When a winged wood with a tree age of more than 1000 was lucky enough to meet the woodcarver of Wang Sanweitang, the head of four families of Zigong salt merchants, its life value changed from then on. A 2.6-meter-long and 40-cm-wide chicken wing banner named "Yuqiao Gengdu" witnessed the rise and fall of Zigong salt merchants for a hundred years. After experiencing the historical changes of salt capital, it still survives in the world and becomes a representative chicken wing wood furniture among Zigong salt merchants. In the eyes of Gao Bin, the chief representative of the European Department of China Association for Foreign Exchanges, its existence is unparalleled in the world. Gao Bin said that he traveled all over the world and only saw the same value in the Vatican Museum.
In addition to its well-known origin, the "Fish, Wood, Farming and Reading" comparable to the collection of the Vatican Museum is rare because of its exquisite carving and the precious materials of thousands of years.
Among the five traditional redwoods, Pterocarya cristata is among them, which is as famous as rosewood and Huang Huali. Laymen often feel a little strange when they hear the name chicken wing wood. Obviously it belongs to mahogany, and the names of other Woods are so elegant. Why is it named after "chicken wings"? As we all know, Pteris alata is named after its texture is similar to "chicken wings". With beautiful appearance, tight texture and smooth texture, it is a good furniture wood.
Today's chicken wing wood on the market is priced by weight. Even dating back to the Qianlong period of Qing dynasty hundreds of years ago, the pterodactylis is quite precious. Generally, small families can't afford chicken wing wood furniture, which is concentrated in Zigong, which is the place with the largest number of chicken wing wood furniture in ancient Sichuan. What caused this phenomenon?
Time flies. 1853, the Taiping Army captured Nanjing, and the salt road between Huai 'an and Huai 'an was cut off. Emperor Xianfeng ordered the household department to write a document: "Sichuan and Guangdong salt enters Chu, and merchants are allowed to sell it themselves ..." This began the first time in history that "Sichuan salt helped Chu". A large number of salt merchants in Zigong made a fortune in this way, among which Wang Yan was the most powerful.
Salt merchants, represented by the "four big families", spent huge sums of money to repair ancestral halls, mansions, castles and stone workshops while building guild halls. In order to boast of being super-rich, salt merchants spend a lot of money to hire all kinds of masters of architecture and sculpture, build houses, build pavilions, and match them with high-grade furniture and wood carvings.
Because of the long growth cycle and low yield, trees that can be harvested need to grow for at least 100 years. Salt merchants saw that their materials were precious and used to make furniture, so salt merchants' chicken wing wood furniture came into being.
Zigong salt merchants, the "four families", have a large number of chicken-wing wood furniture, which is not only precious in material, but also bright in color and beautiful in chicken wings.
In 2007, more than 65,438,000 pieces of exquisite chicken-wing wood furniture made by 25 groups of salt merchants became famous all over the world, along with the progress made by experts from Zigong Salt Industry History Museum on the representative cultural relics of salt industry in our city. One of the most representative is "Wang Sanweitang", the richest man of salt merchants.
Wang Sanweitang's ancient furniture carved with chicken wing wood is exquisite in workmanship and diverse in style. In order to highlight the beautiful natural texture of chicken wing wood, the wood carving of chicken wing wood furniture is relatively simple, but there are many complicated and exquisite wood carvings in a square table and a supporting plush chair of Wang Sanwei Hall.
The place where the plush chair is placed is an important place for friends' gatherings, family gatherings and other activities, and the plush chair has also become an important furniture to show its strength. Salt merchants spend a lot of money here, and craftsmen are the most annoying here. This set of furniture has a feature: carving a dragon with a faucet. Some researchers believe that this carving method implies that the social status of the Wang family in Zigong at that time was the "leader". The square table matched with the plush chair has excellent materials, complicated carving and excellent production, which is difficult for ordinary craftsmen to make. Whether making or carving, its cost should be ten times that of other similar furniture.
Salt merchants generally attach importance to education and respect literati. They strengthen their self-cultivation and strive to be among the literati, so their furniture is rich and full of literati color.
Screen is an important piece of furniture which can best reflect the creative design in the ancient furniture of chicken wing wood. Because the halls of salt merchants' homes are wide enough, the screens with large size, high-grade materials and fine workmanship are full of wealth.
