Speaking of Hubei clay sculpture, the most representative is the Huangpi clay sculpture, Hubei Huangpi Paulownia Town is the hometown of hubei clay sculpture, but also the hometown of Chinese clay sculpture. Huangpi clay sculpture combines the characteristics of the south and the north, with a wide range of materials, mostly taken from real life, the clay sculpture lines are rough with delicacy, and the color is strong with brightness.
Author Feng Yuhui, President of Central China Urban Research Institute
Clay sculptures are inseparable from religious activities, and the development of Huangpi clay sculptures is closely related to the development of Mulan Mountain. Mulan Mountain Taoist Buddhism coexists in the same mountain, and the incense is exuberant all year round. The religious activities of Mulan Mountain began in Sui, and the Huangpi clay sculptures also began at that time. With the gradual prosperity of religious activities, each temple and temple is indispensable to the carved statues of gods and Buddhas, and the number of clay sculptures has gradually increased. Before the Cultural Revolution, mulan mountain still retained more than 500 Buddha statues, with beautiful lines and excellent workmanship, all carved by local people in Huangpi.
The representative work of the Huangpi clay sculpture is the Five Hundred Arhats of the Luohan Hall of The Guiyuan Temple in Hanyang. The 500 arhats of Guiyuan Temple are not clay sculptures or wood carvings, but "lacquer plastic crafts", also known as "golden body tosha statues", which are characterized by light system, anti-humidity, insect moth resistance, and unchanged over time.
In the early 1970s, under the guidance of professional artists, peasant clay sculptures began to appear in Huangpi County, Hubei Province (now Huangpi District, Wuhan City). The party committee of the Taotong Commune used clay sculptures to carry out class education for the masses, and achieved good results, and the county party committee summed up and popularized the experience of Tutong, so that the peasants' clay sculpture activities were rapidly popularized throughout the county. The Hubei Provincial Party Committee affirmed the experience of Huangpi in a timely manner, and mass peasant clay sculpture activities have since risen vigorously.
In 1973, the Huangpi County Cultural Center held the first batch of peasant clay sculpture training classes; In the spring of 1974, Huangpi County's Fengtong Commune took the lead in producing "clay sculpture bears" for the propaganda of "batch forest batch holes", and then Li Ji, Changyan, Yanzi, Yao Ji, Liuzhi and other communes also successively appeared in various exhibition forms such as "clay sculpture bears", "clay sculpture baskets", "clay sculpture showrooms" and so on.
During this period, teachers from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Hubei Art College and other colleges and universities, as well as the workers of the Hubei Provincial Literary and Art Creation Studio Art Team, visited the peasant clay sculptures in Huangpi and gave professional guidance to improve the creative practice of amateur authors. In one year, this peasant clay sculpture creation team has developed from Huangpi to Hanyang, Anlu, Xiaogan, Yunmeng, Yingshan and other counties.
The peasant clay sculpture creation activities that appeared in Huangpi not only led to the active participation of surrounding counties and cities, but also caused great repercussions nationwide. In 1974, Hubei News Documentary Film Studio filmed the news documentary "Clay Sculpture Bear"; In 1975, the No. 29 "News Bulletin" produced by the Central News Documentary Film Studio included the short film "Peasant Clay Sculpture", and the 1976 documentary "New Things Praise" also introduced the Huangpi clay sculpture. What you'll see on tv here is a short film produced by the Central News Record Film Studio.
In early 1976, the Central Cultural Revolution sent Chambra and Hong Kemin to Huangpi, planning to put together a clay sculpture of peasants in Huangpi, Hubei Province, and a sculpture of workers in Chongqing, Sichuan, to hold a large-scale exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. The Hubei Provincial Bureau of Culture mobilized the Hubei Provincial Art Team, made every effort to prepare for the beijing report exhibition, and sent Wang Yuanliu, a sculptor from the Hubei Provincial Museum, to invite teachers from the Sculpture Department of Hubei Academy of Arts to participate in the creation of the county cultural center. Because all the clay sculptures exhibited in the exhibition were to be turned into plaster, the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts sent five reproduction masters to work with Gao Chongyue, a reproduction master from Hubei Province, and others to reproduce and train the trainees.
