Page 23 - Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasty by Johnathan Hay

multiple blocks) since its invention at the beginning of the century. Nanjing was also one

center of bamboo carving, known for its shallow-carved designs on brushpots; a deep-carved
style was practised in Jiading (510). Surprisingly, given its function, the brush pot became
one of the main decorative formats for narrative representations drawn from printed
illustrations to plays and novels (the literary world in which Xu Wei was deeply involved).
Objects of all these kinds and many others were signed by their makers, initially with just a

brief inscription, but later with a seal as well on the model of painting. The names of the most
famous artisans of this period, such as the Songjiang bronzemaker Hu Wenming, the Suzhou
jadecarver Lu Zigang, or the Yangzhou lacqerer Jiang Qianli, in time became trademarks. In

their own day, however, these men were pioneers in raising the status of artisans. The entry
of artisans into the elite was a development much remarked at the time, all the more so
because, along with peasants and soldiers, they belonged to one of the three classes of
hereditary families instituted by the Hongwu emperor, and had originally been tied to the
state by heavy requirements of corvée labor. The re-alignment of social boundaries is equally

visible in the increasing number of designs and inscriptions contributed by literati to
commercial artisanal projects, from Yixing teapots to illustrated books.
Given the social and economic importance of Huizhou merchants, it is not surprising

that the Huizhou area itself became a production center of unusual importance. It was known
above all for two art forms, the ink cake and woodblock illustration. While Huizhou inks in
general were meant to be used, the ink cakes in question were elaborate decorative objects,
non-functional signs of literati culture. Their extraordinarily varied moulded designs are
known today principally through two illustrated books which collect those asociated with the

famous inkmakers Fang Yulu (Fangshi mopu, ca.1589) and Cheng Dayue (Chengshi
moyuan, ca.1606). In the latter, which has a few leaves printed in color, we may be surprised
by the inclusion of designs copied from European images, but there was now a Jesuit mission

in Nanjing, and such images were even available at Beijing's principal temple market of
antiques and crafts (511). If the books of ink cake designs were obviously luxury objects, so
too were illustrated books in general in Huizhou (and in Nanjing and Hangzhou, where
Huizhou families were also active in printing). Novels, plays and moralistic tracts all had the
right to illustrations in varying numbers, and the names of designers and carvers alike were

noted in the illustrations. Outside Huizhou, not only bamboo carvers but also potters and
lacquerers drew heavily on the resulting fund of designs. A third essential component of
Huizhou's material culture may be seen from the mansions of its leading clans, a number of

which still survive. Their builders were highly inventive in exploring the possibilities of
combination offered by two-storey and/or single storey buildings around a central or frontal
courtyard (510). All the possibilities of decoration were exploited as well: painting on the