What is "Sahara"?
In the traditional Chinese art of flower arrangement, "sprinkling" is a method of fixing flower materials, and during the Ming and Qing dynasties, Li Yu first mentioned this technique in the book "Idle Love and Occasional Mail".
The stem segments of several plants are intercepted and stuck in the port of the vessel, that is, the port is divided into holes of different shapes by the stem segments, and the flower material is inserted into the holes, and the fixed purpose can be achieved by sprinkling techniques.
Compared with the non-environmentally friendly flower mud and the sharp and heavy Sword Mountain, the "sprinkling" material is simple and environmentally friendly. However, due to the scarcity of information and the difficulty of learning, this technique remained in books for a long time. Later, after repeated deliberation, many forms of "sprinkling" were derived, such as one-word sprinkling, cross-sprinkling, V-word sprinkling, and tic-tac-toe sprinkling.
An accidental "failure" made Zhang Chao, the inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage of traditional flower arrangement and the president of the Chinese Traditional Flower Arrangement Association, enter the pit of sprinkling art research, restore sprinkling art through practice, and also create many original sprinkling techniques.
Because of her love for traditional flower arrangement, Hu Xiaowa, the founder and manager of the Song flower collection and the inheritor of Chinese flower arrangement and sprinkling art, met Zhang Chao and brought oriental sprinkling art to Lingnan to take root. She combines Lingnan elements such as Cantonese opera and kapok with the art of flower arrangement, giving more meaning to traditional flower arrangement.
Zhang Chao and Hu Xiaowa collaborated on the work "Happy Blossom Hero City".
It starts with love
"Halfway out of the house" becomes a disciple who opens the door
The story of Hu Xiaowa and flower arrangement begins with love.
She was not born into a family of flower arrangers, and her family was either doctors or teachers. In 1991, after graduating from the normal college, he naturally became a teacher. Because her father loved Yang Lian, he would create a pair of Yang Lian almost every day, and Hu Xiaowa was interested in traditional Chinese culture from an early age, especially the poetry describing flowers.
Later, she came into contact with flower arrangements by chance, and she has never been able to receive anything ever since. During that time, Hu Xiaowa chose to take a leave of pay and take up her job, traveled around Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to learn art, and read books related to flower arrangement in various disciplines. She visited the famous teachers of Chinese floral art, Western-style floral art, and Japanese-style Ohara, but at the beginning" "all she learned was fur, not systematic."
Hu Xiaowa, the founder and manager of the Song Flower Collection and the inheritor of Chinese flower arrangement and sprinkling art, is arranging flowers.
Her sister lives in Beijing, her mother often runs on both sides of Beijing and Guangdong, and Hu Xiaowa spends more time in Beijing. Once Hu Xiaowa met Zhang Chao at an exhibition and was first exposed to "Sprinkle Art". It just so happened that in 2006, Zhang Chao founded the Oriental Sayi Traditional Flower Arrangement School in Beijing, and every winter and summer vacation since then, she will take her children to Beijing, saying that she is "going back to her mother's home", but in fact, she is going to learn flower arrangement, almost ten or twenty times to Beijing. Taidou-level flower arrangement masters Wang Lianying and Qin Kuijie, when they saw Hu Xiaowa several times, asked "Why are you here again?"
After being exposed to many types of flower arrangement, Hu Xiaowa found that compared with the richness and warmth of Western-style flower arrangement, traditional Chinese flower arrangement has a unique blank space of classical painting, which is very artistic.
"The technique of flower arrangement is interesting, but the culture behind the flower material is more attractive to me. As early as the Sui and Tang dynasties, traditional flower arrangement included four categories: literati flower arrangement, folk flower arrangement, temple flower arrangement and court flower arrangement. The more I explore, the more I feel that the culture is vast and profound, and I may not be able to learn it in my lifetime. In Hu Xiaowa's view, whether it is flower arrangement or sprinkling art, although it is all ingenious craftsmanship, but to be truly recorded, it needs to be carried by a deeper culture.
