers have their own ideas. Ma Village Village, Ma Village, Jinhua Village, paper big Ma Zhenghua told reporters: "In order to continue to write Jiejiang calligraphy and painting paper of the glory, we will, on the one hand, with domestic and foreign experts and scholars, the establishment of a technical research group, market-oriented, and continue to develop a variety of specifications and a series of bamboo paper products." In addition to this, the big papermakers of Macun Township also intend to unite some of the nearby small workshops to form a processing enterprise, as a leader, the establishment of paper and pulp cooperatives, and unite tens of thousands of single-family paper farmers to take the road of brand development; at the same time, they also intend to closely link the development of the paper industry with the development of tourism and integrated development in the form of agro-industrial recreation and tourism and tourism, to lead the papermaking industry to flourish and prosper.

Additionally, the reporter learned from the county government that the county has set up a special fund and formulated the relevant protection policy, and related cultural activities and cultural and artistic performances form of information on the organization and protection, the construction of the "paper township style tourism area" and so on, to ensure that the paper-making skills of the jiejiang will never be lost.