Lu Peihong in the creation
"Day rat" White wins
"A flower" Cai Qing
"Mother Night Fork" Sun Erniang
"Yingsor" Takematsu
"Flower Monk" Lu Zhishen
"Black Whirlwind" Li Kui
Face sculpture "Flooded Seven Army"
Face Sculpture "Zhenwu Emperor"
The great writer Feng Jicai wrote a small novel "Clay Man Zhang", which was selected as a junior high school language textbook. The first sentence of the novel is: "The people on the craft road, the 'clay man Zhang' who pinches the clay people ranks first." Moreover, there is a first, no second, and a third difference of one hundred and eighteen thousand miles. ”
It is said that during the Xianfeng period, the "clay man Zhang" of Zhang Mingshan, the great name of Tianjin Wei, often went to a restaurant called Tianqingguan. One day it rained, and the street that earned "Jinshan Yinshan" by selling salt came to the restaurant. Hearing the diner say that "Clay Man Zhang" pinched the clay man in the sleeve and "pinched like it", he made fun of "Clay Man Zhang" in public: "Where is it pinched?" Pinch in the sleeve? Pinch it in your crotch! ”
"Clay Man Zhang" was not angry, and his left hand reached under the table and hit the sole of his shoe to cut off a piece of mud. Drink a cup in your right hand, and pinch a few fingers in your left hand. In less than a bag of cigarette work, the mud ball was kneaded into the "head" of Hai Zhangwu - the brain door, the small drum eyes, a face of madness, more like Hai Zhangwu than Hai Zhangwu! Hai Zhang Wu also saw that it was him who was pinching, and shouted at the "clay man Zhang" who was walking out the door: "This broken craft also wants to make money, and no one wants to sell it cheaply!" ”
The next day, on several small grocery stalls on Yiyi Street, rows of clay statues of Hai ZhangWu were placed. There are also notes on the stalls, which read: Sell haizhang five!
Three days later, the Haizhang Five sent people to spend a lot of money to buy all these clay people. The clay man is gone, but the matter of "selling haizhang five" has been passed down for more than a hundred years, until today...
Tianjin 'Clay Man Zhang' divine skills we have not had the opportunity to see. However, in the cultural and creative street of Guandi Temple North Lane in the ancient city of Xinzhou, there is a small shop hanging a piece of "face sculpture" under the guise, and after entering, you can see the ingenuity of Xinzhou's "noodle people Lu".
From "playing tickets" to "going to the sea"
As a kind of plastic arts, face sculpture is unique to China, and is mainly popular in Shanxi, Shandong and Beijing.
In Xinzhou, when it comes to "face sculpture", people first think of "flower buns" and "flower cakes" - in the past, every New Year's festival, the elderly had a birthday, a full moon for children, marriages and funerals, and in the countryside there were ancient folk customs of making flower buns as gifts and offerings. The raw materials for the production of "flower buns" are mainly white noodles, with beans and dates, after some cutting and kneading, picking and kneading, pasting with beans and dates, coloring and molding into birds and animals, flowers, birds, fish and insects, historical figures...
The "face sculpture" under "Face Man Lu", called "Face Pinch", is actually more accurate, and it is closer to the "Clay Man Zhang" kneading clay man.
Lu Peihong, the daimyō of "Mian Ren Lu", was born in 1980 in Luye Village, Xinfu District. He can't talk about family heirlooms, and strictly speaking, he doesn't have any teachers.
Pei Hong loved to draw as a child, but he did not have formal training. After graduating from junior high school, he went to a vocational middle school in Xinzhou to cook, and at the age of 17, he went to work in a restaurant. When the back kitchen makes some exquisite dishes, the chef often uses radish to carve a flower and use white noodles to pinch a shape to decorate the dish. One after another, Xiao Lu liked this craft.
