Hand fan may not serve its purpose but is treasured as a classy art piece
Print Edition
HANDHELD fans were once an indispensable part of households in summer. With time, they were replaced by air conditioners and coolers.
Today, the easy-to-use light hand fans made of feather, silk or special paper (used only for calligraphy and painting) has become more of an art piece rather than a functional tool.
An exhibition in suburban Shanghai’s Songjiang District has about 130 beautiful Suzhou fans done by five artists. Among them are also carved fan ribs masterfully done by five artists.
A traditional Suzhou-style fan, just like its private gardens, is famous for its exquisite workmanship and fine artwork.
A Suzhou folding fan is a mini mobile art combo of Chinese ink painting, calligraphy, carving, seal cutting and jewelry decoration. It used to be a must-have accessory for the Chinese literati as it opened easily for its artwork to be appreciated, and conveniently folded and kept inside a loose sleeve of a shirt.
“It used to be an emblem of one’s social status and cultural background in ancient China,” says Zhang Ming, one of the painters.
A folding fan is made of the face and the rib. The face of the fan, which takes up most of the area, is the most interesting part of a folding fan. It is usually beautifully painted on the paper. The artworks are varied, from mountains, waters and flowers to insects, birds and even people.
“Just like the cellphone today that we carry in hand, Chinese scholars then would carry a fan to show his status,” says Shen Jie, who has been painting for almost 30 years. He is also the vice director of the Suzhou Fans Museum.
“If the fan was painted by a celebrity, it suggested that its owner was from a high social class,” he says.
The paper used to make a folding fan is different from Xuan paper (the rice paper used for Chinese brush painting and calligraphy). It was added with mica powder and other ingredients that made the ink hard to smudge.
“Those who painted on Xuan paper probably had problems working on the fan paper, because it is difficult to show the various ink shades,” Shen says.
What’s tricky about fan painting is that the paper is folded first before painting, thus leaving enough space for the bamboo ribs.
The folded paper would be fixed to a metal sheet by magnets to make it flat. Others simply used an iron before painting.
“If it was done the other way round, the painting would probably be ruined by the following procedures,” Shen says.
As a folding fan is often appreciated in hand, exquisiteness to details is important in the fan painting. The ink’s five features — dry, unsmooth, coal black, thick black and light black — should be reflected on the paper to show the steamy water, the humid air or the foggy distant mountain.
With a small radial shape, everything in the painting needs to be carefully handled — the balance of black and white, the different shades of ink, the near and far objects.
The traditional folding fans are different for men and women. Fans for women are often smaller, made of light silk, easier to carry, and have more ribs — sometimes as many as 32. But for men, there are usually 16 or 18 ribs. Besides, fans for women were rarely good enough for art.
Another important part of a folding fan is the rib carving. The ribs are made from valuable materials, such as hawks-bill turtle, ox horn, ebony, mottled bamboo, elephant trunk and jadeite, carved into different shapes — for example, a grasshopper’s legs.
Bamboo is the most popular material.
“Because it stands for purity and uprightness,” says Zhang Taizhong, a bamboo-carving master from Suzhou who has been carving on bamboo for about three decades. “Frankly speaking, a fan is a toy for a scholar that reflects his taste and style.”
Carving on a bamboo rib is not an easy job, requiring cutting skills of both intaglio and relief. “Relief takes more time because it makes the ink painting or calligraphy three-dimensional. However, intaglio, which seems easier, requires more artistic thought of a carver,” Zhang says.
An intaglio carver should also be good at painting or calligraphy, who can understand the idea of the painter or calligrapher, because the knife replaces the brush to show the changes of the lines or the shades of the ink.
“Relief carving is more direct and concrete, while intaglio is more abstract,” Zhang says.
A bamboo has to be carefully selected before it can be used to make a quality folding fan. Relief carving needs young bamboo because it has a tender skin, but intaglio requires old bamboo, about four or five years old, growing in the deep forest of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces.
Winter is the best time to cut bamboos, especially after heavy snow, Zhang says, because it’s tight and compact on the surface without worm-made holes.
“And we only look for bamboos in the shady side of the mountain that are exposed to the sun,” the carver says.
A quality bamboo for carving has to be round and straight. After being chopped, the bamboos are boiled first to dispel the grease inside, making it mothproof. The surface is then cleaned and dried in the sun until the rainy season.
It then turns yellow from green, and stored in a cool, dry and ventilated place for many years — the longer the better.
“It is stored for at least three years before we can carve on it or used for other reasons,” Zhang says.
Suzhou fan exhibition
Date: Through July 22, 9am-5pm
Venue: Gaoduan Building of Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts
Address: 2200 Wenxiang Rd, Songjiang District
Admission: Free
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