Hebei Xinglong Century-old Sand Painting: From "Resurrection" to Going Abroad

China News Service Chengde October 30 Title: Hebei Xinglong Centennial Sand Painting: From "Resurrection" to Going Abroad

Author Zhang Guiqin Jia Xiaoying Xie Minjin

"When creating, the color sand is first washed with water, and then smeared on the board like an oil painting, and the two kinds of color sand are mixed together to create a gradient color, and the color sand color is as many as 100 kinds." On the 29th, in the skillful technique of Zheng Tiejun, the inheritor of The Intangible Cultural Heritage of Zheng's Sand Art in Hebei Province, a painting of "Flowers Blooming rich and Noble" jumped on the board and was full of vitality.

Walking into the Zheng's sand painting exhibition room located at the foot of Wuling Mountain in Xinglong County, Chengde City, Hebei Province, Meilan bamboo chrysanthemums, Peking Opera faces, zodiac signs, landscape paintings, classical beauties, Xinglong scenery, flowers and birds Thangka... Zheng Tiejun pointed to these dazzling and refreshing works of art, saying that they are all made of sand, and the leaves of "Flowers And Riches" just now need 5 different degrees of green sand.

Zheng Tiejun was the fifth-generation grandson of Zheng Kexiang, the founder of "Zheng's Sand Art" at the end of the Qing Dynasty. According to Zheng Tiejun, Zheng's sand art is a folk craft made by hand using natural colored sand, and the ancestor Zheng Kexiang pioneered Zheng's gold and silver silk sand painting, which has a history of more than 160 years. "Unfortunately, due to the influence of wars, famines and other factors, this skill was almost lost."

Zheng Tiejun, who had only heard the story of "Zheng's Sand Art" from his father's mouth, was a guest at a friend's house in Mongolia in 2000 when he stumbled upon a rather dated Peking Opera face with the word "Zheng" engraved on it. "This is our ancestral craft, and I felt that I could not stop it, but had to carry it forward again." Zheng Tiejun, who was very excited, decided to regain his ancestral business.

"The sand paintings of the ancestors only made Peking Opera faces, painted with millet and local grit, limited by raw materials and technology, the sand paintings were relatively rough in workmanship, slightly darker in color, and difficult to preserve." On the basis of striving to explore ancestral skills, Zheng Tiejun focused on research and development and innovation, and developed technologies such as "a silver wire into sand painting", "three-dimensional sand painting" and "crystal sand painting", especially the innovation of "glaze coating" technology, which enhanced the color brightness, texture and beauty of the picture.

After 21 years of hard work, Zheng's sand art has developed more than 100 varieties from a single Peking Opera face, not only traditional sand paintings, but also Yang Liuqing's New Year paintings, landscape paintings, abstract art paintings, and colored sand oil paintings without contours. With Zheng Tiejun's craftsmanship level recognized by the industry, his series of works such as Peking Opera Faces and Zodiac Signs were collected by the Capital Museum. In May this year, the Qianlong Emperor's Great Reading Map was collected by the Chengde Summer Resort Museum.

Majestic mountains, clear water, competing flowers, lifelike figures, and revitalized Zheng's sand paintings have become the focus of major expositions and have gone abroad. In 2016, Zheng's sand art received its first overseas order; at the 2019 Shanghai World Expo, American merchant Brandon was attracted by Zheng's sand art works, purchased a one-time purchase of 100,000 US dollars of sand paintings, and established a long-term cooperative relationship. At present, Zheng's sand art works are exported to more than 40 countries and regions such as the United States, Germany, Mongolia and the Middle East.

"As long as someone likes it, I can train for free." In recent years, with the support of the local government of Xinglong, Zheng's Sand Art, which has gone abroad, has held intangible cultural heritage training courses in 14 villages, training more than 1,000 peasant artists. Zheng Tiejun said that in the future, it is planned to build employment workshops in 3 townships to help rural revitalization. (End)

Source: China News Network