The scene of "Inheritance of Ingenuity - Xu Zhuchu, Xu Qiang and Father and Son Puppet Art Exhibition".
On February 6, 2018, the "Inheritance of Ingenuity - Xu Zhuchu, Xu Qiang and Father and Son Puppet Art Exhibition" opened at the National Museum of China. The exhibition mainly exhibits a large number of classic puppet carving works created by Xu Zhuchu and Xu Qiang, with a total of more than 300 pieces (groups). These exhibits are rich and diverse, with delicate and expressive expressions, bold colors and strong artistic appeal, reflecting the deep integration of traditional puppets and Zhangzhou folk culture, and at the same time, they also comprehensively demonstrate the technical characteristics, artistic style and ingenuity inheritance of Xu's puppet carving.
Traditional puppet stage
Zhangzhou puppet head carving is a special skill in the production of puppet show props, is a very distinctive artistic treasure in China's folk arts and crafts, mainly distributed in Zhangzhou City, Xiamen City and surrounding areas in Fujian Province. The overall shape of Zhangzhou puppets includes heads, limbs, clothing, crowned helmets, etc., and the puppet head carving only refers to the head shape. As the carving of the head of the character on the stage of opera, it pays great attention to the portrayal of the character characteristics, and the exaggerated shape, rich expression, and typed processing are the common characteristics of the puppet head carving in Zhangzhou. This carving technique has always been passed down from master to apprentice, and is mainly passed down from family to family. In 2006, Zhangzhou puppet head carving was selected into the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list in China. In 2007, Xu Zhuchu was named the national representative inheritor of the project
Puppet work "Mu Guiying"
Xu Zhuchu, born in 1938, is a native of Zhangzhou, Fujian, a national first-class artist, and the sixth generation of Xu's puppet head carving. Over the past decades, Xu Zhuchu has learned from the strengths of puppet carving, and has developed more than 100 kinds of puppet shapes in the traditional Zhangzhou puppet puppet show to hundreds today. Below, let's feel the infinite charm of Zhangzhou puppet carving art and walk into Xu Zhuchu's puppet world together.
Study hard and inherit family learning
Family heirloom puppet head carvings
The Xu family is a family of puppet carvers, and their ancestors made a living by carving and operating Buddha statues and puppets. As early as the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, Xu Zhuchu's ancestor Xu Ziqing (1768-1858) opened a wood carving shop called "Cheng Cheng Shi" in Zhangzhou, and then went through Xu He, Xu Luo, Xu Qizhang, Xu Niansong (1911-2004), until the sixth generation of Xu Zhuchu, and the seventh generation of Xu Zhuchu's son Xu Qiang. Among them, Xu Niansong's puppet carving is relatively realistic, with superb skills, and is famous for a while, and Quanzhou's puppet master Jiang Jiago and called "South River North Xu". It can be said that Xu Zhuchu grew up listening to the sound of carving knives sliding on camphor wood.
Puppet head carving works "Boy" and "Scholar"
Three generations of Xu's ancestors, with Xu Zhuchu in the middle (source: official website of the National Art Museum of China)
Xu Zhuchu began to learn puppet carving in his early teens, and his skills were all learned from his father bit by bit. He often fought at night, and the wood in his house was cut and destroyed by his carving knife. Because he was so engrossed, his hair was scorched by the lamplight. When the skills are not yet proficient, they often slide the knife, and the blood dyes the puppet heads into "Guan Gong". Watching plays, listening to books, visiting temples, reading ancient books, picture albums, and opera masks can all fascinate him. The more he watched and listened, the more seeds of the image in his mind, and the more free he was to create, which provided a source of life for him to create lifelike puppet images in the future. The hard work paid off, and after several years of hard work, Xu Zhuchu was able to carve puppets independently. By the age of fifteen or sixteen, he was already well-known throughout the country.
