Investigation On Production Techniques Of The Duan Inkstone In China

The Duan inkstone is ranked in first place among the Chinese traditional four mostfamous inkstones. The Duan inkstone is well-known for its unique stone which is solid,lubricative, exquisite and delicate. Grinding ink on a duan inkstone is frictionless andefficient; The ground ink is fine and smooth; Writing is fluent and not harmless to thehairs of the brush pen; The color of handwriting can be kept permanently fresh and doesnot fade. It is widely welcomed not only because of its natural unparalleled stone butalso because of its exquisite engraving.In this thesis, systematically analyzing ancient literatures and also contrasting themwith the existing archaeological physical evidences, the author has come to theconclusion that duan inkstones have been produced since the Tang dynasty, and hasfurther stated the specific production place and the production characteristics in thedifferent historical periods and has made clear the development process ofcraftsmanship of duan inkstones.Under the premise of fully understanding the relevant literatures, the author hasvisited some of the production sites of duan inkstones and has investigated their makingprocess at the spot. Furthermore, the author has tried himself to operate some of the keytechnologies while he was recording the modern production process of duan inkstoneswith pictures, videos and other means and has generalized main steps of making Duaninkstones as follows; quarrying, selecting, designing, engraving, matching box,polishing, dyeing and fading ink， permeating and fading wax, inspecting andpackaging and other processes.In the second place, designing and engraving duan inkstones is the most importanttwo programs: engraving is concrete implementation of the design and alsoimprovement to the design at the same time, for a craftsman always should make somereasonable and flexible adjustments to the design according to the internal and externalcharacteristics of the stones during his engraving on the basis of following the design. In fact, making a duan inkstone is a creative process of reciprocal infiltration of designingand engraving. This thesis will focus on engraving to introduce techniques of makingduan inkstones. In the process of practical engraving, traditional sculpting toolsdominate, modern electric tools are auxiliary. Enjoying the great works by the ancientand contemporary excellent masters, we are easy to find that there are various engravingtechniques of duan inkstones, such as deep engraving, through-engraving, roundengraving (three-dimensional engraving), shallow engraving, base relief engraving, lineengraving, bao yi engraving(extremely-shallow-drawing engraving), qiao colorengraving(creative engraving by the original color points on the stone).In the end, the techniques of making duan inkstones is the important intangiblecultural heritage in our country_China. In May2006, it, as one of the traditionalcraftsmanships, has been listed in the traditional craft category under "the first batch ofstate-level intangible cultural heritage list" and it is also only project of state-levelintangible cultural heritage list which the city of Zhaoqing owns. But now there are stillsome problems and dilemmas in protection and inheritance of production techniques ofduan inkstones. Therefore, in this thesis, relying on his own practical visits and theabove-mentioned comprehensive researches, the author has given specific measuresrelated to the protection of the raw material of duan inkstones, the protection oftraditional craftsmanships of duan inkstones and the protection of cultural inheritors ofduan inkstones and has also stated his own opinions and suggestions for them, whichwill bring certain positive impression and reference effect to protection of othertraditional craftsmanships similar to duan inkstones in China.