After a year of exhaustion, the staff of the Houzhao Hotel went to sleep. Xiao Lu rode home and sculpted alone in an empty house. Pinch what to pinch, pinch, all by yourself. Later, when I learned to go online, I downloaded the materials on the relevant websites to "draw a tiger according to a cat." Pinching and pinching, the small noodles are getting more and more decent, but Xiao Lu's mother is no longer doing it: after the eldest life returns home, she will not do anything, and she knows to drill in the house to pinch, pinch, pinch! Noodles can not be sold, two can not eat, good white noodles are all ruined!
Little Lou has been at home for 10 years. All kinds of noodles pinched thousands, and the more they pinched, the more fascinated they became. Sometimes riding a bicycle to work in the afternoon, the mind is full of face people, I don't remember why I arrived at the hotel, and I broke out in a cold sweat when I supported the car. Sometimes I suddenly wake up in the middle of the night and have to pinch out what I dreamed of before I give up.
The proportion of the face plastic material is not easy to grasp, so the noodles that are pinched out are either deformed, moldy, or cracked. In 2010, Lu Peihong went to Houmabai to learn the recipe of the local "face plastic master" Wang Junfeng, and finally mastered the trick: white noodles with low-precision powder, and glutinous rice in the ratio of 5:1 after adding latex and boiling water, while adding sodium polyacrylate and other more than a dozen preservatives. The freshly raised noodles are "dead noodles" and have to be kneaded repeatedly. Small pieces of dough turn into "finger-to-finger softness", all by the force of the thumb, index finger and middle finger.
It's hard at first. The dough kneader first pinches the head of the character, and the head image comes out, and the proportion of the entire figure's torso and limbs is determined according to the size of the avatar. The upper and lower parts of the body are kneaded separately, and finally bridged at the waist.
The coloring of the surface plastic material is very important, such as the Statue of Guan Gong, which uses seven or eight colors. Xiao Lu toning gouache, years of intensive research, in terms of color grading to achieve the realm of "the use of magic, there is a single heart". For example, the statue of Guan Gong, the upper edge of Guan Laoye's robe is inlaid with a white edge, and the crown jade in the middle of the hat is also white, which is what the folk call "hat zheng". The same is white, the trim is pure white, and the white of "hat positive" also gives people a warm feeling. Lu Peihong had brought a college student apprentice who had graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, and this apprentice admired the master's color grading kung fu and wanted to learn this kung fu that he had not learned in the Academy of Fine Arts. The master does not hide it, but he can't teach it - this is probably what people often say, "only understand, not to speak".
In August 2017, Lu Peihong took the semi-finished "Four Heavenly Kings" to the provincial capital to participate in the "Flower Bun Festival" in Shanxi, which was also the first time that he had participated in an official competition in more than ten years. The original intention of the competition was to test what level their works could achieve, and whether they could win awards was secondary. He continued to create for two days, and finally his work won the "Best Creative Award". Participating in this competition has greatly boosted Xiao Lu's confidence in professionally engaging in "face plastic" in the future.
As soon as the provincial city competition ended, he immediately went to Changsha to look for He Jiagui, a famous face sculptor in Sanxiang. After studying at Master He for nineteen days, I hope to make progress in the details of shaping the character. After returning from Changsha, Xiao Lu slowly realized that in the past, he was always afraid that the strength of the characters was not enough, giving people the feeling of "holding up" too much and the sword was tense. Now, in terms of expressing the charm and temperament of the characters, he feels that he has the ability to "break through that layer of window paper."
In May 2018, Lu Peihong quit the business of the hotel and decided to specialize in face plastic. In the past, the noodle kneader was considered an amateur "play ticket", and the family dressed and ate without pointing to it. In the future, the livelihood of the whole family can be all on these ten fingers.
"Private"
There is an old saying in Xinzhou: Thirty do not learn art, forty do not change careers. Lu Peihong, at the age of thirty-nine, with both old and old, came to a "gorgeous turn" with an uncertain future.
