It is the ancestor of Hundred Carvings, which began in the Six Dynasties, but its history is much longer than that of the Six Dynasties. According to the documents before Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the history of bamboo carving in China was even earlier than that of Oracle bone carvings in Yin and Shang Dynasties. Based on comprehensive textual research, the archaeological community has come to the conclusion that China is the first country to use bamboo products in the world. Speaking of engraving and carving, we should start from before the invention of pen, ink, paper and inkstone. At first, human beings recorded things by knotting ropes or painting them on rock walls with colored minerals in nature, but at the same time, human beings have mastered the use of many tools, such as beating and grinding stone tools, using wooden sticks, bamboo sticks and other things that are dominant in length or hardness in nature and can be used flexibly.
The scene of bamboo carving or bone carving may be like this. In the evening, when the tribal chronicler planned to record the day's work on the rock wall with mineral pigments as usual, he found that the mineral pigments had been used up, so he began to write notes on the rock wall with tools such as stone knives and axes, but the hardness of the rock wall was similar to that of the stone knives and axes in his hand, so he could not record the day's deeds on the rock wall smoothly. Just as he was anxious, the smooth bamboo stick in his hand fell to the ground. Inadvertently, he found that there were many traces of friction on the smooth surface of the bamboo stick, so he used his stone tool to make a hard stroke on the bamboo stick, which made a scratch on the soft bamboo stick.
Bamboo Carving Lotus Perfume Tube Ming Dynasty
Noters found that it was much easier to write notes on bamboo with stone tools than on the rock wall, and bamboo sticks were much easier to carry and take materials than with the rock wall, so the bone carvings on bamboo carvings were similar, but compared with bone carvings, bamboo carvings were difficult to store, so it was difficult to see bamboo carvings of the same period as Oracle Bone Inscriptions in later archaeological excavations. However, the way of keeping notes with bamboo lasted for a long time, and the function of keeping notes with bamboo gradually faded after the invention and popularization of paper after Han Dynasty.
Bamboo carving and bamboo branch pen holder In the Ming Dynasty
In the process of historical development and evolution, although the way of bamboo recording was eliminated, bamboo carving art ushered in spring. Since then, bamboo has continued to survive in the form of water boards, bamboo fans, bamboo boxes and bamboo carvings held by officials. According to Dai Sheng's "Etiquette Jade Algae" in the Han Dynasty, it is recorded that some of the water boards (also known as hand boards) held by courtiers at the court meeting were made of bamboo pieces. "Where there is a finger painting in front of the monarch, the book is written in the water, the emperor uses the ball jade, the princes use ivory, and the doctor uses fish, asparagus, bamboo and wooden elephants." Later, bamboo carvings began to appear in large numbers, such as bamboo spoons carved with dragon lacquer unearthed from the tomb of the Western Han Dynasty in Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan.
Bamboo Carved Pansong Cup
From the Ming Dynasty to the Jin Dynasty, bamboo pen holders appeared. According to historical records, the pen holders used by Wang Xianzhi, a great calligrapher in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, were carved from bamboos. After the Tang Dynasty, bamboo carvings were gradually familiar to literati and began to be sought after, and then in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, bamboo carvings and bamboo carvings flourished. Their carving skills were far superior to those of the previous generation, and their superb craftsmanship became the symbol of the status of the royal family and government officials. Some famous bamboo carvings even reached the point where it was hard to find money. Because of this, bamboo carvings have become a major category in the art history of China and China, and their cultural contents still need to be studied and studied by modern cultural scholars ~