Lintao, known as Di Dao in ancient times, was named after the Tao River in its territory. Since ancient times, Lintao has been a famous town in the northwest and longyou, and is the main road of the ancient Silk Road and one of the important birthplaces of the ancient culture of the Yellow River. Lintao has always been a place of contention for soldiers, and the Great Wall was built during the Qin Dynasty to resist the invasion of nomadic people, and there are still ruins of the Qin Great Wall in Lintao. The famous general Jiang Wei of the Three Kingdoms of Shu sent troops to Lintao, and the famous Jiang Weidian general was located in the local Yuelu Mountain. Shu Han, a famous general of the Tang Dynasty, guarded the frontier and left behind a good sentence in Lintao that "I still peep at the horses and dare not cross Lintao". On this northwest fortress, in addition to the sound of the iron horse, many splendid historical cultures have also been bred.
The House Sutra says, "The house dweller, the foundation of man." Man stands because of the house, and the house lives because of man. People support each other and feel the heavens and the earth. "The dweller, the dwelling house of man, the synonym of architecture." Architectural decoration is an important means for buildings to contain and condense rich cultural connotations and improve artistic expression. The use of animal images is more common in traditional Chinese architectural decoration, such as vertebrates. Ridge beasts are architectural components used in ancient chinese architecture to fix positive ridges, fork ridges and tile ridges. Therefore, until the Qing Dynasty, in the national project, there was still a very solemn and solemn "kissing" ceremony. Whenever a palace is built, the officials in charge of the construction will enter the palace from the Liuli Kiln Factory in the form of drum music, color pavilions, honor guards, etc., and prostrate their heads and burn incense, which is extremely respectful, named "Ying Kiss" or "YingQi". It can be seen that the position of the ridge beast in the minds of the ancients is very important.
Originating from temples and spreading among the people, the Lintao Ridge Beast is an important part of the local iconic culture. The ridge beast is mainly used in temple architecture and civil buildings, which effectively protects the traditional architectural structure while also meeting people's aesthetic needs. From the architectural point of view, the ridge beast is installed to protect the seams of the roof ridge from wind and rain damage, and the installation of the ridge beast ensures the firmness of the roof, while beautifying the living environment, it also plays a good role in reinforcing and protecting the traditional building, and has a high practical value. In May 2011, the lintao ridge beast making technology was announced by the Gansu Provincial People's Government as the third batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage representative projects.
The theme of Lintao Ridge Beast production ranges from folklore to mythological allusions, from fish, insects, birds and beasts to flowers, plants and trees, all-encompassing and colorful, with distinct regional characteristics and strong local atmosphere. Lintao ridge beast production began in the Tang Dynasty, has a history of more than 1300 years, its ridge beast style not only has the afterglow of qin, Han and Tang, but also integrates the cultural creation of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing, reflects and tolerates the rich content of socio-economic and cultural development at various historical stages, and has a very important reference value for the study of local history, culture and folklore.
The production process of ridge beast pottery is handmade, the process is very complicated, every creation is a new creation, the mastery of all production processes depends on the craftsman's own understanding and feeling, all products are unique, can not be copied, with great uncertainty. Roughly speaking, the production of ridge beasts includes four major processes: mud, blank making, kneading, and firing. Kneading (ridge beast is not fired before commonly known as kneading live) The most basic raw material for making it is laterite, which has very strict requirements for laterite, and the quality of the material is directly related to the quality of the kneading; the blank is to use the cut slats as a bracket to connect and form, as the "prototype" of the kneading.
Kneading is an important part of the production of ridge beasts, including sticking mud, sampling, carving, and removing shelves. Removing the shelf is to remove the sketched kneading work from the production rack when it is cool and dry. The removed kneading work should be placed indoors, ventilated and dried to prevent cracks or direct breaks due to exposure to the sun; everything is ready, and it is time to burn the kiln. The kiln is mainly coal, with a little wheat grass and dried branches to ignite coal, and coal is thrown at intervals of about two hours when the kiln is fired. When firing the kiln, the temperature in the kiln reaches about 800 °C, and the time required is about 24 hours. In fact, the production of ridge beasts is a hard work and technical work, which not only requires the producer to have a certain artistic clay sculpture foundation and kiln experience, but also needs to master and study the relevant folk ornaments.
Si Tanwei is the inheritor of the lintao ridge beast making skills, he has been engaged in the kneading and firing of traditional ceramic sculptures with his elders since childhood, and learned the production of various types of ridge beasts. In 2005, Si Tanwei founded the Lintao County Ancient Craft Tile Factory and began the large-scale production of Lintao Ridge Beast. However, with the change of people's living environment, the traditional Lintao houses that commonly use ridge beasts are gradually replaced by buildings, and the use of Lintao ridge beasts is becoming less and less, which makes the sales of ridge beasts produced by Si Tanwei's tile factory sluggish. In order to make this traditional craft better inherited and carried forward, Si Tanwei took the initiative to absorb the essence of the ceramic sculpture production process in other places, combined with the production methods handed down from the ancestors, boldly innovated, and actively created works with a sense of the times, while opening up the market, these excellent works were promoted to the surrounding provinces, cities and counties.
Editor-in-Charge: He Han
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