Puppet head carving work "God of Fortune"
In 1955, Xu Zhuchu's works won the special prize of the "National Exhibition of Children's Science and Technology and Craft Works", which made Xu Zhuchu famous in one fell swoop, and the relevant departments also filmed a feature film "Young Sculptor Xu Zhuchu" for him. In the year he graduated from middle school, Xu Zhuchu ushered in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - the Central Academy of Fine Arts wanted to admit him exceptionally. At this time, Xu Zhuchu's mother died, and the family was poor, Xu Zhuchu, who could have studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, obeyed his father's wishes and entered the Zhangzhou Arts and Crafts Society.
Xu Zhuchu is making a puppet head (Source: official website of the National Art Museum of China)
Xu Zhuchu devoted himself to learning puppet carving, willing to study, and highly perceptive, and his carving skills became more and more mature. Later, Xu Zhuchu entered the Zhangzhou Puppet Troupe and became a professional puppet carver, which lasted for nearly half a century. Over the past decades, Xu Zhuchu has always been committed to the research and creation of puppet carving art, infusing his own feelings and experiences of life, understanding and emotions of images into his works, giving them distinctive personality characteristics, and making the puppets under his knife full of life. His puppet works have been exhibited in more than 100 countries and regions around the world, and have been presented to international friends as a national gift for many times, and are known as "living cultural relics", "oriental art treasures" and "a unique Chinese treasure".
Shape all kinds of shapes to write God
Zhangzhou puppet show belongs to the "Northern School" puppet show, and Xu Zhuchu's puppet carving also presents the "Northern School" style, emphasizing the expression and personality of the drama, focusing on the performance of the inner expression and character, and highlighting the "writing God in form". Therefore, before falling the knife, he always has to study carefully, carefully figure out the life experience, identity, character, likes and dislikes of the characters portrayed, and think maturely before going under the knife, so his knife skills are powerful, both form and spirit, and full of charm. In addition to the Fujian "Northern School" puppets, Xu Zhuchu's works also include marionettes and iron branch puppets, with rich and delicate expressions and exquisite and rigorous clothing.
Puppet Making Process: Fine Engraving (Source: National Art Museum of China Official Website)
Xu Zhuchu's works are made of traditional materials and processes, such as camphor wood for wood and traditional mineral pigments for coloring, and each work is made in strict accordance with the ancestral process. A work usually requires more than a dozen processes, from materials and tools to carving, paste, and finally painting, meticulously, and is known as a model of "small artifacts and big works". For the performance of the characters, they can take into account the dual needs of stage performance and aesthetic appreciation, and they are relaxed and vivid.
Iron branch puppet work
Xu Zhuchu not only inherited the excellent carving techniques of his ancestors, but also innovated and developed to form his own unique style. He can integrate elements such as traditional opera, folk tales, Buddhist and Taoist statues, for example, he designed more than 600 kinds of opera characters, including life, dan, purity, end, and ugliness, which have both the famous characters of traditional famous dramas, and the images of gods and monsters in myths and legends.
Don't forget the original intention, ingenuity inheritance
Xu Zhuchu's son Xu Qiang is the seventh generation of Xu's puppet carving, the representative inheritor of provincial intangible cultural heritage in Fujian Province, the puppet carving designer of Zhangzhou Bag Puppet Inheritance and Protection Center, and the director of the "Zhuchu Puppet Art Museum". Xu Qiang began to learn traditional puppet carving and production techniques with his father at the age of 6, and has been engaged in puppet creation for more than 40 years. He not only inherited the essence of his father Xu Zhuchu's puppet carving art of "writing gods in form", but also learned from others in the exchanges with puppet peers at home and abroad, and developed a new shape with strong decoration and more artistic impact.
Xu Zhuchu (pictured right) is instructing young people to carve puppet heads
Xu Zhuchu's father and son have always wanted to train more students. Although puppet carvings carry countless marvelous glances from the world, the vitality of folk art has always been tenacious and fragile. To learn well, we must have patience and perseverance, to endure loneliness, to get rid of impetuous mentality, to resist the temptation of the outside world, and to deeply understand the mysteries. But now there are few young people who are willing to set their hearts to learn, and even fewer can really inherit the essence of art after learning only the skin. However, Xu Zhuchu and his son did not lose heart, and still insisted on studying the art of puppet carving, insisting on leading young people, hoping to carry forward this traditional art and pass it on.