Making up her mind, Hu Xiaowa decided to take traditional flower arrangement as the main direction of attack, and officially expressed to Zhang Chao the idea of learning from a teacher. At that time, Zhang Chao's master Wang Lianying was more than 80 years old, and it was not very convenient to pick up scissors to do sprinkling, and the exploration practice of sprinkling art was mainly responsible for Zhang Chao, but he was very modest and felt that he was not qualified to open the door and accept apprentices.
Hu Xiaowa uses Guangcai works to arrange flowers.
"There are many institutions in China that teach Japanese-style Ohara flow techniques, but the local flower arrangement techniques have never spread, which I think is a pity." Hearing this, Zhang Chao decided to open a door for Hu Xiaowa and accept her as a senior disciple.
In 2017, Hu Xiaowa quit her job as a Chinese teacher and established the Guangzhou branch of the Oriental Sprinkling Art Traditional Flower Arrangement Art Training School in Guangzhou, serving as the principal of the branch and devoting herself to the inheritance of the art of flower arrangement. She combines Lingnan elements such as Cantonese opera and kapok with the art of flower arrangement, so that traditional flower arrangement techniques can take root in the Lingnan region.
Recreating "Sprinkling Art"
"We must carry forward this traditional skill"
Coincidentally, Zhang Chao is also a halfway monk.
Growing up in the countryside of Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, he was sensitive by nature and exquisite in handicrafts, liked to plant flowers and grass, do handicrafts, paint patterns, and stayed in his hometown art factory after graduation.
When the art factory was still prosperous, Zhang Chao went to Beijing for surgery due to physical reasons. During the month he was hospitalized and healed from his wounds, he bought books on flower arrangement for his free time, including the works of Wang Lianying, a professor at Beijing Forestry University. "These are very well written and introduce the history of traditional Chinese flower arrangement, but unfortunately these flower arrangements are not seen in Chinese flower shops."
Inspired by the books, Zhang Chao resolutely left his hometown and worshiped under Wang Lianying. While learning traditional flower arrangement, while at the Beijing flower shop, although the flower shop mainly sells flowers, it is also constantly trying, integrating the art of flower arrangement into flower baskets and vase flower works.
Zhang Chao, a national non-hereditary inheritor of traditional flower arrangement and the president of the Chinese Traditional Flower Arrangement Association.
At the beginning, Zhang Chao participated in the flower arrangement training class, mainly for florists, and the time was very short, only 7 days. During this period, there was particularly little information about traditional flower arrangements in Chinese history. Fortunately, Zhang Chao and Wang Lianying's understanding of flower arrangement resonates. After the training, Zhang Chao was taken by Wang Lianying to join the Beijing Flower Arrangement Art Research Association and achieved good results in many national floral art competitions.
In 2004, Wang Lianying took Zhang Chao to participate in the formulation of national occupational standards for flower arrangers. Because of her basic painting and strong hands-on ability, Wang Lianying often let Zhang Chao design some traditional flower arrangements.
In the traditional Chinese art of flower arrangement, there is a method of fixing flowers, called "sprinkling". During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Li Yu mentioned this technique for the first time in the book "Idle Love and Occasional Mail".
The sprinkling technique requires intercepting the stem segments of several plant segments and stuck them in the port of the vessel, that is, the port is divided into holes of different shapes by the stem segments, and the flower material is inserted into the holes to achieve the purpose of fixation. Compared with the non-environmentally friendly flower mud and the sharp and heavy sword mountain, the sprinkling material is simple and environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, the records of "sassa" in books are scarce, and the only text is very general.
In one class, Zhang Chao gave a demonstration in front of more than 120 university teachers. Unexpectedly, the "sprinkling" made the night before had been dried up the next day, and it could not be fixed to the mouth of the vase, and the flower fell down as soon as it leaned on the "sprinkle". Zhang Chao was lecturing on the podium, and many of the students below said "scattered down." "I was nervous and determined to study it in depth."
Zhang Chao threw himself into the ancient literature, and from time to time he withdrew, pondering while doing it. Although there are only a few dozen words in the book, at different stages, Zhang Chao's experience is different: sometimes a sentence can represent several meanings.
Zhang Chao's flower arrangement works.
