Editor’s Note: This article is produced in collaboration with the Chongqing Institute of Foreign Studies, as part of a series of ongoing reports exploring the city’s abundant resources in intangible cultural heritages.
In September 2019, Qijiang Culture and Tourism Committee and Sina Chongqing successfully promoted Qijiang’s culture and tourism internationally. Combining Qijiang culture and tourism into her fashionable dresses, the famous designer Yang Lu made Qijiang elements shine on the New York Fashion Week (one of the four major Fashion Weeks in the world). This appearance attracted global attention and symbolized that Chongqing's first cultural-tourism program gained great popularity on the international stage.
However, this was not the first time that Qijiang peasant engraving, one of the Qijiang cultural elements, had taken the international stage.
Statistics show that since 1985, Qijiang peasant engraving has toured more than 30 countries and 20 cities, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, and Japan. During the tours, over 1,000 works have been exhibited and Qijiang peasant engraving has been crowned as "Oriental Picasso" in the international art world.
A special way of painting
Unlike ordinary painting, which is made with a brush, engraving is done by carving or etching a picture on a plate with a knife or chemical and then printing it onto paper. It is a handmade work of art, in which a picture is first carved out on a wooden board and then printed.
Based on farmers' life practices
Qijiang peasant engraving originated from the woodblock prints of the Ming and Qing dynasties. On the basis of simple painting techniques, it has absorbed a large number of local ethnic folk art techniques, such as wood carving, stone carving, cloth paste, flower picking, woodblock prints, paper cutting, blueprints clothes, and other expressions, and has a strong ethnic folk style and lively atmosphere.
Unique style
The unique style of Qijiang peasant engraving is not only humorous, childish interest and passionate, spirited, and sincere, but also has distinctive personality characteristics and a strong local flavor. The color composition is natural and generous, with the intention to the brush to the emotion, accompanied by the strong emotion of the creator, and the creator's knowledge and love of life are subjectively integrated into the painting.
Qijiang peasant engraving be written into novels
Qi Guoxin and Gui Yuhua in the novel Engraving Love by Chongqing Qijiang writer Xue Ran are the epitome of the old generation of peasant engraving makers in the 1980s, and Qi Lin and Qin Si Yue are the heirs of the new generation of engraving making art. The love of the two generations is due to peasant engraving. The views and persistent pursuit of engraving of the two generations explain the strong human love, which makes people ponder and can't let go of it after reading.
Engraving Institute
In July 2001, the Qijiang Peasant Engraving Institute was established. The institute has a total of 4 floors, including an artist's studio, an engraving studio, a training classroom, and an exhibition hall for fine engravings. Here, you can learn more about the whole process of making Qijiang peasant engraving, participate in the creation and experience the fun of the engraving process.
Address: No.1, Tianxing Avenue, Qijiang District, Chongqing
(The original article comes with a Chinese version authored by Huang Rui (advisor/Zhou Yuan) as well as an English version translated by Liu Qiuyi (advisor/Liu Jun), and was later narrated by Long Anfu (advisor/Lei Yu), all of whom are students (and teachers) from Chongqing Institute of Foreign Studies.)