The nine-screen seat screen made of chicken wing wood in the tenth year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty, with a length of 1.8m and a height of 1m, was made by the descendants of Li Siyoutang, a salt merchant in Zigong, for the 80th birthday of Su Rutong, a retired official. Birthday screen is composed of nine odd numbers, taking China's auspicious number "nine" for a long time. In the middle is a painting "Celebrating the Fairy's Birthday", which means happiness and peace. The bottom and base of each screen are engraved with "Twenty-four filial piety pictures" and Ruishou sketches respectively. Wood carving technology integrates high relief, round carving and hollow carving, with exquisite carving and natural and reasonable pattern modeling, which is rare in chicken wing wood furniture.
Folk Five Blessingg refers to: 1. Thai, 2. Rich, 3. Kangning, 4. Virtuous, 5. Final exam. Hu Shenyitang's five plush chairs vividly explained this Five Blessingg. The plush chair is made of high relief, and all sculptures are bats, forming a group picture of "Five Blessingg Gongshou". The design of the group map is concise and lively, pleasing to the eye.
The development history of a family can often be confirmed by the furniture of salt merchants' chicken wings.
According to the investigation of salt history experts, among more than 65,438+000 pieces of exquisite furniture, besides cosmetic boxes, jewelry boxes and stationery boxes, there are also a number of wood carving household appliances in Guixintang, Qing Yan. There is also a sword box, which is a chicken-winged wooden sheath, which proves that the big salt merchants have produced more than one champion Wu.
100 The discovery of more than 100 pieces of fine salt merchant furniture with great collection value reflects the profound folk culture of Du Yan, and we can appreciate the vicissitudes of ancient furniture in Du Yan for hundreds of years.
"There is a passage in the famous Time magazine that modern furniture in China, no matter how valuable, can't be called luxury, but only ancient furniture in China is recognized as a luxury in the world, because the ancient furniture is hand-riveted, made of precious wood, which contains art, taste and priceless value, and is a gluttonous feast left to us by history." Jin Zangzhai, a collector who has long been committed to the study of Zigong salt merchants' furniture culture, wrote in the article "Chicken Wingwood in South Sichuan".
Chicken-winged wood furniture of salt merchants was born in the peak period of ancient furniture carving technology in China, and it is precisely because it absorbed the essence of sculptors of various schools that it has today's value. "Chicken wing wood is famous for its beautiful texture. In the past, furniture was simple and beautiful, but from the middle of Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, the whole society was proud of the complexity of carving. During this period, the literati's elegance was less, and the secular kitsch was more. The chicken wing wood furniture handed down from Zigong has left a very obvious brand of the times and the extravagant style of salt merchants vying for money. " Jinse Zangzhai said, "There are deep relief, shallow relief, through carving, round carving, etc. in Zigong's salt merchants' chicken wing wood furniture. All kinds of carving techniques are used to the extreme, showing luxury with complexity, and showing off wealth with poor craftsmen. Due to the large number of urban immigrants and the inclination of national policies, artists came from their hometown with immigrants, followed the success of many families and had a high artistic starting point. "
Zigong collects furniture from salt merchants, and few people learn ancient carving skills. Zhang is one of them. Zhang began to collect the chicken-wing wood furniture of salt merchants in the early 1990s, and collected a large number of chicken-wing wood furniture of salt merchants in our city.
Due to the age and other reasons, many of the ancient furniture restored by Zhang are incomplete and need to be repaired. To repair such old furniture, we must have a fairly high level of carving. Zhang couldn't find a qualified craftsman, so he began to teach himself to carve, and obtained the true stories of several old carvers. After years of research, he finally mastered the wood carving skills of "artesian well workers".
The woodcarving technology of "artesian well workers" is not the natural development of local carving technology. Zhang said that some of the best craftsmen in Zigong were brought from all over the country by salt merchants, and some fled to Du Yan, where salt merchants hired them to make their own furniture. Artisans in these different places influenced each other. Over time, the techniques all had the characteristics of comprehensive collection, forming the representative of the chicken wing woodcarving of artesian well salt merchants-"artesian well workers".
