Wuhua Stone Carving

Wuhua Stone Carving

Nominating Unit: Wuhua County, City of Meizhou

Wuhua County is located in the mountainous area of eastern Guangdong Province, and is rich in granite. The locals have been making a living out of the granite since ancient times. In the Ming Dynasty, there was already record about bridge building with the granite stone. A Dong Yuan Bridge built with stones from the Reign of Emperor Jia Jing of The Ming Dynasty still exists in the county seat. In the Qing Dynasty, there were already stone palaces, stone temples, stone houses, stone toriis all over Wuhua, and the civil houses with stone doors, stone windows, stone pillars and stone beams could been seen all over the rural area. Stone carved Buddha, lion, or steles were also fl ourishing. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, lots of stone carving craftsmen went to Hong Kong, and left their works in the bridges, mansions, and gardens built during the founding era of Hong Kong. After the founding of People’s Republic of China, Wuhua stone carving craftsmen also participated in the carving work of Monument of People’s Heroes, People’s Hall of Congress in Beijing, Monument of Nanchang Uprising, etc. Therefore, Wuhua County has always enjoyed the name of “homeland for stone carving”in Guangdong Province.

Wuhua Stone Carving mainly uses granite and white marble as its raw material, and there are many styling techniques, such as round carving, hollow-out carving, relief, stele carving, etc. The stone lion carved in the Ming Dynasty has a stone ball in its mouth which can rotate freely but which is impossible to take out. A stele in a county temple has an article inscription called “Phoenix Terrace”on it, and the strokes of each character are clear and powerful. It is a top class piece of its kind. The contemporary Wuhua Stone Carving, besides mainly focusing on large-scale stone carving for architectural ornament, is especially famous for its independent carving pieces. The Five-Sheep stone carving vividly standing on the Yuexiu Mountain in City of Guangzhou, the primitive looks of the auspicious beasts in front of the Tomb Museum the King of South China, the roughness of the soldiers standing on the Haizhu square, the near-real look of Marshal Ye Jianying in Guangzhou Martyr’s Park, and the iconic fisherwomen sculpture in City of Zhuhai all reveal the many different styles that Wuhua Stone Carving masters.(https://www.daowen.com)

As traditional stone carving is a hard work, and is harmful to the workers’ health, now it is faced with a breaking down in transmitters. Besides, the lack of designers, scattering of practitioners, and uses of modern stone carving techniques all exerted severe impact on the traditional techniques. Without rescue and protection, its extinction will be inevitable.