Through the looking glass: Small is beautiful
Print Edition
CUI Liangen has a pair of magic hands. With a magnifying glass, he has carved in ivory a miniature of the classic Chinese painting “Along the River During the Qingming Festival.”
Daily life during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1279) and the landscape of Bianjing, today’s Kaifeng in Henan Province, have been minutely replicated in pieces as tiny as 1.41 millimeters by 32.38 millimeters.
The original painting, created by Song Dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145), is 5.25 meters long and 25.5 centimeters wide.
Completed in 2002, Cui’s mini-sculpture is so far the tiniest replica of the painting, according to the Shanghai World Guinness Book of Records.
Cui has devoted himself to miniature sculpting for nearly 70 years. In his deft hands, materials like toothpicks, rice, pearls, jade and stones are transformed into art.
“My eyes are like a magnifying glass,” says Cui, now 82. “I like to complete a work in one go, with my breath held.”
Cui started working on “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” in 1997.
“Before that, I tried to reproduce parts of the painting for six months so that all the details were etched in my mind,” he said.
The completed version was done in 2002.
Doing mini-sculpture requires great presence of mind. Cui says he never works when he’s not in the right mood.
“Concentration is the key,” he says. “When I am working, an earthquake could strike and I wouldn’t feel it. It’s a bit like kung fu. You hold your breath, see what’s in your mind’s eye and then proceed.”
When he was 11 years old, Cui survived by selling his Chinese paintings in Zhenjiang of Jiangsu provinces. They were mostly Buddhist figures and characters from Chinese fairytales.
Hu Peiheng, a master of miniature sculpture at the time, met the young Cui and immediately recognized the boy’s talent.
“He predicted I would become a master sculptor in my own right someday,” Cui says.
He studied under Hu for three years before “graduating” to his own works at age 15.
Cui’s artistic talents are many. He does painting, calligraphy and sculpting. He reckons he has done up to 500 works of art in his long career. They are mainly dominated by landscapes, birds, flowers, animals, figures and Chinese tales.
“Camel Bell on the Silk Road” is one of his more outstanding works. On ivory measuring 4.976 millimeters long and 0.696 of a millimeter wide, a camel with 12 humps, figures and mountains are vividly sculpted.
Many of his works have won awards: a piece with eight pandas sculpted on a sesame-sized pearl, a piece with mountains and rivers on a needle thinner than 0.1 of a millimeter, and the Chinese fairy tale “Eight Immortals Cross the Sea,” created on rice-sized ivory.
“Miniature sculpture takes me to another world,” he says. “It’s a world of beauty and fantasy. It has encouraged me to devote my life to my art.”
Cui is particularly proud of works inspired by Zhouzhuang water town in Jiangsu Province.
“The first time I visited it, I fell in love with it, so I decided to recreate it in my tiny world,” Cui says.
He visited the town repeatedly to do sketches for the work.
Some of his miniature sculptures have been valued in the millions of yuan. The panda work is now worth 3 million yuan (US$483,512), and the camel piece is valued at 5 million yuan. Many art collectors in China and abroad are eager to buy his works, but Cui refuses to sell his treasures.
After living in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China for many years, Cui and his family recently returned to Shanghai.
He has agreed to have 100 of his miniature sculptures displayed at the Juqi Antique Market on Lingshi Road in the city’s northern Zhabei District. It’s a gesture to share artwork with the public and to show younger generations the beauty and depth of traditional Chinese culture.
About a fifth of Cui’s creations, along with other pieces from his personal art collection, are exhibited there, according to Ni Weizhu, deputy manager of the market.
“Our culture should be introduced to a wider and younger audience,” Ni says.
Passing on traditional skills is difficult in China’s modern urban environment, where young people are often more interested in smartphones than in art. Cui says he has been looking for a talented apprentice for many years.
“I have been searching for a youngster who is around 10 years old, someone who can learn the skills and spread this magnificent art to the next generation,” says Cui.
The best time to start to learn miniature sculpture is before the age of 12, he says.
“An apprentice needs to have some basic skills in calligraphy or painting and must be in good physical conditions,” the master adds.
Cui has had students in the past, but they eventually jumped ship because they found miniature sculpting too demanding.
“It is very tiring to complete a miniature work,” Cui says. “To do it right, you can’t take a break, eat, drink or even breathe normally. You have to fully concentrate.”
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