Cultural Implications in Woodcarving Art

Wood is a living carrier with unique beauty, gentleness and simplicity. Our ancestors used wood according to its characteristics, sourced materials from local areas, and rationally utilized the characteristics of wood to dig out beautiful elements from raw materials, fully reflecting the interest and beauty of wood. Through the dexterous hands and clever wisdom of artists, they created many exquisite works. After a long process, the traditional Chinese woodcarving art gradually took shape. Woodcarving belongs to a type of hand sculpture, often referred to as "folk art". Chinese woodcarving has a strong traditional national color and a long history, including features such as skillful and smooth knife skills, concise shapes and bright and clear lines; no matter which era it comes from, it always has spirituality and belongs to the origin of traditional culture. Therefore, exploring the cultural implications of traditional woodcarving art has contemporary value in promoting the development of woodcarving skills. 1. Artistic characteristics of traditional woodcarving To explore the cultural implications of traditional woodcarving, we should first understand the artistic characteristics of traditional woodcarving. From the perspective of traditional woodcarving skills, its artistic characteristics are mainly reflected in the following aspects: 1. Retain natural original colors In terms of selecting wood texture, woodcarving artists pay more attention to the natural beauty of wood, such as Some places use "clear water carving" and do not apply color on the surface of wood carvings. Even if they are painted, they are painted black, red and gold in a few places. Some wood carvings cleverly use the texture of the wood itself to express the theme and enhance the decorative effect.
2. Clear layers
The theme is clear, and the subject matter of wood carvings is relatively wide. Whether it is flowers, birds, fish, insects, landscapes, figures, or auspicious clouds, lotus patterns, etc., all kinds of auspicious patterns are the creative materials of sculptors. From the overall style of wood carving, the layout of the works is relatively rigorous and the hierarchical structure is strong. The composition of works showing distant views is relatively compact, while close-up works pay more attention to depicting details and focusing on shaping the details of character movements and expressions.
3. Focus on decorativeness
The early wood carving style was relatively simple and rough, and the knife technique was bright and brisk. Concise, the works are simple and generous. By the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, wood carvings gradually became popular among people, and entered its heyday. The economy continued to prosper and the trend of showing off became stronger. In pursuit of architectural luxury, wood carvings were widely used for interior decoration. The tables, chairs, doors, windows, partitions, door plaques and pavilions in the house were all decorated with patterns. The carving knife technique also changed from rough and strong to exquisite and delicate. At the same time, a variety of lines such as straight lines, thick lines, curves, thin lines, short lines and long lines are contrasted, and then based on line modeling, trees, flowers, pavilions, etc. are added to connect the various characters and scenes, so as to highlight the characters in the story.
Cultural implications in traditional wood carving art
From the previous analysis, traditional wood carving art has its own characteristics, and naturally this kind of work also has its own cultural implications. Wood carving in China Wood carving has a long history in Chinese history. In the primitive society, there were many handicrafts with the initial form of wood carving. Judging from the unearthed cultural relics, a wood-carved fish was unearthed in the Hemudu Cultural Site in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province, more than 7,000 years ago. This wood carving is the earliest physical object in the history of Chinese wood carving. In the Warring States tomb in Xinyang, Henan, a wood-carved vibrating wooden beast was unearthed, and in the Han Tomb in Yunmeng, Hubei, a colored carved wooden figurine was unearthed. They are all early wood carvings in my country. There were a large number of wooden figurines and animal carvings in the Warring States Period and the Han Dynasty. Wood carvings in the Qin and Han Dynasties were even more mature, and the carving and painting techniques were perfect and exquisite. Various animal wood carvings were unearthed in the Han tombs, based on which we can fully understand the development of Han Dynasty wood carving skills. The animal works mainly include cattle, horses, dogs, etc. The shapes of various animals are vivid, and their lengths are between 1.5 to 2.5 meters. Between 14-55cm, all are carved using the method of distributed production and bonding. Because wood is composed of fiber cells, quadrupeds are composed of three parts: head, body and feet. There must be certain differences in the sizes of the parts. From the overall shape, the head is high, the body is long and the feet are high. According to this form, the latter can make wood carvings. In the Han Dynasty, this kind of wood carving technique was an innovation/24. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, various wood carving themes such as figures, birds, beasts, immortals and Buddhas appeared. The Tang Dynasty in particular was a period of continuous development of my country's craftsmanship, and the wood carving craftsmanship gradually became perfect. Many of the wooden Buddha statues that have been unearthed today are masterpieces of ancient art, with the characteristics of skillful and smooth knife skills, concise shapes and bright and clear lines. Now they have become popular at home and abroad. Art masterpieces. In the Song Dynasty, it gradually developed on the basis of the prosperity and splendor of the Tang Dynasty, but the aesthetic concept of wood carvings changed greatly. my country's wood carvings gradually became perfect, especially the wood carving craftsmanship in the Ming and Qing Dynasties was more exquisite and mature. Its carving subjects gradually expanded to various themes such as life customs, auspicious flowers and mythological stories, and gradually were widely used in various fields such as furniture, architecture and daily necessities. The development of wood carving skills reflects the social economy and is the concretization of contemporary cultural ideas. With the development of the times, wood carvings continue to appear, and the types of carving themes are becoming more and more abundant. Therefore, they contain important contemporary culture, which is a true portrayal of people's code of conduct, living standards, values ​​and social outlook.