"The previous forum was a fish tank, short videos and live broadcasts were fish ponds, and after entering the Douyin e-commerce, it was like coming to the sea." Wang Zhen, how does this fish swim in the sea? How far can you swim? Wang Zhen said. Strange stone seal carving is a relatively niche art, most of the fans are students who learn calligraphy and seal carving, or some well-known insiders, he does not care how far he swims, and looks forward to using his actions to inspire the "fish" of his peers. The art of elegant seal engraving requires fireworks, and Douyin e-commerce is this bridge. In more than a year, Wang Zhen has nearly 70,000 iron fans, and he has become the largest number of fans of vibrato in the seal carving industry, and the artist with the highest level of seal carving in the fan world.
Through the live broadcast room of Douyin e-commerce @ Solution Toshidao Culture, Wang Zhen's works are known to more young people.
I loved surfing the Web twenty years ago
Seal carving arose in the pre-Qin, flourished in the Han, declined in the Jin, lost in the Tang and Song, revived in the Ming, and flourished in the Qing. It has a history of more than 3,700 years. The meaning of seal engraving mainly has the meaning of practicality and appreciation, and the combination of seal writing and engraving. The art of seal carving "high cold" is rarely involved by ordinary people, and as early as 2006, Wang Zhen exchanged experiences with "fellow people" through online forums.
Wang Zhen, born in 1984, is a young man in the circle, he loves collecting, seal carving, calligraphy, fishing, and his peers have fewer hobbies with him, so he thought of the Internet. Bring each other closer through forums.
Whenever he talks about that time, Wang Zhen feels a lot, he almost surfs the Internet for more than 8 hours a day, carefully replies to every post, looks for historical materials, and goes to fake the truth. Later, he became the moderator of the forum, and thus became friends with many experts in the circle. Since then, Wang Zhen has realized the convenience of the Internet age.
Tens of thousands of netizens "watched" the seal carving
In 2016, the major live broadcast platforms have just started, and Wang Zhen has done live broadcasting on some craftsmen's handmade e-commerce platforms. He admires this business model of "live broadcast + social + e-commerce + treasure hunting", and believes that the Internet has revolutionized the trading rules in the field of cultural and artistic fields, so that culture is not limited to the old paper pile.
Wang Zhen introduced that the original offline can only give lectures to twenty or thirty people, and after moving to the Internet, tens of thousands of people can watch at the same time. Wang Zhen said frankly, "The era when wine aroma is not afraid of deep alleys has passed. In order to spread the art of seal engraving farther, it is necessary to adopt a combination of online and offline methods. ”
In 2020, Wang Zhen suddenly received an urgent task: to engrave 100 square name seals for a well-known Internet company. During the day, work was busy, and he could only go home at night to carve. "If you don't open a seal engraving live broadcast on Douyin e-commerce, there are netizens who accompany me to carve together, not alone."
In the evening, a live broadcast was held, while explaining the dry goods of seal carving, he personally demonstrated the whole process of seal carving. Every knife that fell was steady and accurate, and the knife was already like a part of his hand. The most exaggerated thing is that he carved until four o'clock in the morning, and when he looked up, he found that there were still netizens watching. Netizens don't sleep, how can he sleep? Wang Zhen believes that in the future, in Douyin, more and more young people will fall in love with this ancient craft. Since then, Wang Zhen has moved his art to the Internet, and when he carved the seal, he was intoxicated and also educated netizens.
In just one year, this famous seal engraver relied on his hard-core seal engraving technology and knowledge reserves, and the two Douyin numbers @ Seal Engraver Wang Zhen and @ Xiewu Shidao Culture have attracted more than 100,000 fans, and sold 35,000 seal engraving-related works through the Douyin small shop of @Xiewu Shidao Culture.
As early as the age of 8, Wang Zhen had an indissoluble relationship with calligraphy. In 1992, he owned his first calligraphy work, which has since won numerous awards at major youth calligraphy competitions. Seeing his achievements in art, his father found a local sage for Wang Zhen to tutor Wang Zhen in calligraphy, and decided to help his son develop this interest.
In his sophomore year of high school, Wang Zhen clarified his own art examination path and was successfully admitted to the Calligraphy and Seal Engraving Major of China Academy of Art in 2003. 10 years later, Xiling Printing Society held the 110th anniversary of its founding "Centennial Xiling Jinshi Huazhang" International Seal Engraving Large-scale Selection Competition, and Wang Zhen stood out from more than 2,000 participants and won the laurel.
In 2013, on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of its founding, Xiling Printing Society held the "Centennial Xiling Jinshi Huazhang" International Seal Engraving Selection Competition, and Wang Zhen stood out from more than 2,000 people from all over the world. The election of "Xiling Zhuangyuan" means that Wang Zhen is already one of the best young people in the field of seal engraving.
For young people studying calligraphy and painting, xiling printing society is undoubtedly a sacred art temple, and Wang Zhen, a 29-year-old "champion", became one of the youngest members of the society at that time. In this "master" such as Lin's Xiling Printing Agency, there are fewer experts like him who play pinyin, and along the way, he has become one of the experts with the highest level of seal engraving in Douyin.
The art of elegance requires pyrotechnics
Wang Zhen is successful on the road of art. Over the years, he has won the national calligraphy and seal engraving art awards, and also served as an expert of the National Development and Reform Commission Price Certification Center, and has created about 4,000 or 5,000 seals so far.
Wang Zhen was once on fire for a "top-edge teaching video". The so-called edge extension is actually the last process of seal engraving, through the rubbing of the edge of the seal, you can more intuitively observe whether the rubbing is complete, and can also be used as a creative result to preserve the data of the edge of the rubbing into paper. These experiences have laid a good foundation for him to create short videos and do live broadcasts on the Douyin e-commerce platform.
