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Engraver carves out a tiny kingdom
By Tan Weiyun |
July 5, 2011, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A local craftsman has spent years turning raw materials into detailed creations using highly skilled carving methods. Tan Weiyun meets the engraver and some of his marvellous miniature works.
With a tiny engraving tool, Wu Genhua has carved out his kingdom in bamboo, stone and wood.
Stepping into the 64-year-old engraver's home in Pudong's Jinqiao area is like venturing into a world of carving pieces hewn into teapots, ink slabs, brush pots, animals, figures, delicate miniature ancient furniture and many other wonderful creations.
"When I'm carving and engraving, the whole world is just me and the art piece I'm working on," Wu says. "Transforming a piece of raw material into a beautiful creation has always been an enduring fascination for me."
A hard rock, unshaped wood or rough bamboo, after being tapped, hammered, gouged, carved or crosshatched by Wu's nimble hands, can be turned into a vivid piece of art.
Some of his creations are human faces carved out of bamboo with big beards, high hats or round glasses, wearing happy smiles or sad looks, stone teapots shaped as a peach (a fruit symbolizing long life in Chinese culture), ink slabs entwined with dragons or surrounded by lions (both animals symbolize authority and power), eagle-shaped brush pots and lotus bowls.
Wu never thought of becoming an artist. He chose carving as a hobby when he was a young worker in a steel factory in the early 1970s.
"Bamboo was the first carving material I tried because it was light enough and easy to get and carry," he recalls. At that time his only carving tool was a foldable pocket knife.
No one taught him how to cut and carve, but he seemed he just knew it when he picked up the knife.
During the 1980s, Wu shifted his passion to stone carving. He became the city's first one to engrave stone teapots - the smallest can be as tiny as a mung bean but still with a domed lid on it.
"I never waste the materials; they are always put to the best use," he says proudly. One of his precious works is a turtle carved out of mei jin shi, a kind of rock formed from burned wood buried underground during a volcanic eruption almost 100 million years ago.
"I found the rock by chance on the coal hill in my factory. I took it home and for days I was thinking hard what to carve without wasting the material," he says.
Then he came up with the idea to make it into a turtle. "Its original shape was just like a turtle." It didn't take long for Wu to carve. "If you look closely, you might find the turtle's eyes are always staring at you, no matter from which direction you look at it," he says with a smile. "I feel we are connected."
A special skill of his stone carving is that he can make the stone look exactly like bronze with dots of "green patina."
"If you just look at it without touching it, you will definitely mistake it for bronze," he says. This little trick even fooled a bronze expert from Shanghai Library, who shouted "unbelievable" after Wu told him the truth.
One of his stone works, "Ancient Bronze Coin," received the thumbs-up from former Chinese President Jiang Zemin during a folk art exhibition in the 1990s.
"I kept trying for six months in order to make the green 'patina'," Wu says. He puts the stone on the fire to dispel the moisture and then paints the green he concocted after hundreds of experiments.
"You have to control the heat delicately. If the temperature is too high, the stone will break; if too low, the paint won't get into the stone deep enough," he says. "This is the skill only I can master."
In the 1990s, Wu became fascinated with carving faithful miniature replicas of wooden furniture from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.
His tiny wooden carvings include mini chairs shaped like an official's black gauze cap, beds where people can play chess, have tea and smoke opium, bookshelves whose drawers can be opened and closed smoothly and even an old-fashioned commode as small as a current one-yuan coin.
All of his mini furniture works are made without any glue or nails. Each piece is made and linked by mortise and tenon joints, an ancient carpentry skill to link objects firmly and beautifully.
"My material is at least 200-year-old hard wood," he says. This makes Wu's work truly old from the techniques to the materials used.
His wood-carving skill of mini old furniture has been listed as one of the Pudong New Area's intangible cultural heritages.
Last year, Wu was invited as a guest teacher by the College of Urban Planning and Design, Tongji University, to give lectures to young architects-to-be.
"In addition to the theory knowledge about old Chinese furniture, I teach them how to carve and make them in the class, which is a first in the country," he says proudly. His wooden artworks become vivid teaching aids that Wu generously allows his students to take apart for a closer study.
"Passion, hard work and modesty lead the way to success," he says. "And books are the best teacher."
Wu doesn't smoke and drink; he has saved every coin for his carving career over the past four decades.
At weekends, he likes to stroll around in some of the city's antique markets such as City God's Temple and Yuntai Road to get inspiration for his creations.
His next ambition is to carve a complete set of Chinese dings (an ancient cooking vessel with two loop handles and three or four legs) - from stone.
