Shell carving is the crystallization of the beauty of the sea and the wisdom of traditional culture, with the natural beauty of shells, the beauty of sculpture techniques and the style beauty of Chinese painting, and each work carries ancient culture and modern civilization.
A thousand years of heritage
As an intangible cultural heritage, Beihai shell carving is a characteristic traditional craft in China, inheriting a long history and ancient skills. Making shell carvings can be divided into the following steps:
Drawing: Drawing the work you want to create;
Material selection: select the appropriate shell according to the drawing;
Grinding: Grinding the selected shells into the desired shape;
Polishing: the polished shells are finely polished;
Paste: Paste the polished shell parts together;
Mounting: The glued parts are framed according to the artwork.
After the delicate production of craftsmen, ordinary shells are transformed into glittering and exquisite crafts.
During the Qin and Han Dynasties, people used the color of the shells to grind a relatively flat shell into thin pieces, and then carved out a simple pattern of birds and animals, embedded in bronzes, mirrors, screens and tables and chairs for decoration, commonly known as "Luodian", this process is still preserved in many areas.
At the beginning of the founding of New China, on the basis of inheriting traditional craftsmanship, shell carving workers everywhere paid attention to absorbing the strengths of ivory carving, jade carving, wood carving and Chinese painting, combined with the characteristics of the screw inlay process, successfully studied shell carving paintings in the form of relief and a variety of practical handicrafts, thus opening a new chapter in the history of shell carving technology, and a large number of products were exported to earn foreign exchange and sold well in domestic and foreign markets.
Beihai shell carving is famous for its elegant style and ingenious charm. The raw materials used in Beihai shell carving are all natural shellfish and conch from the Beibu Gulf Ocean, and the natural color and texture shape of the shell conch are skillfully used, carefully designed and hand-carved.
Craftsmanship
From a shell carving designer to a carving craftsman, Xu Chengbin himself did not expect that this traditional skill with a strong marine cultural color would be inextricably linked to his life.
In 1988, Xu Chengbin came to Beihai Arts and Crafts General Factory to engage in the design and production of shell carvings. When he was a child, Xu Chengbin also visited and studied in the General Arts and Crafts Factory in the summer vacation, so he had an impression of shell carving, and after graduation, he just chose to work in the General Arts and Crafts Factory, and has been doing it now.
Since the 1990s, with the reduction of export market demand, the situation in the shell carving industry has taken a sharp turn for the worse, and in 2006, with a history of 42 years, the old craft factory that was once flourished announced the suspension of production. Many shell carving artists have changed careers, but Xu Chengbin, who loves shell carving, still adheres to this ancient traditional skill.
Shell carving arts and crafts master Xu Chengbin: In 2013, I founded the "one-hand shell art" studio, the "one" of the "one-hand shell art" studio is ignored by many people, thinking that it is an ellipsis, how to call it "one-hand shell art", I have no other skills (only shell carving), it is so simple.
New rhyme of Beiyi
History has good work, Fang De Dragon Palace borrows treasures, skillfully crafted into treasures, mountains and seas for thousands of years, hundreds of generations of circulation, and then paint the legend of the sea of people. Xu Chengbin has been engaged in the design and production of shell carving for more than 30 years, he is good at depicting flowers, birds and people, and is also good at large-scale shell carving processing. He put all his time and energy into the creation of shell carvings, constantly broke through himself, made many excellent shell carving works, and won numerous awards and many awards.
Xu Chengbin's shell sculpture "Bei Yi Gu Yun" won the 2018 "Hundred Flowers Cup" Chinese Arts and Crafts Fine Arts And Crafts Gold Award at the 19th China Arts and Crafts Masters Works and Handicraft Art Exposition, which represents the highest level of China's arts and crafts industry. "Bei Yi Ancient Rhyme" is a classical story series composed of three circular paintings "Listening to the Spring Between the Dangerous Cliffs, Fuqin Pan Zhiyin" (Mountain Residence), "White Clothes Lead horses, step on snow to appreciate red plums" (snow), and "Bamboo Forest Makes Jade Flutes, Blowing Flutes Leads to Phoenixes" (Bamboo Forest).
These three works use the Pearl Shell of the North Sea as raw material, use the natural color and luster of the shell to carve landscapes, figures, flowers and birds, and then draw on the traditional Chinese painting style, and through the innovative virtual reality, distance and 360 degree strange shape clever layout, vividly and completely show the leisurely living state of the ancient literati.
It is very important to select materials for making shell carving paintings, and the materials used in shell carving paintings in the past were not very exquisite, and the process was only rough polishing and coloring and splicing. Today, all of Xu Chengbin's works are made of pure natural shells, and the pure natural texture of the original shells is presented through fine polishing, which is beautiful.
In 2010, the Beihai shell carving technology was selected into the list of intangible cultural heritage at the autonomous region level, and in 2021, the Beihai shell carving was selected into the "Fifth Batch of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative Project List", intangible cultural heritage is a profound expression of the city's cultural accumulation, but also a living culture nurtured by water and soil, behind the Beihai shell carving is the marine culture and art and the unique marine ecological civilization of the Beibu Gulf.
Maritime Silk Road
In the "Shell Sculpture Art Museum" there is a special work - "Maritime Silk Road". This large shell sculpture depicts loading cargo from Hepu on a long voyage. Due to the long history of this period, in order for "The Maritime Silk Road" to accurately express the scene in his heart, Xu Chengbin went through a large number of materials. The Wenchang Pagoda in Hepu is a feature that represents Hepu. Sailing ships, through the mangroves, through Vietnam, India, the Persian Gulf, all the way to Egypt and Europe, formed a maritime Silk Road trade route. Throughout the work, the color of the shells and the natural texture of the ancient boat wood are used to show the style of the time.
A new tradition of ancient art
The process of shell carving is very complicated, it takes a long time to train a shell carving worker, and many young people have lost interest in this traditional craft, and the craft of shell carving has gradually lost. Xu Chengbin tried to recruit apprentices to the society through various channels, but repeatedly failed.
In 2014, Beihai Secondary Vocational and Technical School introduced enterprises to the school to open a tourism handicraft major, and Xu Chengbin moved the "first-hand shell art" into the campus to cultivate more talents for the inheritance and development of the intangible cultural heritage of beihai shell carving.
The process of learning shell carving is boring and arduous, due to the dust in the workshop, it is impossible to install air conditioning, and in the north sea where the surface temperature is nearly 40 degrees in the summer, the degree of heat can be imagined. With the sharp and harsh grinding sound and the roar of the convulsion system, the students repeatedly practiced polishing shells every day, but the harsh environment could not stop their enthusiasm for learning shell carvings.
Xu Chengbin is happy that the students chose this industry, that they can love the craft, and that they can pursue the skill as their own, because it is a lifelong benefit to be able to learn a skill. He said that if children do not do shell carving, they can also learn through memory, they can do root carving, wood carving, jade carving, stone carving, etc. These are all common, but as long as they do it through hard work, they will definitely gain a lot.
Shell carving is the crystallization of the natural essence of the sun and moon of the sea and the wisdom of traditional culture, which integrates the charm of Chinese painting, the boldness of calligraphy, the ethereality of embroidery, the texture of jade carving and the luster of pearls. The skills passed down from generation to generation by Beihai shell carving people are gradually moving towards a broader world.