Zhang Yucheng, whose home is in Tongzhou, Beijing, is a man who can't stay idle. No, I didn't meet for a while, and when I met, I talked to the author about his new series - "Spring Water Jade" carved ornaments.
(Zhang Yucheng and the jade elephant he made)
Zhang Yucheng is a descendant of The Jade of Tongzhou District, a non-hereditary heir, a long round of authors, and he has known him for 14 years. He has a Yuchengxuan handicraft factory in Taihu Town, Tongzhou District, with a large yard of more than ten acres, in addition to the factory buildings are planted with vegetables, there is a period of time often to his garden to eat and drink with jade. In recent years, because of the busy work, there has been less contact.
(Zhang Yucheng at his world's largest Kowloon Jade Sea press conference)
He has been immersed in the jade carving industry for half a century, is good at making new ones, and from time to time makes a "big guy" to make the world surprised. He once made the world's largest jade "aircraft carrier" with a length of 4.5 meters and a height of 3.9 meters and weighing several tons, which is still placed in front of a building in Kunming; he also made the world's largest Jade Sea in Kowloon with a circumference of 6 meters and a weight of 2 and a half tons, breaking the Guinness World Record and being reported by CCTV. I thought he should wash his hands and rest when he reached retirement age, but he didn't expect to be out of the "circle" again.
Driving from Tongzhou City, along the Tongma Highway, through the Beijing-Shenyang Expressway immediately turn left, to the Taihu Town Xiao Empress Riverside studio, the author saw one of his "Chunshui Jade" jade carving ornaments only twenty centimeters high, for the layman, see is the exquisite conception and carving process. In fact, if you understand the meaning of it, you will be even more surprised, because this work contains great cultural value, and he has created a national first.
This is currently the only three-dimensional "spring water jade" carving in the country. Jade is a Chinese symbol, in ancient Chinese jade, people will show the Liao Dynasty Khitan people in the spring, with Haidong Qing hunting goose hunting activities of jade works collectively referred to as "spring water jade", also known as "spring water ornament". The earliest title of "Chunshui Jade" should be Yang Boda's 1983 article "Jurchen "Chunshui" and "Qiushan" Yukao", which examines the graphic materials of the Haidong Qinghu catching geese and tiger deer mountain forests on the jade, which is a scene showing the hunting life of the Khitan people of the Liao Dynasty. And this kind of jade ornaments that describe the scenes of the activities of ethnic minorities in the Liaojin period is officially called "spring water jade" and "autumn mountain jade", which has been used to this day. This kind of jade ornament depicting the scenes of the activities of the Khitan and Jurchen ethnic minorities in the spring and autumn has gradually attracted the attention of the world.
"Spring Water Jade" records the thrilling scene of Hai Dongqing hunting swans: a swan hides in a dense water grass, reed or lotus bush, and above it there is a Hai Dongqing swooping down to the goose, in a chase. Or carved as a Hai Dongqing's two claws have pressed down on the head of the swan, wanting to eat the goose brain, the swan is terrified and long-winded. Hai Dongqing's fierceness and the frightened and mournful cries of geese are vividly expressed, and the whole fight scene is thrilling.
"Chunshui jade" is generally round or oval belt decoration, the whole body hollow relief, from ancient times to the present left behind are small shape of the brand, pendant, hair ornaments. Zhang Yucheng uses three-dimensional carving, and clever use of beautiful colors, the shape is much larger, which can be called another innovation.
The Xiao Empress River flows through jingnan and merges with the Grand Canal from Tongzhou, which is said to have been excavated by order of Empress Xiao of the Liao Dynasty, and the Xiao Empress River is not only a "copper iron bottom grain transport river", she is also the earliest royal court area in Beijing described in the poem "Ancient Rhyme Yanfangdian, Zeguo Ren Bird Fly".
The scope of Yanfangdian in the Liao Dynasty, north to Zhangjiawan and Taihu in Tongzhou, west to Maju Bridge, southwest to Caiyu in Daxing District, southeast to Langfangjie, once converged into the vast Dianpo, because of its beautiful scenery, lotus ling fragrance, named Yanfangdian.
The Khitan nomads of the Liao Dynasty had a traditional habit of patrolling and hunting in different seasons of the year, the so-called "spring water autumn mountain, winter and summer bowl", collectively known as "four hours bowl". And Yanfangdian can just meet the conditions of "spring water", that is, hunting at the water's edge in spring, so every spring, a good play of "Haidong Qing taking swans" will be staged here. The "LiaoShi And Geographical Chronicle" records: "Yanfangdian square hundreds of miles, in the spring the geese gathered, summer and autumn more lingzhi. The lord of the country hunted in spring, and the guards were all dressed in dark green, each holding a hammer, an eagle food, a thorn goose cone, and a water column, five or seven steps apart. Drums are blown upwind, startling the geese slightly off the water. The lord of the country personally released the Haidong Qinghu to capture it. This is a description of the scene when the Lord of the Liao Dynasty led the concubines, civil and military officials, and the guards to hunt here.