A few years ago, Lu Peihong learned to play "Douyin" and "Kuaishou", sometimes taking photos of his own works and making small videos to put on these two platforms, slowly accumulating eight or nine thousand "fans". There are "fans" to leave a message for him, hoping to learn face plastic for him - there was no time in the hotel before, and after quitting his job, he just held a training class, which is also the first "test of the water" after changing careers.
Four sessions of the training course were held at home, with seven or eight participants each, with the oldest being over seventy years old. The old man's children and grandchildren were full of children and grandchildren, and his family was rich. Lu Peihong asked him why he was still learning to sculpt faces at an old age, and the old man replied: For the sake of fulfilling a dream from his childhood.
Some tuition fees are charged for running training courses, so there is no problem in maintaining the life of the whole family and providing for the children to study. And an order that "fell from the sky" completely strengthened Xiao Lu's confidence in devoting himself to the line of face sculpture.
A Datong "fan" Dao chief, through the "Kuaishou" contacted Lu Peihong, wanted to ask Lu to order three large face sculptures for him: Doumu Yuanjun, Chongyang Zhenren, the other provided a photo, did not say which god, in the end is the crane hair childlike face, fairy wind Dao bone immortal.
The figures that Lu Peihong had previously pinched were generally about a foot tall, and the three statues required by the Dao Commander were all more than one meter high. Made a foot or so, the "skeleton" is a bamboo chopstick. Making a meter up and down, Lu Peihong thought of using No. 10 wire to make a "skeleton", lining the newspaper, and stacking it on the newspaper. When negotiating the price, Xiao Lu quoted 8,000 yuan per statue. The governor replied: As long as you do it in my mind, money is not a problem.
For the next half a month, Lu Peihong forgot to sleep and eat, forgot both things and me, and performed his lifelong skills to shape these three Taoist figures into both forms and gods- wide robes, large sleeves, flowing clothes, independent and feathered Immortals. The Dao Commander was overjoyed after coming to Xinzhou to see the physical object, and immediately transferred the money to pay the bill, afraid that Lu Peihong would sit on the ground and raise the price.
Some large-scale face sculptures, now Lu Peihong is already "order-based production". His level and reputation are there, and the orderer generally does not bargain. The statues of Guan Gong and Guanyin, which are more than one meter, are priced at more than 10,000 yuan. In June 2019, a foreign trade company found him through "Kuaishou" and asked him to order a piece of "Chang'e Running Moon" for Japanese customers, Lu Peihong's face sculpture work, which has begun to export and earn foreign exchange.
Lu Peihong was not confused at the end of his life, and he was already full of silver hair. In his plastic shop on Wenchuang Street in the north lane of the guandi temple in the ancient city, a low and generous table was set up as a workbench, and Lu Peihong sat in front of the stage facing the door to create. On the stage were his "eating guys" - face sculpting tools scissors, combs, main knives, and face openers. It is said to be a "knife", but it is actually a plastic product of different lengths, flat or round, and sharp at the top. Pei Hong said that these things are called Teflon, which is an engineering plastic with excellent performance.
On the workbench, there is also a close-up photo of a person - strange and heroic. When I asked, I learned that this person's name was Meng Gengcheng, who was the actor of Li Xuejian's version of "Water Margin" "Flea on the Drum". Born into a martial arts family, this old Meng won the national baton championship at the age of 13 and was selected for the national team along with Jet Li in Beijing and Zhao Changjun in Shaanxi. Meng Gengcheng's apprentice provided Pei Hong with the head of the master and asked Pei Hong to create an image of Meng Gengcheng's character in the play "Water Margin".
"Have the Water Margin characters been pinched before?"
"Pinched."
"Which characters have you pinched?"
"All pinched, a hundred single eight generals."
That's the serendipity of the interview!