"I feel like i'm a very lucky person who's always been ahead of the times." Zhang Chao said, "Many times I go to international competitions, many people are curious and interested in traditional flower arrangement, which also gives me confidence again and again. ”
In 2006, Zhang Chao established the "Oriental Art" brand. Over the years, his original intention has not changed, that is, "in his lifetime, he can lead everyone to the road of traditional flower arrangement, carry forward this traditional skill, and then study how to make the ancient use of the present."
Pass on the ancients
Lingnan elements are integrated into traditional flower arrangement
"Passing on the ancient" is not the same as "mud ancient", in the process of inheritance and development, not only need to be distinguished, but also need to be innovated according to the development of the times.
On the way to learning traditional flower arrangement, she learned so many skills and read so many books, and sometimes Hu Xiaowa would struggle with why the teacher did it. Some teachers arrange flowers in the Sword Mountain, and also use the Western-style "flower mud" to fill the Sword Mountain with all the leaves. Later, Hu Xiaowa read some books and felt that this was not like the "tight start" and "the bottle mouth should be clear" proposed by Shen Fu in the Qing Dynasty, and slowly explored the traditional flower arrangement mode suitable for herself.
After bringing traditional flower arrangements south to Guangzhou, Hu Xiaowa also began to explore the integration of Lingnan elements into traditional flower arrangements. In June 2021, Henan Satellite TV's underwater "Luoshenfu" was stunning, and Hu Xiaowa was touched after seeing it: "As a native of Guangdong, I must create flower arrangement works with Lingnan characteristics."
At the 29th Guangzhou Garden Expo, the work "Magic Dance" was exhibited.
At the 29th Guangzhou Garden Expo, she used environmentally friendly paper and orange, red and green as the main color to present the beautiful and smooth form of water sleeves in the Cantonese opera of the Lingnan Intangible Cultural Heritage Project. In the center of the work, she makes a large kapok flower out of a mixed material, and pastes silver leaf chrysanthemum and silver bud willow on a foam ball to create a little elf.
The inspiration for this work came from Lingnan. On the day of creation, she shuttled between Yuyin Mountain House, Yongqingfang and Guangdong Provincial Museum, visited many exhibitions such as the "Dream of the Red Chamber" cultural exhibition, and constantly confirmed the details of Cantonese opera water sleeves at the Cantonese Opera Museum, and finally spent three days and three nights with her six assistants to complete.
Often lingering in the Yunnan Flower Wholesale Market, Guangzhou Lingnan Flower Market, to understand the different inherent flower materials, when it comes to flower materials, Hu Xiaowa is like a number of family treasures: jasmine, kapok is the representative flower material of Guangzhou; hibiscus is the representative flower material of Guangxi.
"Flowers to Lingnan without moon order", bougainvillea, jasmine, frangipani, plantain, longan and other characteristic flowers, with porcelain produced in Guangzhou and Foshan, Lingnan elements are fully reflected in Hu Xiaowa's works.
"Flower arrangement must first know the habits of the flower material, such as hibiscus blooming in the morning, and may be thanked at night, and they should be used according to the shelf life of the flower material." Hu Xiaowa revealed that recently 180 kinds of common flower characteristics were collected into a book, with traditional flower arrangement works, and the "Floral Materials Illustrated Book" was launched, which has a lot of Lingnan characteristic flower materials. Even a small white with zero foundation can understand the flower material through reading, from buying unconsciously to buying consciously.
Hu Xiaowa's flower arrangement works.
"Sometimes creating a flower arrangement is like writing an article or painting, and the flowers and containers are the whole world." For example, she said that if you want to express the theme of "gentleman", the flower materials you choose must be inseparable from plums, orchids, bamboo, and chrysanthemums; if you want to present the beauty of "red pink beauty", you can use peony and other flowers that are given the meaning of grace.
"The cultural meaning and connotation behind the flower material is the feeling we want to convey." Hu Xiaowa's concept of "communicating with flowers" and "connecting with flowers" has also influenced a group of writers, poets and calligraphers, making more people gather because of the cultural connotation behind traditional flower arrangement.
The mind is quiet and not in a hurry
"Flower arrangement is a process of continuous practice"
Flower arrangement is a very comprehensive skill. Not only to be good at painting, but also to have a variety of skills such as carpentry, paper cutting, electro-branding, and weaving. For example, to make a "everything as desired", persimmons can be randomly selected, ruyi should be carved out of the foam board by hand, first brush glue, and then color, to make a satisfactory texture.