In August, Hubei Daily published a special edition on the 24th, publishing an article by the Huangpi County PARTY Committee Report Group entitled "A New Chapter in the Peasant Clay Sculpture Spectrum", as well as 6 clay sculpture works: Chen Shiwu and other "Chairman Mao Waved Me Forward", Lan Changjie's "Battle Song Loud and Bright", Huangpi County Clay Sculpture Study Class "Painful Annihilation of the Return to The Hometown Regiment - Never Allow the "Return to the Hometown Group" to Make a Comeback to Form Plastics", Xiang Jinguo's "The Secretary's Office", Peng Shiwu's "The Whole Family Goes to Battle", and Chen Dexin's "Silver Thread Connects to Beijing".
In that year, Hubei Art College funded and borrowed Li Centralized School building to run a "Society to Shelai" class, in addition to Huangpi County, there are also Wuhan City wood carving, jade carving factory and students from other counties. In that year, the Central News Documentary Film Studio filmed the documentary "New Things Praise", which contained an introduction to the Huangpi clay sculpture.
From October to November 1977, the "Sculpture of Workers in Chongqing City, Sichuan Province, Clay Sculpture of Peasants in Huangpi County, Hubei Province" was exhibited at the Wuhan Exhibition Hall, and then exhibited in Chengdu for two months. During the Han exhibition, The Yangtze River Daily and Hubei Daily successively published special editions of the exhibition.
In November, the 6th issue of Fine Arts published a newsletter entitled "Chongqing Workers' Sculpture and Huangpi Peasant Clay Sculpture Joint Exhibition Opened in Wuhan" and Han Zhizhong (Hubei Provincial Literary and Art Creation Studio Art Team) and Cheng Zheng (reporter of the magazine): "The Story of Huangpi Peasant Clay Sculpture".
In August 1978, the "Chongqing Workers' Sculpture in Sichuan Province and peasant clay sculpture exhibition in Huangpi County, Hubei Province" was held at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, with 120 works exhibited, and 60 works each in Hubei and Sichuan.
In 1985, the Central News Film Studio came to Huangpi again and filmed a large-scale documentary "China's Huangpi Clay Sculpture". For a time, Huangpi clay sculptures were known throughout the country and became famous.
In 1993, the state decided to select a group of outstanding enterprises as designated production enterprises for tourism commodities in the country. Only 2 enterprises in Hubei Province were selected, and Wuhan Huangpi Clay Sculpture Craft Factory was one of them.
As a traditional brand and characteristic industry, Huangpi clay sculpture has an immeasurable role in the development of tourism in Huangpi and even Hubei. Walking on the pedestrian street of Jianghan Road, the sculptures "Hot Dry Noodles", "Na Liang", "Selling Water", "Measuring Eyesight" and other sculptures that reflect the life of old Wuhan residents have attracted foreign friends and people who come to shop for photos. Not far from Wuhan Port, the Bund, Jiangtan Phase I, Jiangtan Phase II and Jiangtan Phase III are distributed with a variety of sculptures made by Huangpi sculpture artists.
Huangpi Lijiaji Street, where the Mulan Cloud Mountain Scenic Area is located, is a famous "land of clay sculptures", and the world-famous Guiyuan Temple's five hundred arhats are from the hands of artists here. Over the years, Wang Qixin, the inheritor of "Huangpi Clay Sculpture", has continuously developed and innovated, and has also invested in the creation of art and cultural buildings such as "Clay Man Wang Village 'Clay Sculpture Art Museum'", "Clay Man Wang Village 'Clay Sculpture Experience Hall'", "Clay Man King Village 'Clay Sculpture Viewing Garden'". In order to inherit, protect, revitalize and develop the "Huangpi clay sculpture" culture, let the "Huangpi clay sculpture" go to the whole country and go abroad, the scenic spot should organize the "'Huangpi clay sculpture' cultural style plot" every October.
During the festival, visitors can not only watch the live creations of clay sculpture artists from zero distance, but also sign up for the clay sculpture prize competition in the amateur group and interest group. In addition, for tourists who are eager to learn the art of clay sculpture (including those who want to do it themselves), they can also learn mud removal, wooden sticks, and inner skeletons under the guidance of clay sculptors... In particular, the "Clay Sculpture Experience Hall in Clay King Village" is especially suitable for college, middle and primary school students to carry out extracurricular quality education. In the "'Huangpi Clay Sculpture' Cultural Style Plot", students can learn about things through learning clay sculptures, cultivate healthy personality, interest and quality, and enrich their artistic imagination.