"Water Margin" one hundred single eight generals
In a small second-floor room of Lu Ye Village's Lu Peihong family, "Water Margin" has a hundred single and eight face sculpture characters to fill the room. The first look and feel two words: shock.
During the Spring Festival in 2020, the new crown pneumonia outbreak broke out. Lu Peihong, like the people of the whole country, is closed behind closed doors, and a thought hidden deep in his heart is transformed into a strong creative impulse: do not do it at this time, when will it stay?
Pei Hong was familiar with "Water Margin" when he was a child, and the character images in it have been "activated" in his brain, and he had the idea of creating characters in "Water Margin". It's just that this project is too big, and it has been abandoned several times. During the "epidemic prevention" period, it is just the "idealized grand plan".
Read "Water Margin" again and again, carefully speculate on the language, behavior, and demeanor of the characters, and find the typical scenes and actions that can best reflect the character's personality, especially the moment that can best reflect the character's personality. Find Master Dai Dunbang's "Water Margin" character tree, and repeatedly taste the most evocative moment of each character. Evil Patch can find all kinds of knowledge about the life of the city during the Two Song Dynasties, especially in the costumes of the characters. When he closed his eyes and Song Jiang Wusong was about to come out, Lu Peihong began to move.
8 months without leaving home, several days in a row can not go downstairs. During this period, there were also times when I wanted to give up, but I finally persevered.
The characters in "Water Margin", especially the images of the main characters, have long been rooted in the hearts of the Chinese people - whether you are Li Xuejian or Zhang Hanyu, the Song Jiang in my mind is the "real Song Jiang". In other words, whether Lu Peihong's "one hundred singles and eight generals" are successful or not, not only in image, but also in the likeness of gods.
Wu Yong, a "wise multi-star" who is calm and resourceful, Lin Chong, a "leopard head" who is brave and courageous and full of culture and martial arts, Yan Qing, a "prodigal son" who is clever and clever and scheming, Shi Xiu, a frank, upright, alert and composed "desperate sanlang", Ruan Xiao'er, who is old and heavy-handed and not in danger, and Ruan Xiaowu, a "short-lived erlang" who is shrewd and capable and does things simply... One by one, they are beautifully shaped.
A pair of handsome eyes, white teeth and red lips, eyebrows flying into the sideburns, thin waist and arms, silver armor and silver armor - this is "Little Li Guang" Hua Rong.
With a large round face, a straight nose and a square mouth, a beard, a Zen staff in hand, and a sword tied around his waist - this is the "flower monk" Lu Zhishen.
The body is majestic and the appearance is magnificent. A pair of eyes shot at the cold star, and the two bent eyebrows were like brush paint - this is the "walker" Wu Song.
……
In addition to Song Jiang Wusong Lu Dalin Chong these cattle people fierce, there are some characters in the "Water Margin" who do not have many stories and even only play the role of "threading the needle". For example, "Living Flashwoman" Wang Dingliu, Lu Peihong has shaped his charm of "grasshopper head sharp eyes, heron thin legs are fleshless". "A branch of flowers" Cai Qinghua next to the sideburns, looking at the world, full of indifference to the look of vividness.
By shaping one hundred singles and eight generals, Lu Peihong's skills further entered the room. After entering the ancient city, tourists from all over the world entered the store to watch, and some put forward personalized production requirements, such as molding a basketball superstar Kobe Bryant; leaving photos and shaping a personal portrait. Traditional face sculpture is added more and more modern elements.
Lu Peihong said that compared with the repeated removal and repair of clay sculptures, face sculptures are more exquisite. The delicacy and warmth embodied in the face sculpture are beyond the reach of clay sculpture. With the growth of age and experience, and with the continuous enrichment of kneading works, he feels that he has fully and deeply mastered the "language of face sculpture".
If one's career and hobbies merge into one, one's life will be incomparably fulfilling and happy. Xinzhou "Face Man Lu" Lu Peihong, Shu almost close.
Source: Xinzhou Evening News