What is Huizhou four carvings?

"Huizhou four carvings" is a Huizhou style of brick carving, stone carving, wood carving, bamboo carving four folk carving craft, for the ancient Huizhou region in the Ming and Qing dynasties, decorative carving, with a strong local cultural colors.

Huizhou four carvings are mainly used for the decoration of residential buildings, ancestral halls, temples, gardens and other buildings, as well as ancient furniture, screen link, pen holder, fruit plate and other craft carvings. Huizhou four carvings are the product of gradual formation and development in the context of developed Huizhou culture, and are the masterpieces of Huizhou skilled craftsmen.

Wealthy Huizhou merchants returned to their hometowns, spending huge sums of money to build a lot of ancestral halls, pagodas, houses, etc., which makes Huizhou carvings have "a place to use", and objectively promotes the development of the art of Huizhou carvings.

In addition, Huizhou since ancient times, more skilled craftsmen, versatile craftsmen in the carving of the time, coupled with ingenuity, making Huizhou four carving art features unique, exquisite and timeless, and perfect, the peak of excellence.

Huizhou four carvings of the history of the Song Dynasty, to the Ming and Qing Dynasties reached a peak, especially its knife, skills have reached the "heavenly workers can be replaced by man-made heaven is not as good as" the artistic situation. The carver is strong knife, knife freely, the knife moves freely, the intention of the knife to reach, the knife in the pen, complement each other, reflecting the knife and the art of consistency, content and style of unity of approach.

The art of four carving is different from the art of painting, its expression requires a knife instead of a pen, based on a carving word. Therefore, the artisan in the conception of the idea, the modeling composition methods, techniques and visual effects to do a comprehensive consideration.

Hui carving artists not only have a strong foundation of traditional skills, but also has a certain pattern of modeling, generally the first review of the situation, the big picture, that is, to determine the location of the carving object, the proportion of the upper and lower relationships.

At the same time, we must also consider the application of a certain technique, such as symmetry, echo, sparse, solid, dark, rigid and soft, as well as three-dimensionality, spatiality, rhythm, rhyme and other techniques and the laws of beauty, should be weighed, to achieve a good idea.

Then the knife is divided into levels, so that the overall composition into a brief but without losing the local details of the carving.

The main expressive techniques used are shallow relief, high relief, translucent carving, round carving, hollow carving and line carving, etc. to modeling. The carvings are exquisite and superb, or slender, or rough, or rigorous, or unrestrained.

Huizhou wood carving decoration is mainly reflected in the key parts of the internal architecture, such as the main beams, frames, arches, sparrow, doors, windows, fan panels, balustrades, as well as furniture decoration.

The wood carving decorations of the Ming Dynasty were neat and bright, with bold and unrestrained lines, and the patterns were mostly in geometric shapes such as diamonds, squares, and iambic pentameter. And the Qing dynasty wood carving fine, elaborate, carved more layers.

Built in the Song Dynasty, the Jixi County Longchuan Hu Ancestral Hall was overhauled during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the wood carving of the flower carvings in relief, openwork carvings and line carvings, in addition to the beam hooks, beams, and the doorway of the carving of dragons and phoenixes, historical plays, the entire floor of the doors and windows of the layout of the wood carving of the "Lotus, vase, deer," the three kinds of motifs.

Thousands of forms, pavilions of various kinds of lotus flowers with the wind; leisurely stroll, look back to attract couples, young deer suckling, doe caress lick and other forms of deer in the free life; all kinds of shapes, thousands of fine carving, delicate and beautiful vase, like a "fairyland"-like carving is mesmerizing.

The lotus means "harmony is precious" and educates the descendants to do things in a clean and honest manner; the deer means to wish for the longevity of our ancestors; the vase symbolizes the longing for a peaceful life for generations to come.

Yixian Hongcun Chengzhitang wood carving ornaments are representative of the works of the late Qing Dynasty, especially the hall beams on the square wood carving is extremely fine, square center there is a group of group carving, beams at both ends of the curve of the curved moon. The main square on a "hundred children figure", vivid image, but also exquisite.

Composition of the exquisite, beautiful modeling, the expression of the profound, can be called the treasures of wood carving. The "eight steeds" in the west room, the "ten deer" in the east room, the use of raised relief, many characters, or chess, or poetry, or trekking, or whispering, each in a different, detailed and realistic manner.

Many of the motifs are carved in six or seven layers on a three- or four-centimeter-thick wooden board, and their skill is amazing.

Huizhou stone carvings are mainly used in exterior door coverings, gate decorations, as well as leaky windows, patios, courtyards, stone tables, stone benches, pillars of beams and columns, such as hugging drums and lions, as well as stone windows, stone railings, doorways and so on.

Because of Yixian Xidi produced "Yixian green" marble, tough texture, fine texture, glossy, become an excellent material for carving stone carving works.

