*Chaozhou Festive Lantern

*Chaozhou Festive Lantern

Nominating Unit: Xiangqiao District, City of Chaozhou

Chaozhou Festive Lantern, which is found mostly in Chaoshan region, has its earliest direct account about 400 years ago in the opera script of Ban Qu Li Jing edited in the 45th year of Emperor Jia Jing’s reign in the Ming Dynasty(1566). In the opera’s opening act entitled “Lantern-seeing”, one line goes—the whole town is fond of seeing lanterns, which bears testimony to its prevalence in that era. Chaozhou lantern has evolved long since from an instrument for folk competitions or ceremonies into a comprehensive art enjoyment both for festive and decorative use.

Chaozhou lantern, the frame of which is made of bamboo, plumb line, and paper, is usually decorated with satin, silk, and dainty embroidery. Its production goes through a series of steps—design, framing, mounting, decorating, and assembling (for large festive lanterns). In general, Chaozhou lantern is classified into two major types: colored vertical screen lantern and pendent painted lantern.

Screen lantern is also named seated lantern or lantern screen. The one that can revolve or where the figure can move its hands and legs is called live lantern, which more often than not consists of only one screen, one lamp, and one theme. The theme is usually based on the stories or characters in Chao operas. The lantern itself is decorated with several paintings of exquisite pavilions or landscape, then lit with lamps within the body. The face of the figure is clay-molded beforehand, then made with paper. After that, eyes and hairs are drawn and colored on it. The body, which is fabricated by bamboo strips and plumb line, is dressed with thin garment, and then lightened with an inner lamp. This is the most complex step in the making of lantern. The size of the lantern ranges from being as high as several meters to being as short as no more than 10 centimeters. According to the expressing style, screen lantern can be further divided into Wen lantern, which emphasizes the facial expression of the figures as well as the garment details, and Wu lantern, which puts premium on the grandeur.(https://www.daowen.com)

Pendent lantern, whose frame is made of cane, bamboo, wood and metallic strips, is covered with silken cloth, and then painted with Chinese poems and paintings. In addition, as the design requires, it is decorated with tassels, mother-of-pearl inlays, strings of pearls, copper pieces, which makes it all the more elegant and gorgeous. Almost everything can be selected as the decorative part in the lantern, such as tigers, lions, Chinese dragon, phoenix, flowers, birds, fishes, shrimps, and even pails, flower baskets. The lantern board is one of its kinds. Mounted with framed paintings which combines fine freehand brushwork and caricature, it presents a perfect three-dimensional effect to the viewers.

Chaozhou lantern, which combines framing, painting, and cutting, is a complex of various artistic elements, such as Chao opera, Chao embroidery, and mud sculpture. It is given a reputation for its rich cultural connotation, diversified styles, strong local flavor, and unique art form as well as its special message-sending pattern of the time-honored Chao culture. As a miracle of lantern art in southern China, it was selected into the list of the second batch of state-level intangible cultural heritage in 2008.

However, due to the impact of market economy and the decreasing popularity of traditional customs, recent years have seen Chaozhou Festival Lantern facing increasingly severe problems, such as underdevelopment as well as limited presentation platform. Nowadays, most craftsmen are no longer making a living on lanterns. To add insult to the injury, the making of the lanterns is so complicated that the economic returns are rather thin. Chaozhou Festival Lantern tradition is now at stake, as there seem to be no successors to carry the torch. Chaozhou lantern now needs urgent protection and support from the government.