"Traditional flower arrangement is difficult here." Zhang Chao said that it is like letting Chinese paintings and flower and bird paintings look three-dimensional. From 2019 to 2020, he went to the China Academy of Art for further study, and studied freehand flower and bird painting in the advanced research class.
"Freehand is like sketching, it must be true, the dynamics of flowers and the demeanor of birds must be echoing each other, which is very important for learning flower arrangement." It's like learning a foreign language and translating it into the theory of flower arrangement. Zhang Chao sighed that Bian Wenjin and Li Song were not only well-known painters, but the flowers they inserted were also particularly beautiful. Nowadays, many flower arrangement works lack dense, dynamic contrast of length and shortness, which is very tacky. People who don't understand painting can't reach such heights. ”
As flower arrangement is included in the competition items of the National Vocational Skills Competition, more and more people are joining the ranks of learning flower arrangement. Hu Xiaowa has also been hired as a lecturer for traditional flower arrangement courses at Guangdong Ecological Engineering Vocational College and Tourism College of Guangzhou University. "In the past, students were older retirees who wanted to take flower arrangement as a hobby, but now the art of flower arrangement has slowly spread to colleges and universities and vocational colleges at all levels."
At the display windows such as the Canton Temple Fair, people can also enjoy traditional flower arrangement works. From Yandun Road Kindergarten, Peizheng Primary School, Peizheng Middle School to Yuexiu District Cultural Center and Children's Palace, Hu Xiaowa has promoted traditional flower arrangement and sprinkling techniques to different age groups, and more and more people have learned that traditional flower arrangement is a national intangible cultural heritage project.
Zhang Chao also set up a women's floral art school in Beijing, preparing to open branches in the Olympic Forest Park and many areas of Beijing to further promote it to the whole country. "Sa" is very high-end, difficult to learn and high course costs, in order to further promote the popularization, Zhang Chao launched the "Meilan Bamboo Chrysanthemum" traditional flower arrangement course, using 4 lessons and 16 lectures to summarize the ancient and modern flower arrangement concepts of the New Year, birthday feast, tea party, and Buddha, and applied to the current life.
Zhang Chao's flower arrangement works.
"In the New Year, we hope that next year will be smooth and smooth, you can use 10 kinds of flower materials to make a flower arrangement, in Guangzhou will use peach blossoms, or buy a pot of green onions, lettuce." Recently, when I was flipping through the information, I suddenly found that Lingnan will also use peonies to arrange flowers, which I think is particularly novel, because Guangdong is relatively hot and does not grow peonies. These interesting examples need to be mined. Zhang Chao said.
"Every Saturday and Sunday, you can take your child to learn parent-child lessons and understand what flowers are used in the twenty-four solar terms. People who study for a month, a year, or ten years can communicate here. Zhang Chao believes that the inheritance of traditional skills should be in line with commerce, broaden the channels of contact with the people, and cannot be limited to small circles.
"Flower arrangement is a process of continuous practice, you can't rush to make quick gains, and you can study it better by calming down." Zhang Chao said that only by passing on from generation to generation can we do a better job in this field.
Zhiduo D
Traditional flower arrangement
Traditional flower arrangement is a kind of living art that uses flower branches as materials. According to research, the traditional art of flower arrangement sprouted from the Western Zhou To the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, and has a history of more than 3,000 years.
The traditional Chinese flower arrangement art advocates the beauty of natural simplicity, is good at using line modeling and asymmetrical composition to create a poetic realm, and fully demonstrates the national characteristics of Chinese culture and the aesthetic consciousness of traditional Chinese. Beginning with the Sui and Tang dynasties, the traditional Chinese art of flower arrangement was introduced to Japan, which profoundly influenced the development of Japanese flower road. Traditional flower arrangement is divided into four main types: folk flower arrangement, temple flower arrangement, court flower arrangement, and literati flower arrangement, and its conception, composition, material selection, pruning, fixing, adjustment, and furnishings all reflect rich cultural connotations and aesthetic concepts.
Written by: Nandu reporter Wang Meisu Intern Li Xukui Chen Wuhong
Images courtesy of respondents