The light-colored dough is kneaded into an oval shape in the hand, the facial features are carved with special tools, and then "put on" a hat made of red dough... In just a few minutes, the head of a boy wearing a red baseball cap appeared in front of him. The author of this mask is called Fu Haiyun. Over 50 years old, she is the inheritor of the provincial intangible cultural heritage protection project "Yangquan Colored Face Sculpture".
"Shanxi is the home of pasta. With the small dough, you can not only make a variety of dishes, but also create a lifelike dough sculpture. Fu Haiyun said, "Don't look at it as just a small face sculpture, which is full of our love for life and the inheritance and development of traditional culture." ”
Influenced by his mother, Fu Haiyun liked to "knead dough" since he was a child, and when he was a child, he used mud to knead some simple dolls to practice; when he grew up, he was even more obsessed, and he had to pinch a few pieces every day. After years of research, she has boldly innovated the materials and craftsmanship used to produce handicrafts that can be preserved for a long time and have artistic appreciation and collection value. Fu Haiyun said: "Many places in Shanxi have a tradition of making face sculptures. Yangquan's colored face sculpture is different, it has both the characteristics of traditional face sculpture, but also integrates Western sculpture techniques, perfectly combines traditional art with modern fashion elements, so that it has a deep cultural heritage and high aesthetic value. ”
Among Fu Haiyun's many works, her favorite is the face-shaped version of "Qingming On the River Map". This work is 25.2 centimeters wide and 528.7 centimeters long, vividly recording the urban appearance of the Northern Song Dynasty and the living conditions of people of all social classes at that time, and there are men and women, old and young, scholars, farmers, industrialists and merchants, and other figures, as well as various livestock, and it is not easy to "transform" the image from the plane to establish a body. In order to better present the content in the painting, Fu Haiyun went through a large number of documents, borrowed from related works, and examined the facial expressions of each character over and over again. In the production, Fu Haiyun adopts the creative classification method of sub-regional marker characters, arranged on the basis of positional order, and some are also divided into sub-categories again according to different action forms, and strive to have a "sense of existence" for each character and animal. After more than 2 years of hard work, Fu Haiyun's face sculpture version of "Qingming Upper River Map" was completed, with a total of nearly 1600 human and animal face sculptures, with different shapes and exquisite productions, and the size of the characters did not exceed one knuckle of an adult.
As a traditional skill of our city, face sculpture has been passed down from generation to generation of artists.
In Sujiaquan Village, Hedi Town, a suburb, Yang Linxian's family is a famous local "face sculpture family". Her eldest daughter Yan Caihong, second daughter Yan Ruihong and son Yan Jianjun have all mastered the art of face shaping. Yang Linxian's face sculpting skills began by learning various flowers and plant decorations. "At the beginning, when we did red and white affairs in our village, we needed to make face sculptures, mainly zodiac signs and various flower types. Slowly, I grew a little in my kung fu, and I loved to think about it, so I wanted to make some works that were different from others. Yang Lin said first. After five or six years of contact with face sculpture, she began to try new themes and new tricks. Mythological characters, opera characters, and classic characters from the four masterpieces have become the material for her creation.
In Yang Linxian's face sculpture studio, large and small face sculpture works are placed in conspicuous places, there are twelve zodiac signs, birds and animals, ancient ladies, opera characters, etc., the largest works are tens of centimeters high, and the smallest works are only two or three centimeters high. Different face sculptures contain different meanings, pomegranate and bat-shaped face sculptures, pinning people's wishes for many children and many blessings; peach and pine cypress-shaped face sculptures convey people's expectations for longevity and peace; dragons and phoenixes, Mandarin ducks playing in the water and other shapes of face sculptures, reflecting people's blessings for a beautiful marriage...
According to historical records, as early as the Han Dynasty, there were face sculpture artworks. After thousands of years of inheritance, the art of face sculpture has a long history. In the Southern Song Dynasty's "Tokyo Dream Record", there is a record of the noodle kneader: "Make a smile with oil noodle molasses." At that time, noodles could be eaten by people, and they were often called "fruit food". For modern face artists, it is necessary to inherit the ancient law and innovate the old, in order to make this ancient skill come to life.
Fu Haiyun is committed to the promotion of face sculpting skills, not only holding various exhibitions in the local area, but also bringing his works to appear on the CCTV "Variety Festival" program, participating in the Chinese culture Taiwan campus tour organized by the Ministry of Culture, and "Yangquan Colored Face Sculpture" entered the major schools in Taiwan. Her works such as "Noble Concubine Drunk", "The Twelve Noble Houses of the Red Chamber", and "Good Man of Liangshan" have won national, provincial and municipal awards.
In addition to inheriting the traditional face sculpture technique, Yang Linxian also encouraged the new generation of face sculpture inheritors to learn more clay and soft clay painted plastic techniques, and keep up with the pace of the times while inheriting the ancient method. Yang Linxian's sons and daughters Yan Caihong, Yan Ruihong, Yan Jianjun and other inheritors of the new generation of face sculpture have repeatedly gone out to study and communicate at their own expense, broaden their horizons, and look for creative inspiration.
"There is a long way to go in passing on the face, not only can the things of the older generation not be lost, but also to find ways to adapt to the contemporary cultural market." We will spare no effort to protect and inherit the intangible cultural heritage project of face sculpture, so that this old craft can bloom with new charm. Yang Lin said first.
Source: Yangquan Evening News