Cicadas, the hottest singers of summer. The hotter the weather, the louder the cicadas chirp. The old saying goes: Cicadas start to sound, half summer life.
The summer of childhood begins with the sound of cicadas. Mottled tree shadows, soft smoke, and crisp birdsong. Time always passes very slowly, and if you catch a cicada, you think you have caught a whole summer... There is always a cicada chirping, a horse to lead the song, a three-fold, high and low, and then it will attract thousands of voices to compete, ten thousand sentences to want to make peace, if the golden sound and jade vibration, endlessly.
Therefore, the shape of the cicada appeared very early in the history of jade carving, and according to archaeological findings, it was found five or six thousand years ago.
The ancients had a strong choice when using a certain animal as an object of worship, such as fish, frogs, etc. because of their strong reproductive characteristics, so they carved or painted their images to accompany their own lives, and ideologically linked them, so as to achieve a certain expectation of the spirit. Cicadas, feathered and reborn, are high above, and their voices are loud. The ancients revered heaven, thinking that it was close to heaven and was a messenger between heaven and earth, so they revered it.
With the progress of civilization, the establishment of the ritual music system in the Zhou Dynasty, and the norms of moral sentiments, people have more spiritual thinking about the observation of natural things. It was found that the cicada, who is born with a high purity, only drinks the dew and does not eat the fireworks of the world, is in line with the moral sentiment standard of "clean body and clean sex" pursued by the scholars at that time, so the fashion of the scholar class accessories jade cicada to allude to his ambitions. At this stage, the ancients naturally had a reverence for heaven and earth, so the jade cicadas polished were full of divinity.
By the Han Dynasty, humanistic aesthetics had developed to a certain height, and the plastic arts, including jade cicadas, had also improved with the improvement of people's aesthetic accomplishment. The well-known Han Eight Sword Technique, which is simple and simple, clean and neat, and the carved jade cicada composition is neat and harmonious, concise and atmospheric, which fully reflects the advanced aesthetic qualities of the jade masters at that time.
After the Sui and Tang dynasties, the restrictions of the class hierarchical patriarchal system on the use of jade gradually disappeared. The use of jade products has become popular. The implantation of municipal folk culture makes the focus of jade works appreciation more focused on the shallow expression of jade allegory and harmonic sound. The deep aesthetic depth of the shape itself, the high-level aesthetic concepts such as dimensional space have been paid little attention to, and later, especially in modern times, no one has understood. Once the carving loses the guidance of the ideological basis of the aesthetic ideology of the heart, and only blindly pursues the shallow technical carver, its development process must be linear rather than comprehensive, so that the jade modeling, an artistic discipline with a very high aesthetic, has then become a handicraft oriented by the municipal culture, and the technician can "show flowers" to please the market. The same is true of the shape of the jade cicada.
However, it is an indisputable fact that people's identification with the superficial urbanization of jade works with allegory, harmonic sound, workmanship, and subject matter as the main appreciation and appeal has been formed into a concept. So as a jade carver, it is a matter of thinking hard to pay attention to the needs of the public and to care about your own feelings for artistic aesthetics!
The following jade cicada work of Hetian Yu interprets this matter
First, let's talk about its shape: highly generalized, abstract, simple. We should understand that abstraction is not imageless, simple is not monotonous, but should try to use pure rhythmic knife techniques and concise programs to express what is to be expressed. Abstract language expresses subtle emotions, and simple forms contain rich content. The so-called "big sound and sound are invisible", and its aesthetic significance lies in this. Abstract and simple is a high artistic taste and a high artistic realm. This realm is slightly reflected in this work, and our ancestors have long commented: "Zhou Yi" on the ninth, Bai Ben is blameless.
Municipal customs, theme: This good explanation, according to the characteristics of "the sound of cicadas is high and far-reaching", can be named "a blockbuster", "fame and fame" and other things that people expect in reality.
As for its loud voice, the messenger between heaven and earth, and only drinking the morning dew, not eating human fireworks, high temperament, and other spiritual and emotional aspects, modern people will appreciate jade carving artworks through jade carvers (the soul of this era), through their works to gain more knowledge...
Shang Zhiwei:
Inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in Nanyang City, Henan Province,
In 1988, "Flower Basket" won the second prize of the Hundred Flowers Award of the Ministry of Light Industry.
In 2005, "Mountain Walk" won the gold medal of the Luzigang Cup Grand Prix.
In 2007, "Great Exhibition" won the Divine Merit Gold Award.
In 2012, "Birdsong in the Valley of Spring to the Mountain Stream" won the Yuhua Gold Award.
In 2014, "China Imprint" won the Yuhua Award.
Teacher Zhang's Jade Carving Strict Selection Master Collection:
Founded by Teacher Zhang Yang, after the strict selection of jade carving masters and jade carving works by Teacher Zhang's team, it provides a valuable, aesthetic and appreciation potential jade carving master works collection center for the majority of Tibetan friends.