75-year-old still fascinated by inscribed board creation

Inscribed board with excellent calligraphy and well-chosen characters is often an integral part of Chinese architecture in the past, from the magnificent imperial place to a scholar's personal study room.

Despite its market decline in the age of mass production, 75-year-old Xu Jiankang in Central China's Henan province has been fascinated with the old handcraft and revived its glory in places far beyond the province.

Xu's family had a tradition to work as carpenters since the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, while his grandfather began to focus on making inscribed board after gaining fame for a work inscribed "Si Shi Tong Tang ('four generations under one roof')" during Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

However, Xu was not expected to inherit the craft, falling from the public favor since late 1950s, so his father sent him to the army instead.

But Xu's passion wasn't obliterated. After he retired from the army and went back to his hometown in Zhenping county of Nanyang city, he cultivated the skills through all possible ways, visiting temples and browsing books to imitate the inscribing stokes. Piles of calligraphy copies and books about board-making skills can be seen in Xu's house.

"Board is an art form to denote personal ambitions and good wishes for life, which contains rich cultural essence," said Xu.

He also said the governments have paid more attention to traditional culture protection and included the board-creation among the intangible cultural heritage list in Nanyang in August 2015.

After retired from his work, Xu threw himself completely into board creation, and set up his private workshop to carry on practicing board creation.

Xu's hard work finally paid off. He succeeded in developing a set of board-creating skills of his own style based on traditional skills. The board he created for the newly built People's Park in Zhenping county in late 1990s was deeply appreciated by local people.

As one of the oldest Chinese technologies, board-carving can be dated back to the Shang and Zhou Dynasty (c. 16th century-11th century BC), and peaked in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It involves complex process, including calligraphy-writing, carving, painting, polishing and coloring. Every single process takes time and energy.

Calligraphy is a very vital part of board-creation. Xu said he made great progress in calligraphy skills in his sixties, when he got acquainted with Zhang Qingshan, a famous calligrapher in Nanyang.

Touched by Xu's persistence in carrying forward traditional culture and art, Zhang mentored Xu with detailed skills. Xu kept practicing calligraphy eight hours per day and was later enrolled as a member of China Calligraphers Association.

With the changes of times and social progress, the traditional handcraft technology was shadowed by mechanization. Nevertheless, Xu still stick to the purely manual making process.

Xu stickes to the purely manual making process, saying mechanically-produced boards are way too less exquisite than hand-made ones.

Xu said paulawnia wood with over 30 tree-ages is considered the best material and a fine work also requires elaborate design of the tablet sizes, character spacing and character forms in addition to the well-controlled strength of carving.

Tablet works created by Xu now can be seen around China, including those in the parks and building in Beijing, Shandong, etc.

He also created works for celebrities as well as important sites, such as as the Buddhist abbot of Shaolin Temple and the president of China Calligraphers Association, and the boards Xu created for them are widely appreciated. Civilians also treat it as a honor to have one of Xu's board work inscribing bless phrase such as "Ji Shan Zhi Jia" (House of goodness) to express good wishes.

Xu Jiankang works on a board. [Photo/Nanyang Daily]

Xu JianKang takes a photo with his one of inscribed board works. [Photo/Chinanews.com]