Living Tradition

The craft, continued.

In Tiantai, Zhejiang, dry-lacquer and ramie sculpture is practised through making, documentation and teaching.

Photograph: Taizhou Wenyi 台州文艺

Tang Chunfu

Tiantai, Zhejiang · born September 1952

Tang Chunfu is a national representative bearer of the Tiantai Mountain dry-lacquer and ramie craft. His official profile records that he began learning from the monk-artisan Shi Guanghong at Huading Temple at the age of eleven.

The profile describes his work recording procedures, restoring workshop practice and training successors. These activities connect the making of sculpture with the transmission of practical knowledge.

Official bearer profile ↗

Tang Chunfu, in practice.

A film about the artisan and his craft.

Tang Chunfu汤大师

6 min 33 sec

A gilded four-faced Guanyin standing in a glass case in a museum gallery. — Four-faced Guanyin by Tang Chunfu on display at the Zhejiang Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum.Photograph: Tang Chunfu studio

Passing on the process.

Learning involves modelling, building the lacquer body and completing its surface. Documentation helps preserve the sequence; workshop practice develops the judgement needed at each stage.

Follow the process

Works from the studio.

Sculpture by Tang Chunfu and by his daughter, Tang Jiangjie. Dimensions are width × depth × height.

Gilded standing Guanyin with four faces before a flame-shaped halo.

Four-faced Guanyin

Tang Chunfu

88 × 88 × 198 cm

Gilded seated Guanyin ringed by a disc of many arms, on a red and gold base.

Thousand-armed Guanyin

Tang Chunfu

Height 128 cm

Gilded Guanyin seated at ease on rocks above painted waves.

Water-moon Guanyin

Tang Chunfu

45 × 43 × 71 cm

A gilded Guanyin in a green mantle and red robe, seated at ease on a curving wooden base.

Guanyin at Ease

Tang Chunfu

50 × 36 × 68 cm

Gilded Guanyin seated on a recumbent lion.

Lion’s Roar Guanyin

Tang Chunfu

43 × 22 × 53 cm

Crowned Maitreya

Tang Chunfu

Height 600 cm

Painted Maitreya with a green and gold crown, seated on a lotus base.

Esoteric Maitreya

Tang Chunfu

108 × 88 × 193 cm

Laughing Maitreya, gilded, holding a fan, in a painted robe.

Maitreya of Many Treasures

Tang Chunfu

55 × 50 × 88 cm

Gilded laughing Maitreya seated before a tall flame-patterned mandorla.

Maitreya (yindiao)

Tang Chunfu

221 × 190 × 300 cm

Two smiling boys in painted robes, one holding lotus flowers, the other a box.

Hehe Erxian, polychrome

Tang Chunfu

66 × 48 × 90 cm

The same pair of Immortals of Harmony, finished in gold.

Hehe Erxian, gold

Tang Chunfu

66 × 48 × 90 cm

The Immortals of Harmony beneath a large green lotus leaf, on blue waves.

Hehe Erxian

Tang Jiangjie

145 × 106 × 176 cm

Three gilded standing figures on lotus bases, the outer two with radiating halos.

Guanyin Triad

Tang Chunfu

50 × 40 × 126 cm

A multi-panel gold screen carved with dragons, crowned by an openwork crest.

Nine-dragon Screen

Tang Chunfu

Three gold bowls of graduated size on a white surface.

Gold lacquer bowls

Tang Chunfu

Photograph: Tang Chunfu studio

Hehe Erxian.

Two Immortals of Harmony · reported in 2019

A Tsinghua institutional report records the unveiling of Tang’s Hehe Erxian at a lacquer-art alliance exhibition. It describes jiazhu construction with vermilion, turquoise green and gold leaf.

Institutional exhibition report ↗

Making and teaching.

The Tiantai heritage record describes a craft with 48 stages. Reports on training and workshop organisation show how modelling, lacquer work and surface finishing can be taught and shared among practitioners.

Official heritage project record ↗