Huizhou Woodcarving
Updated: 2007-08-16 09:16 In its early days, Huizhou Woodcarving was rendered in comparatively simple and rough manners by means of low relief. With the increasing economic power amassed by the Huizhou merchants, the engraved articles became highly demanding and time-consuming in the late Qing Dynasty, when the house owners asked the artisan to bring to life more detailed, exaggerated, and complex images by way of high relief and full relief. For example, they would ask for the eyeballs of the animals to be movable and the tiny carved-out doors and windows capable of being opened or closed with a gentle push or pull of the finger.
Meanwhile, Huizhou Woodcarving stands out with its well-calculated and bold compositions. Like a sequence of photographs projected onto a screen, a series of woodcarvings concerned with a certain theme were found on the columns, doors, or beams of the old residential houses. In them, dramatic moments were portrayed and stories were related, with at least three figures in different postures and facial expressions. The stories largely came from the classic novels like Romance of the Three Kingdoms or other mythical legends.
Besides, the engraved works are praised for the local artists' clever use of light and shade. The ancient Huizhou-style buildings were usually constructed with no windows on the exterior walls to prevent against theft and bandits. Thus, local artists developed a rich experience to carve out images that could make full use of the sole source of light shed from the tianjing -- a courtyard in the middle of a residential compound.
Metaphorical or symbolic images were also created to express people's hope for a bright future. For instance, the single image of a peach indicates longevity and the image of a pomegranate indicates fertility, whereas the combined use of the images of a beehive and a monkey, read as fenghou in Chinese, indicates the wish for success in a political career.
In addition, exaggerated contours are displayed in the delicately carved wood. A peony or lotus flower could be carved out to be larger than its real-life edition, which underlined the pleasant ambience of spring.
