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Brief introduction to Clay Sculpture

Clay sculpture, it is also called “patterned sculpture”. It is a traditional craft in China. First, put some cotton fiber into prepared clay soil, then stir them to mix evenly; next, make rough sculpture with your hands; and hen dry and apply base powder on the rough sculpture; finally, paint the clay sculpture. The folk custom, like making funerary figures, making worshipped Buddha and making Fancy Toys is the main factor which promotes the development of this art of clay sculpture in China. Back to Tang and Song dynasties, the art was in full swing. In the Qing Dynasty, two famous schools were formed in north and south. The “Craftsman Zhang” in Tianjin and his family handed down the craftsmanship from generation to generation. Their works, following “describe as it is” as specialty, stressed “the resembling of the real person” from vivid patterned statue to delicate facial expression and to decorated color. The other school is “Hushan”, which can be divided into 2 parts. One was “clay facy toys” for children to play with. These toys were rich in flavor of rural life. The other was “Drama Character Statue”, which was mainly to make the characters from traditional dramas or operas. These statues were rich in specialty of “jiangnan”. Nowadays, there are also many famous craftsmen, and the craftsmanship has thick modern elements.

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