"I'm now collecting the materials. It's a huge project, but once finished, it will be unprecedented," Wu says.
With a tiny engraving tool, Wu Genhua has carved out his kingdom in bamboo, stone and wood.
Stepping into the 64-year-old engraver's home in Pudong's Jinqiao area is like venturing into a world of carving pieces hewn into teapots, ink slabs, brush pots, animals, figures, delicate miniature ancient furniture and many other wonderful creations.
"When I'm carving and engraving, the whole world is just me and the art piece I'm working on," Wu says. "Transforming a piece of raw material into a beautiful creation has always been an enduring fascination for me."
A hard rock, unshaped wood or rough bamboo, after being tapped, hammered, gouged, carved or crosshatched by Wu's nimble hands, can be turned into a vivid piece of art.
Some of his creations are human faces carved out of bamboo with big beards, high hats or round glasses, wearing happy smiles or sad looks, stone teapots shaped as a peach (a fruit symbolizing long life in Chinese culture), ink slabs entwined with dragons or surrounded by lions (both animals symbolize authority and power), eagle-shaped brush pots and lotus bowls.
Wu never thought of becoming an artist. He chose carving as a hobby when he was a young worker in a steel factory in the early 1970s.
"Bamboo was the first carving material I tried because it was light enough and easy to get and carry," he recalls. At that time his only carving tool was a foldable pocket knife.
No one taught him how to cut and carve, but he seemed he just knew it when he picked up the knife.
During the 1980s, Wu shifted his passion to stone carving. He became the city's first one to engrave stone teapots - the smallest can be as tiny as a mung bean but still with a domed lid on it.
"I never waste the materials; they are always put to the best use," he says proudly. One of his precious works is a turtle carved out of mei jin shi, a kind of rock formed from burned wood buried underground during a volcanic eruption almost 100 million years ago.
"I found the rock by chance on the coal hill in my factory. I took it home and for days I was thinking hard what to carve without wasting the material," he says.
Then he came up with the idea to make it into a turtle. "Its original shape was just like a turtle." It didn't take long for Wu to carve. "If you look closely, you might find the turtle's eyes are always staring at you, no matter from which direction you look at it," he says with a smile. "I feel we are connected."
A special skill of his stone carving is that he can make the stone look exactly like bronze with dots of "green patina."
"If you just look at it without touching it, you will definitely mistake it for bronze," he says. This little trick even fooled a bronze expert from Shanghai Library, who shouted "unbelievable" after Wu told him the truth.
One of his stone works, "Ancient Bronze Coin," received the thumbs-up from former Chinese President Jiang Zemin during a folk art exhibition in the 1990s.
"I kept trying for six months in order to make the green 'patina'," Wu says. He puts the stone on the fire to dispel the moisture and then paints the green he concocted after hundreds of experiments.
"You have to control the heat delicately. If the temperature is too high, the stone will break; if too low, the paint won't get into the stone deep enough," he says. "This is the skill only I can master."
In the 1990s, Wu became fascinated with carving faithful miniature replicas of wooden furniture from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.
His tiny wooden carvings include mini chairs shaped like an official's black gauze cap, beds where people can play chess, have tea and smoke opium, bookshelves whose drawers can be opened and closed smoothly and even an old-fashioned commode as small as a current one-yuan coin.
All of his mini furniture works are made without any glue or nails. Each piece is made and linked by mortise and tenon joints, an ancient carpentry skill to link objects firmly and beautifully.
"My material is at least 200-year-old hard wood," he says. This makes Wu's work truly old from the techniques to the materials used.
His wood-carving skill of mini old furniture has been listed as one of the Pudong New Area's intangible cultural heritages.
Last year, Wu was invited as a guest teacher by the College of Urban Planning and Design, Tongji University, to give lectures to young architects-to-be.
"In addition to the theory knowledge about old Chinese furniture, I teach them how to carve and make them in the class, which is a first in the country," he says proudly. His wooden artworks become vivid teaching aids that Wu generously allows his students to take apart for a closer study.
"Passion, hard work and modesty lead the way to success," he says. "And books are the best teacher."
Wu doesn't smoke and drink; he has saved every coin for his carving career over the past four decades.
At weekends, he likes to stroll around in some of the city's antique markets such as City God's Temple and Yuntai Road to get inspiration for his creations.
His next ambition is to carve a complete set of Chinese dings (an ancient cooking vessel with two loop handles and three or four legs) - from stone.
"I'm now collecting the materials. It's a huge project, but once finished, it will be unprecedented," Wu says.
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