Woodcarving art
Craftsmen recreate traditional Changshu landscape painting
In early spring of 2015 woodcarving craftsmen on both sides of the Taiwan Straits joined forces to start working on the finest rosewood. More than 20 of them adopted different woodcarving methods, including transparent and hollowed-out engravings, to reproduce Dwelling
in the Fuchun Mountains, one of the most famous traditional Chinese landscape paintings, in a very special way.
For centuries Chinese academics and historians have regarded the painting by Huang Gongwang (1269-1354) of the mountains in Zhejiang province as a master specimen of traditional landscape painting. Today it is often referred to as one of the top 10 masterpieces of Chinese art.
In the painting the essence of the terrain and landforms on both sides of the Fuchun River are distilled in fine detail. The depiction is dynamic and wild, partly reflecting some of the painting’s tumultuous history, one episode of which resulted in its being set on fire by one of its owners intent on taking it with him into the afterlife.
That attempt was thwarted and the painting was saved, but in two pieces. Eventually one half ended up in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum and the other in the Taipei Palace Museum. In June 2011, 360 years after the two pieces went their separate ways, the two scrolls, Remains
of Mountains and Fellow Apprentice Wuyong, were reunited in the Taipei Palace Museum for an exhibition that lasted two months.
Though the reunion was transient, it spurred the imagination of at least one person to contemplate on how the two parts of the painting could be brought together permanently.
That person was Yao Xiangdong, director of the Oriental Rosewood Furniture Art Museum in Changshu, Jiangsu province, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Suzhou. For Yao the best medium by which the estranged halves could be remarried was rosewood, not only because his city is known as the hometown of rosewood but also the fact that Suzhou-style woodwork has become a symbol of elegance.
“Restoring the painting in the form of a wood carving is perhaps the best name card for Changshu,” he said.
Yao’s idea in turn spawned an annual cross-Straits creative design competition whose central figure is Huang Gongwang, and which has now been held three times. In the many award-winning artworks, traditional Chinese cultural elements have been brought to life by young talent on both sides of the Straits, with an emphasis on the modern perspective.
It is part of drive by Changshu to draw on its cultural resources to promote the city’s growth, using talent from home and abroad, and at the same time promoting the city’s cultural heritage.
On Dec 21 the first Changshu Elite Entrepreneurship Alliance Conference hosted by the Changshu Municipal Committee and the People’s Government was held, with the theme “gathering wisdom and building Changshu”.
The purpose of the alliance is to pool kinship, nostalgia, and friendship, and to gather talent, wisdom, and capital to build Changshu. The alliance consists of eight zones, three domestic — Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen — and five international — the Belt and Road countries, Japan and South Korea, Europe, the Americas and Australia — each of them headed by a convener.
The alliance will work hand in hand with the city government, and a conference will be held annually at which knowledge and expertise that can help promote Changshu will be pooled.
“Cultural change accounts for a big part of the city’s talent project,” said Chen Meilou, vice-president of Jiangsu World Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs Association.
“Changshu can flourish with sustained commitment to more than just a healthy and friendly economic and investment environment. An effort to understand what motivates talent to stay should be carefully planned to align cultural goals too.”
The opening ceremony of the Dai Yi Academic Museum was held in the south square of Changshu Library at the end of October. Dai Yi, 93, director of the National Qing Dynasty History Compilation Committee, hopes to establish a Qing history academic research base there, and Changshu, his hometown, seems to have heard his voice.
Liu Mengxi, a lifelong researcher at the China Academy of Art, said Changshu is a place of culture. The completion of the museum has added a new cultural edge to the city that will play an important role in the development of Changshu’s cultural research and the spread of historical culture.
Cao Peigen, a research librarian and researcher on the culture and history of book collecting at Changshu Institute of Technology, said that during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties more than 300 book collectors resided in Changshu, representing more than a tenth of the collectors across the country. Ye Dehui, an expert on the Qing Dynasty, paid tribute to the city in a preface to the book Gu Family Stone House Bibliography, saying: “A town’s achievement in book collecting put it at the summit of the nation.”
Anecdotes on collecting books, passed on through families and to others, abound in Changshu. One legend has it that a particular species of bookworm winds its way through the forest of books it inhabits looking for fairies. If it finds and devours fairies three times it gains qi (energy) and is possessed of maiwang, or grand outlook.
In the Ming Dynasty, a man named Zhao Qimei, of Changshu, had a special liking for the word
maiwang, so he changed the name of his father’s library “Songshi (pine and stone) Room” to “Maiwang Pavilion” to express his passion and love for books.
Today Maiwang Pavilion continues to bear remnants from the Ming Dynasty. This three-entry wooden building in Zhao Alley, southwest of Changshu, was listed in the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units in 2006.
Another noteworthy book collection relic is the Tieqintongjian (iron
a seven-stringed plucked instrument, and copper sword) Building, in the town of Guli, which has survived 200 years intact.
The owner, the Qu family, collected books and spared little expense in doing so. They also read books, proofread ancient volumes and edited bibliographies allowing knowledge of history and many other things, as well as wisdom, to flourish and to be propagated.
When the Qing army was besieged during the Taiping Rebellion in Changshu in 1862 and searches were conducted house to house, the Qus put their lives at risk to safeguard the books. After New China was founded in 1949 the family, respecting their ancestors’ legacy, donated all of their collections to the nation.
Dai Yi says he often overlooks the rapid changes taking place in his hometown. One of the main reasons for the economic growth of Changshu is its rich cultural fabric, the popularity of education and the improvement of civilization, he says.
Changshu’s recent library rediscovery event encourages public readers to pay attention to libraries and book distribution points around the city where bibliophiles can borrow books.
Yuyue Study Room in Huancheng East Road is an urban public reading space that locals have nicknamed the “library next door”. Sun Yangqing, a reader, says: “I was once sitting inside, with dense trees outside the large glass floor. In the study room, rows and rows of books sat safely between sofas, and with soft music wafting through the air you could only feel blessed to be part of this priceless serenity.”
Chen of Jiangsu World Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs Association says: “Innovation and inheritance are not mutually exclusive, which means respecting inheritance does not mean you have to be conservative. Changshu people are well versed in the principle of opening up their minds with the rules of the ancients.”
In recent years Changshu has increased investment in public services, and the focus on education has become clear. Thirty-three students from the United World Colleges Changshu have been admitted to Ivy League universities in the past three years, and Kang Chiao International School, Suzhou Education Investment Group, Suzhou Foreign Language School, the First Affiliated Hospital of Suzhou University and other world-class establishments now have a presence in the city.
“We have turned Changshu into a hub that is integrated into the Yangtze River Delta,” says the city’s Party Secretary, Zhou Qindi.
“Revering culture is the foundation of our city. The skills and talent of Changshu and its people are its greatest wealth, and they represent its future.”
We have turned Changshu into a hub that is integrated into the Yangtze River Delta. Revering culture is the foundation of our city. The skills and talent of Changshu and its people are its greatest wealth, and they represent its future.” Zhou Qindi city’s Party secretary