The art of inheritance, the craftsmanship and techniques of ancient jade carving

1. Incised lines: refers to the concave line segments carved out on the surface of jade, which can be single incised lines or two parallel double incised lines. Most of the negative line segments before the Han Dynasty were extremely superficial, composed of short lines connected together, sometimes continuous and sometimes discontinuous. This was formed by the light rise and fall of the rotating tool, which is generally referred to as "shallow entry", "jumping knife" or "short negative engraved lines".

2. Gou Che: Gou Che means to draw shallow groove-shaped raised lines according to the designed pattern, which is called "Gou Che", also known as rigid line, and was commonly used in the Shang Dynasty. Grinding the line wall on one side into a certain shape is called "Che". In the Western Zhou Dynasty, it was called "Single Che", that is, one side was cut obliquely and the other side was engraved in negative, which also produced the effect of raised positive text, commonly known as "-mianpo".

3. Hidden bulge: The outer contour of the line or block is slightly reduced, forming a faint bulge, and the edge is not obvious when touched. This technique was adopted by Hongshan culture.

4. Bas-relief: Using the method of reducing the ground, the base of the lines or the outline of the image is dug out to create the effect of raised line decoration. The jade cong of the Liangzhu culture has the eyes, mouth and nose of the animal face carved in shallow relief.

5. High relief: dig out the bottom surface to form a three-dimensional figure, and add negative lines to shape it. It began in the Warring States Period and became popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

6. Round sculpture: three-dimensional figures, standing animals, etc. This type of device often appears in Hongshan culture and Shang Dynasty jade artifacts.

7. Movable Rings: The jade material is cut into connected movable rings and ropes to extend the span of the jade material. This method was used in the Spring and Autumn Period.

8. Hollow carving: also known as openwork carving, it was developed on the basis of perforation and was first seen in the hollow jade crown ornaments of Liangzhu culture. The procedure for hollow carving is to first drill holes at equidistant locations on the outer contour of the pattern, and then use a wire saw to connect them to form grooves. The hollow cross-section of the hollow jade phoenix in the Shang Dynasty was very smooth, indicating that the hollow hole docking technology was already very sophisticated at that time. The openwork carving technique of the Yuan Dynasty had made new progress. The openwork jade stove top had as many as three or four layers of lotus and reed leaves interspersed, which was very delicate and exquisite.

9. Embossed flowers: Developed from multi-layer openwork carving, the jade wares cleverly use fine hollow patterns as the background to set off the dragon patterns or floral shapes carved in semi-relief on the surface, forming two or three layers of embossed decorative surfaces.

10. Drilling: There were many forms of drilling during the Hongshan culture, but bamboo, wood, and leather were used as drilling tools, with the help of intermediate water-sand drilling and grinding, which had extremely low hardness, causing wear on the edges of the holes, inaccurate docking of the holes on both sides, and streaks on the hole walls. The drilling and perforation techniques of Liangzhu culture were improved, and the inner walls of the jade cong were very smooth. Before the Pre-Qin period, due to primitive drilling tools, the holes were mostly horseshoe-shaped (single-sided drill) or bee-waist-shaped (butt-jointed holes). After the Warring States Period, iron drills were used to drill holes to form neat tubes. During the Han Dynasty, people were able to make complex human-shaped eyes, such as five Weng Zhong and elephant trunk eyes.

11. Base: Ancient people made jade articles with great care and spared no expense in the decorative base. After scraping, the surface and walls of the vessel are carefully flattened and polished so that they are very smooth.

12. Hollowing: The technique of carving the inner abdomen of jade. The tall jade cong of the Liangzhu culture has demonstrated the superb hollowing skills. The snuff bottle production in the Qing Dynasty pursued thin walls, making this technology more sophisticated.

13. Polishing: Polishing is divided into rough polishing and fine polishing. Jade wares after the Warring States Period paid great attention to the final polishing process, so that the crystal clear and glassy luster on the surface of the jade carvings could be fully displayed and reflected.

14. Silhouette: The carved figures or animals are drawn using the front and side silhouette techniques, just like paper cutting, capturing the main features and using skilled and accurate contour lines to outline a vivid artistic image.

15. Han Ba ​​Dao: Han Ba ​​Dao is unique to the Han Dynasty. The carved jade can be formed with "eight cuts". This refers to the precision of the jade carving technique in the Han Dynasty, which can take shape with just a few cuts, not just eight cuts. Later generations called it Han Ba ​​Dao, and its representative works include Jade Pig and Jade Huang.

16. Tiaodao: Tiaodao is unique to the Han Dynasty. The Yin line pattern in the Han Dynasty is as thin as a gossamer and is composed of many short lines, which is called Tiaodao. Although the lines are intermittent, they are still smooth, and some negative lines are even accompanied by extremely tiny circles.

17. Color matching: Using the different natural colors of jade to skillfully carve into the skin color or organs of an object. If the carving is appropriate, it will appear to be a work of art that surpasses the work of nature.

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