Stone carving themes are rich and varied, fruit and wood, animals, clouds, flowers and leaves, to name a few. Stone carving motifs include "magpies ascend to the plum tree" and "three friends of the year".

Huizhou stone carving in the carving style, relief to shallow relief and plane carving, round carving integration trend is obvious, knife melting delicate in simple and generous, not as delicate and cumbersome as the Qing Dynasty wood carving and brick carving.

There are a pair of well-preserved Yixian green marble stone vase, the vase decorated with landscapes and clouds patterns, using a combination of relief and openwork carving techniques, it is amazing for the ghostly craftsmanship.

Xidi Village "West Park" in a pair of leaky windows, the left for the pine and stone pattern, the pine from the jagged stone diagonally out, modeling strong and heavy; right for the bamboo and plum pattern, the top of the curved bamboo wind, the ancient branch of the plum, shapely and graceful modeling, knife work is exquisite to the very end, can be described as a stone art boutique.

Huizhou brick carvings are mostly used for decorative door cover, paste wall pagoda, the ridge of the human characters on the eaves, courtyard leakage window and hidden walls, walls. In the width of not more than a foot, less than an inch thick on the surface, or flowers and beasts, or figures and landscapes, or pavilions and pavilions, each to achieve its own.

Ming Dynasty brick carving pattern is simple, flat, relief-based, rough and simple style. The Qing Dynasty brick carving style tends to be delicate and complex, focusing on plot and composition, deepening the level of translucent carving.

In more than a foot square, less than an inch thick brick blanks carved out of the complex plot, multi-layer hollowed out picture, from near to far, before and after the perspective, clear layers, people produce subtle beauty.

Huizhou ancient architecture attaches great importance to the decoration of the doorway door cover, known as the "jack doorway four two houses", the main components of the doorway is the brick carving and stone carving, especially brick carving for more.

Huizhou brick carving materials and production is extremely sophisticated. Generally used by a special technique of firing, sound, color and lustre of the pure blue brick as a material, the first fine grinding into a billet, outlined on the part of the picture, chiseled out the depth of the object, to determine the picture of the near and far levels, and then according to the contours of the various parts of the elaborate carving, local "out of the fine", so that pre-designed designs

The brickwork is a very good example of the way to create a new image.

Brick carvings can be seen everywhere in Shexian, Yixian, Wuyuan, Xiuning and Tunxi. Ancient dwellings, ancestral halls, temples and other buildings inlaid with brick carvings, although the years of wear and tear, the wind and rain erosion, is still Ling Ling clear, intriguing.

Brick carvings are mostly selected from folklore theater stories, such as "Eight Immortals across the sea", "Liu Hai play Golden Toad", "Guo Ziyi birthday" and so on, the simple is eight treasures, Double money, beasts, herbs and other patterns, reflecting the owner's prayers for good luck, harvest, wealth, longevity and other good intentions.

Since Huizhou buildings are mostly brick, wood and stone structures, there are very few bamboo buildings, so bamboo carvings are rarely used for the decoration of buildings. Bamboo carving is mainly used for decoration, such as common artifacts, including screens, screens, hanging screens, vases, stationery boxes, toothpick boxes, ashtrays, tea Jane, hats, pen holders, chopsticks, couplets, wrist pillows, tableware, etc., are decorated with bamboo carving.

Huizhou bamboo carvings are generally made from bamboo, which is abundant in Huizhou, and the bamboo carvings are made from various kinds of calligraphy and paintings by using knives instead of brushes and applying the techniques of line carving, shallow relief carving and deep relief carving according to the materials. These works, there are celebrities' calligraphy ink, there are scenic spots of mountains and rivers, there are folk legends of myths and stories, there are rare birds and animals in a thousand different forms, the subject matter is extremely wide.

The Qing Dynasty, Huizhou bamboo carving in terms of content, form, technology are increasingly rich and perfect, due to the development of splicing technology, bamboo carving breaks through the size of the limitations of a larger area of bamboo carving possible, so that the production of bamboo carving apparatus more convenient and flexible.

There is a bamboo teapot for Huizhou bamboo carving masterpiece.

This pot is made of bamboo, from the bottom to the cover, as well as the cover of the new, are made of bamboo. It is finely carved, with an eight-sided columnar body and carvings on all sides. On four sides are paintings of various kinds of flowers and plants. On three sides are characters, one of which reads, "When guests come to meet us"; the second reads, "Tea comes to many thirsty people"; and the third reads, "Bamboo pots are rare in the world".

Both the characters and the paintings are made with fine knives and smooth lines.

This pot is 11 centimeters high, 88 centimeters in diameter, and 45 centimeters in caliber. A pot with 4 cups, the pot with cups, cups embracing the pot baking the moon and supporting the clouds, complementing each other, all in one.