-- In an old house in Penglou Village, Penglou Town, Juancheng County, Heze City, Shandong Province, a wooden table is stacked with well-mixed clay as Xie Xinjian, utterly absorbed, molds it into brick sculptures. Along the eaves of the courtyard, brick-sculpted ornaments — lions, horses and the like — still exude an air of solemn dignity despite decades of wind and weather; in the yard, pigeons and opera figures shaped from clay are so lifelike they seem to tell stories of bygone days. This is Juancheng brick sculpture, hailed as "the art of the rooftop" — a national intangible cultural heritage rooted in the countryside of southwestern Shandong for centuries.
Juancheng brick sculpture was originated by the Xie family of Juancheng County and has been passed down through the generations ever since. During the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, Xie Guangfang, a native of Juancheng, developed the distinctive brick-sculpting technique through repeated experimentation, and the craft has now been handed down through five generations to Xie Xinjian. In 2008, Juancheng brick sculpture was inscribed on the second batch of China's National Intangible Cultural Heritage List, and in 2024 Xie Xinjian was named a national-level inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage. The representative works fall mainly into two categories: flower-and-bird brick sculptures and opera-figure brick sculptures. The former are rendered in a plain and artless manner, while the latter are striking in their lifelike portrayal of characters. In artistic conception, brick sculpture relies largely on devices of distortion, exaggeration and simplification to form a school of its own, all the while retaining the character of traditional folk clay modeling and earthenware craftsmanship.
The creation of a single brick sculpture passes through more than a dozen steps: selecting the clay, mixing it, aging it, kneading it, forming the blank, shaping, air-drying and firing. "The clay has to be dug from about a meter underground, and only after it has weathered through an entire winter and the impurities have been sifted out can it be used. Preparing the clay calls for repeated kneading to expel the air bubbles and ensure an even texture," says Xie Xinjian. Brick sculpture is entirely handmade, and during firing the kiln master governs the heat purely by experience. "Whether a piece comes out solid, and how fine its color turns out, hinge on the firing temperature and on the sealing of the kiln. Once the kiln mouth is sealed with earth and sprinkled with water, the pieces gradually absorb moisture and their color shifts from red to blue — and the blue pieces are firmer and more durable than the red ones."
Xie Xinjian began learning the craft at around the age of ten, following his grandfather Xie Xueyun. Absorbed through years of daily exposure, by his early teens he was already producing lifelike brick sculptures entirely on his own. In the late 1980s, however, flat-roofed houses and multistory buildings began to prevail, the demand for brick sculpture dwindled, and one craftsman after another turned to other trades. After graduating from university in 1994, Xie Xinjian became a schoolteacher. "Practicing this craft today cannot support a family. Purely handmade work is slow, and the market is a niche one; it takes constancy and patience to keep going," he reflects on the craft's transmission.
To breathe new life into this ancient art, Xie Xinjian takes an active part in the local "intangible cultural heritage on campus" and "intangible heritage classes" programs, teaching brick-sculpting free of charge at a number of primary and secondary schools in Penglou Town. Juancheng County has likewise organized activities such as "intangible heritage plus study tours" to nurture young people's attachment to the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, and has relied on platforms including intangible heritage study bases and transmission centers to support and encourage inheritors in teaching apprentices, offering instruction and engaging in exchanges. Today, the brick sculptures contributed by Xie Xinjian serve as learning materials for students at Shandong University of Art and Design, Liaocheng University and Qufu Normal University.
From a guardian of vernacular architecture to a fresh vehicle of cultural transmission, the transformation of Juancheng brick sculpture is a vivid footnote to the creative transformation and innovative development of China's fine traditional culture. "Though brick sculpture has stepped off the historical stage as an ornament for the rooftop, as an intangible cultural heritage it will never fade." This art of clay and fire, distilled from folk wisdom and deep affection for the native soil, is writing its own chapter of inheritance with undying vitality in the new era. (Liu Zhaokui)
Contact Info:
Name: Liu Xiao
Email: Send Email
Organization: Foreign Media Co., Ltd.
Website: https://www.chinanews.com/sh/2025/03-10/10380869.shtml
Release ID: 89204725
Google
RSS