Hai Dongqing, also known as the Falcon, is a small falcon that is good at catching waterfowl and fierceness. It is said that every year the Khitan people have to catch thousands of eagles for training, also called boiling eagles, put eagles on the blindfold, do not let it sleep during the dark day, drive eagle training to let it catch rabbits, immediately after catching the rabbit's five organs and blood let the eagle eat, encourage it to hunt all kinds of animals desperately, it is said that among thousands of eagles, the best, fastest, and bravest one is called "Haidongqing". Using Hai Dongqing to hunt the first swan for the royal family, the human delicacy made is called "Swan Feast".
"Chunshui Jade" has a very deep spiritual meaning, the Khitan Chronicle contains: "Jurchen Northeast and the Five Kingdoms as neighbors, the five kingdoms of the east adjacent to the sea, famous eagles, from the east of the sea, called the sea Dongqing, small and handsome, can catch the goose, claw white is particularly different, the Liao people love it, the age of the daughter of the true, the jurchen to the five kingdoms, after the battle, the jurchen is overwhelmed." "The Liao forced Jurchen to pay tribute to Haidongqing every year, which was even one of the reasons why Jurchen rebelled against liao in the future. In the Jin Dynasty, the Jurchens followed the hunting customs of the Liao Dynasty, and through the borrowing of Haidongqing to catch geese and geese, they pinned their brave spirit of winning the big with the small and the weak over the strong, and the political intention of one day "winning the Central Plains".
Today, Yanfangdian has disappeared, and the scene of holding the bowl is gone, but by the side of the Xiao Empress Xiao River, someone has recorded the magnificent picture of "Chunshui" hunting in a special way, he is Zhang Yucheng, who uses jade to carve the "Chunshui Jade" that represents the Khitan culture of the Liao Dynasty.
(Zhang Yucheng is creating jade carving)
A poet of the Jin Dynasty described the scene of HaiDongqing beating the swan as "fighting wind jade claws Ling Xiaohan, glancing at the sun wind and hair falling snow and frost", Zhang Yucheng told the author that the artistic characteristics of "spring water jade" must be to write love with scenery, the scene is blended, the scene is fierce and vivid, the atmosphere is thrilling, so that people can feel the vitality of the tenacious fight in spring. The more he talked, the more excited he became, and he arched his waist and extended his arms to the author to imitate Hai Dongqing's spreading wings when he hunted.
In the spring of 2018, Zhang Yucheng began to have the idea of creating Chunshui jade works, he recalled: he found a piece of black and green Jade jade, and decided to use the natural colors of the raw materials to make a beautiful carving. The first step of the carving is to find the point where Hai Dongqing's mouth holds the head of the swan, because this point is the position where the black Haidong green mouth and the green swan head are combined, and grasp this point well, so that the dynamic position of Hai Dongqing on the top and the swan on the bottom can be reversed.
(Details of "Spring Water Jade" made by Zhang Yucheng)
Zhang Yucheng said that the jade material should show the kind of trend of Hai Dongqing swooping from top to bottom, the wings are in a backward state one after the other, the big fu feather and the small fu feather are bas-relief, the eagle's legs and claws are hollowed out, especially the eagle's claws, the three toes are completely carved, and the tongue in the eagle's mouth is also hollowed out, which is called "hanging tongue through the claw".
And the swan on the ground was originally wandering leisurely in the lake, and suddenly was caught in the head by an eagle swooping down in the air, how to express its feeling of being frightened and desperate? Zhang Yucheng designed it as a dynamic of wings spreading and fluttering and struggling, and then assisted in carving the splashes on the waves, the ripples of water and the large and small splashes and water spots. In order to represent the living environment of the swan, several aquatic weeds and sticks growing by the wetland pond are also carved, and the neck of the swan is carved with a group of flipped aquatic weeds, of which a leaf sticks to the neck of the swan, which is more realistic and natural. The impact part of the two groups of animals in the work, the mouth of Hai Dongqing and the head of the swan, are only 0.3 square centimeters, and the "soul" of the Yanfangdian Grand Canal in the Liaojin Dynasty in 750 is also knocked out.
This piece of jade rough material weighs 3.6 kg, 29 cm high, 15 cm wide and 5 cm thick, Zhang Yucheng pondered for a year, in July 2019 he began to carve, it took more than a month to complete the work, the finished product weighed 0.8 kg, 22 cm high, 13 cm wide, 4.5 cm thick, is the largest work of "Spring Water Jade" in hundreds of years, Zhang Yucheng created a record.
Zhang Yucheng introduced that an ordinary raw material, only through exquisite craftsmanship can awaken the soul of jade and present the vitality of the work, which is a mission of jade carving craftsmen. He said with deep feeling: Teachers and masters have long said that this industry is to work until old, learn from old, and still have three points of not learning well when they are old. By carving "Spring Water Jade", I want to leave the indelible historical memory of Empress Xiao and give the people of Tongzhou a little "thought". (Source: Cultural Tourism China Photo/Text Left Bank)