Wang Zhen creates videos on the Douyin e-commerce platform, and his methods of conceiving, shooting, and explaining are all from himself. That is, the operation of the Douyin e-commerce account for two years, he understood a truth, art can not be placed in the spire, the needs of the people is the most fundamental fertile soil, in other words, "no matter how elegant the art, also need fireworks, can not be self-congratulatory."
In the douyin e-commerce live broadcast, Wang Zhen started from preparing materials and taught step by step how to complete the rubbing of the seal side section "how fast and good". At the beginning of the live broadcast, not many people watched Wang Zhen's seal carving. Most of the people who came to watch his engraving in the live broadcast room were also students who studied calligraphy and seal engraving, or people who knew Wang Zhen's seal engraving circle. He also knows in his heart that seal engraving is far away from daily life, and there is a professional threshold, which is difficult for ordinary people to accept.
Later, Wang Zhen began to try to engrave some content related to everyone's daily life. While working, while chatting about home, sometimes in response to netizens' questions, the art of high coldness, in the vernacular, communicate with strange netizens - will the engraving of seals be engraved? What should I do if I get tired? How to sharpen the carving knife when it is broken? Although the curiosity of netizens is not in line with art, this is the specific thing they care about. Netizens are happy to watch, and sometimes they keep forwarding short videos produced by Wang Zhen.
"Short" is both "fast" And there are experiences in doing short videos and live broadcasts
There are more netizens watching Douyin, thousands of people on the other end of the screen, the moment of "seal carving", it must be "only fast and not broken". Wang Zhen introduced that the seal engraving should be combined with the improvement of the short video, and everyone's patience online is not as good as offline, so it is necessary to complete the teaching live broadcast of the party seal within a quarter of an hour.
Usually the seal engraver will first write the printed manuscript on the paper with high transparency, turn over the side of the paper according to the "counter-draft" with a pencil to copy the stone, and then use the brush to rewrite it again, and then correct the knife after the printing draft is stoned, Wang Zhen often directly take the knife to reverse the engraving when live, and in less than 10 minutes, you can complete the four-character printing. Wang Zhen is a famous "fast knife hand". In the douyin e-commerce live broadcast, he can not only quickly design and carve according to the netizens' on-site propositions, but also directly write back the stone without drawing the manuscript. One side seal engraving seal, the slowest half an hour to carve, the fastest only need ten minutes.
"Fast knife" is related to Wang Zhen's straightforward personality, and he has always maintained the creative intensity of hundreds of square seals a year. Wang Zhen likes the most concise knife technique, "Han Eight Knife Cicada", "A knife to a knife back, a line can come out, a few knives can carve a jade cicada." Wang Zhen's knife technique is crisp and clean, but at the same time he wants to express the charm of traditional Chinese culture, which he believes is the most difficult and has always been pursued by himself. "A moment to witness a miracle!" The moment the seal is stamped and unveiled, Wang Zhen will always read this mantra aloud.
Wang Zhen said when talking about the experience of operation and maintenance of Douyin e-commerce, seal engraving is different from other "net reds", through clothing, funny to attract netizens, it is pure art, but it has the attributes of network dissemination. Netizens' preferences are initially "fast food", and if the moment in front of the screen cannot attract netizens, it will be difficult to attract them later. Therefore, when the details are exaggerated and enlarged, for example, when writing "big" words, the short video shows the "beginning" that is, "the end", and the camera falls on the last stroke, so that there is tension. Through the momentary tension, to highlight the charm of amplifying the art of seal engraving.
Immerse yourself in art to be free inside
In his work, Wang Zhen is low-key and rigorous. Only when he arrived at the live broadcast field and made the seal, he interacted with the "strange" netizens and exchanged art, at this time, his heart was relaxed and comfortable, and between the interactions, the concept of time was diluted.
When people with hearts see Wang Zhen's videos, there is often a little girl who appears, who is his daughter in the second grade, and the child's cheerful personality is the same as Wang Zhen's. In addition to live seal engraving, Wang Zhen will also share a little "home" atmosphere. He will also display his collection of ancient seals in the live broadcast room, so that fans can further understand the production, classification and appreciation of ancient seals, and give netizens free professional courses in seal engraving art.
Not only that, Wang Zhen sold seal engraving related works through the live broadcast room of Douyin E-commerce @ Solution Toshidao Culture, he hopes that more young people can fall in love with the art of seal engraving through his live broadcast room, and also wants to help other seal carving, calligraphy creators who still have spare strength in creation, and even sister art creators such as jade carving, pen making, ink making, and brick making to be included in the matrix of their own live content, so that more people can understand the charm of traditional culture, which coincides with the launch of the "SeeIng Craftsmanship Plan" launched by Douyin E-commerce, which aims to play content, Traffic and technical advantages help traditional crafts to achieve new development.
This year, the plan launched the "Walking with the Master" special project to support craftsmen like Wang Zhen, through short videos and live broadcasts, to be seen and understood by more people.
There are more and more people in Wang Zhen's live broadcast room, and many netizens who have not been in contact with seal carving before, including peers, will also come to him to watch his seal carving live. In the process of live broadcasting, in order to let those who have not been exposed to seal engraving also understand the seal engraving, he will explain the dry goods related to the knowledge of seal engraving while personally demonstrating the whole process of seal engraving. Many netizens are attracted by Wang Zhen's exquisite craftsmanship, and every knife that falls is stable and accurate, and the knife, stone and hand are integrated.
Huashang Daily reporter Wei Guangjing Editor Dong Lin
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