The art of shell carving skillfully combines people and the sea, which is the crystallization of the beauty of the sea and the wisdom of traditional culture, with the natural beauty of shells, the beauty of sculpture techniques and the style beauty of Chinese painting. Due to the complexity of shell carving, young people generally lose interest in this traditional craft. The state has begun to rescue a number of traditional handicrafts, including shell carvings, and to improve the inheritance and continuation of shell carving skills. Located in Pingtan, Fujian Province, the Pingtan Strait Folk Art Museum has a collection of many works of art on display to attract more enthusiasts to this folk art.
Entrance to pingtan strait folk art museum
Bei Relief Works - "Yutang Chunhui"
The unremarkable shells in the ocean have become the artistic masterpieces that have amazed the world in the years under the skillful hands of craftsmen. With flowers and birds, figures, landscapes, still lifes, etc. as the theme, pearlescent crystal, simple and elegant, with distinct decoration and ornamentation.
Shell Relief Works - "More than One Year in a Row"
The shells were worn as a necklace as far back as 50,000 years ago during the cave people on the top of the mountain. In ancient China, various shell ornaments were also very popular. After liberation to the 1970s and 1980s, on the basis of inheriting traditional craftsmanship, shell carving workers everywhere paid attention to absorbing the strengths of ivory carving, jade carving, wood carving and Chinese painting, and successfully studied shell carving paintings in the form of relief carving and a variety of practical handicrafts, thus opening a new page in the history of shell carving craftsmanship, earning foreign exchange with a large number of exports, and selling well in domestic and foreign markets.
Bei Painting - "Spring and Summer (Two Screens)"
Pingtan Shell Sculpture has been officially recognized as a national geographical indication certification trademark, and in the same year it was included in the list of provincial "intangible cultural heritage" representative projects. Pingtan shell carving, under the insistence of the craftsmen, shows the development of traditional folk art.
Mr. Zhan Lixin explains the shell carving works
Fujian is a major province of craftsmanship, and Fuzhou alone has traditional crafts such as Shoushan stone carving, lacquer art, and root carving. Mr. Zhan Lixin also uses these crafts to integrate and innovate the art of Pingtan shell carving, and use his own strength to make this traditional folk art shine.