Historical evolution of clay sculpture in Dawu, Chaozhou

There are two folk sayings in Chaozhou called "Miss Yinhu, Dawu Wengzai" ("Weng" talks about "An"), which not only describes the beauty of Miss Yinhu, but also praises "Tu Wengzai" in wucun, Fuyang Town, Chaoan County, which is wonderful and wonderful. Dawu clay sculpture has a long history of more than 700 years. At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, Wu Jingshan, a native of Zhangpu, Fujian, went to Wuxi, Jiangsu Province to do business with his father and studied Huishan clay sculpture art, then moved south and settled here to make clay toys for a living. Since then, this art has been handed down from generation to generation and flourished in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. From the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 400 clay sculpture artists in wucun with a population of 1 000. Almost every household has a workshop, and everyone can make clay sculptures. Luo Yulin, a researcher at Guangdong Folk Arts and Crafts Museum, said: Dawu "The production scale and quantity of this period (1736 to 19 1 1) far exceeded the most famous clay figurines in Wuxi, Jiangsu and Tianjin at that time."