"Every salt merchant's furniture has distinctive features. The furniture of the Wangs is undamaged, bulky and atmospheric in style, no matter how much work is done; Hu family is a literati, with the most literary and artistic furniture style, peace and lightness, and simple technology; Li is in between, and the sculptor is more complicated than Hu, but not as gentle as Wang. Yan Jia practices martial arts, and the furniture is simple, rough and crazy, which is closer to ordinary people. " Zhang said that the chicken-wing wood furniture of salt merchants in Zigong area has exquisite design, compact structure, natural transition, coordinated parts size ratio and good stability. In terms of carving techniques, the emblem carving is exquisite and smooth, but the roundness is not enough; Su Zuo's knife method is not realistic, but meaningful; Oriental workers are more intuitive and lack models. Ziliujinggong, which combines various techniques, combines freehand brushwork with realism, and is delicate and mellow. Hanging tenon, dovetail joint and chuck tenon are commonly used in the process, and the combination is firm and nail-free.
Today, Zhang's restored ancient furniture of chicken wing wood can be confused and truly achieve the purpose of "repairing the old as the old". Last year, his "artesian well worker" woodcarving skill was approved as the fourth batch of municipal intangible cultural heritage in our city.
Today's boutique salt merchant chicken wing wood furniture is Zigong's precious salt cultural heritage, which has high collection value. Many collectors spend a lot of money to own a favorite piece of salt merchant chicken wing wood furniture, which also leads to the outflow of salt merchant chicken wing wood furniture.
"After the 1990s, some salt merchants' chicken wing wood furniture flowed out of Zigong, which caused losses to the historical and cultural heritage of Zigong. Moreover, due to the slow growth period and excessive logging, this kind of tree has been gradually reduced, and only Fushun and Rongxian have living plants in our city, which are in urgent need of protection. "Zhang said that the furniture of salt merchants lacked the connotation of origin when they left Zigong, which was a huge loss for the furniture itself and Zigong. To this end, some people of insight in our city spontaneously organized themselves, hoping to set up the Red Bean Wood Association and the Salt Merchants Furniture Association, and devote themselves to the protection and research of the salt merchants' chicken wing wood furniture. Now, what Zhang wants to do most is to build a museum for these precious ancient furniture of chicken wing wood of salt merchants, so that more people can appreciate the furniture of salt merchants and understand the salt culture of Zigong.
In order to preserve Zigong's precious material heritage of salt culture and prevent the loss of chicken wing wood furniture of ancient salt merchants, in recent years, the Salt History Museum of our city is also making active efforts. "Most of our collections are based on historical relics of salt industry, while historical relics reflecting salt culture are relatively lacking." Hou Hong, director of the Cultural Relics Preservation Department of the Municipal Salt History Museum, said that in recent years, salt history experts have investigated the chicken-wing wood furniture of Zigong salt merchants, and a number of ancient chicken-wing wood furniture preliminarily evaluated by the Salt History Museum are well preserved, including tables, chairs, stools, beds, desks, screens, boxes, window grilles, wood carvings and various household appliances. The origin and spreading experience of most furniture can be clearly traced back, which is the precious salt cultural heritage of Zigong and the historical memory of the city.
Hou Hong said that salt merchants, as the core group of salt industry development, played a vital role in promoting the formation and development of salt and salt culture in Zigong. Protecting the cultural resources of Zigong salt merchants is the obligation and mission of Yandu people. But in recent years, some private collectors in Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing and overseas have paid high prices to buy these ancient chicken-wing wood furniture from salt merchants.
To this end, salt history experts in our city also actively contacted collectors of these ancient chicken wing furniture, hoping to carry out a cultural relics collection plan, incorporate these ancient chicken wing furniture into the precious cultural relics collection, and specially design and produce a basic exhibition of salt culture with the theme of ancient chicken wing furniture of salt merchants, based on the development history of salt production, so as to give better play to the educational and exhibition functions of the museum.
"In June 5438+10 this year, the Salt Industry History Museum will launch Zigong Salt Merchants Furniture Boutique Exhibition. By then, more than 80 pieces of salt merchant furniture collected in Zigong will be systematically displayed to the public for the first time, so that more salt people can appreciate the quaint, elegant, exquisite and unique style of salt merchant furniture. " Song Qingshan, director of the Salt History Museum, said that the furniture of salt merchants is a microcosm of Zigong's economic, cultural and social life in a certain historical period. These antique material evidences are displayed in a concentrated way, which allows the audience to appreciate and appreciate the aesthetic value of traditional classical furniture, but also reproduces the life of salt merchants in Zigong's glorious historical period from one side, so that contemporary Zigong people can perceive the outstanding spiritual pursuit and life feelings of salt merchants from generation to generation through these exquisite furniture.
Note: Excerpted from Zigong Net.