The Study Of Technology Of Chinese Ancient Jading Producing

The jade producing technique of our country originated from the XingLongWa Cultural Period 8000 years ago, and ended until the late Qing Dynasty. During this long-time history, and accompanying with the progress of the productive forces and the development of scientific technology, the technique of jade production, which experienced a continuous evolution from nil to existence, from simplicity to exquisite and from small to large-scale, has become a special handicraft industry full of Chinese characteristics. However, some negative factors of jade production, including the special crafts used in the production process, onerous physical labor necessary in the jade producing, and the filth and mire in the jade producing workshop and so on, put the jade workers in a low social status, who couldn't get a good reputation as poets or scholars. What's more, the teaching form of jade production, master leading apprentices without any textbooks or systematic training procedure, left few literal records on jade production technique and great difficulties to the research of later ages. According to many jade ware materials and few historical literature, based on the conclusion of the evolution of ancient Chinese jade production technique, this paper starts with the interpretation of the jade ore material, jade producing tools, jade producing crafts and techniques, analyzes ancient jade producing thoughts of our country, and then discusses the regularity and characteristics of development of ancient jade producing technique. This paper can be divided into 8 chapters and 5 parts, the prologue, materials, tools of ancient jade producing techniques, jade producing techniques and crafts, evolution of jade producing techniques, technological thoughts of jade production and regularity of technological development, and the conclusion.In the part of Essential Material Factors in the Techniques of Ancient Jade Producing, the paper mainly discusses the specialization and necessity of a supposition that jade ore materials are the essential factors in the ancient jade producing technique. Meanwhile, the paper explains the concepts of jade, jade ore, jade wares as well, and holds that traditionally speaking, the jade of our country refers to all the jade materials and jade wares which were beautiful, rare, precious, dense and which have been engraved for a long time in history. These mentioned "jades" also mean all the jade and jade wares which maintain their natural attribution, artificial attribution and social cultural attribution. Then, this chapter gives a complicated introduction of physical and chemical characteristics, colors and quality, classification criteria, main producing areas and craft patterns of more than 20 kinds of jades frequently used in our country. In the part of Essential Instrument Factors in the Techniques of Ancient Jade Producing, the paper gives a relative detailed description of jade processing tools including carving tools, drilling tools, polishing tools; processing supplementary materials including abrasive material and polishing powder; processing instruments including sawing, cutting, carving, drilling and polishing instruments; and processing workshop of jade carving as well. According to the three development stages of stone tool, bronze tool and iron tool, the paper illustrates with some photographs of these producing tools and jade wares found in some research departments. In the part of Essential Crafts Factors of Ancient Jade Producing, the technical process of ancient jade producing was divided into 3 procedures, which are excavating, designing, and processing; and several ways of jade ore excavating, the history of ancient jade ore excavating are provided. On the other hand, this chapter covers a conceptual explanation of jade carving design, an introduction of the designing process and techniques of jade carving. This chapter also presents the procedures of jade production, such as pounding, pestling, raw material selection, material outlining, peeling, designing, rough carving, delicate carving, exquisite maintaining, polishing and so on. Some frequently used carving techniques as flat carving, relief carving, round carving, and engrave carving are also discussed. Specific jade production techniques including the techniques of the luster of coloring, flimsy of base, inlaying, chaining, inside painting, and the techniques of ball grinding are introduced accurately in this chapter, too. Some photographs of research are attached as a complementary.In the major part of this paper, the 5^th chapter, the concept of jade producing technique is explained firstly, then some jade production techniques recorded in Chinese ancient literatures are introduced. At the same time, the paper mainly discusses in this chapter the progress of ancient jade producing and the producing techniques in the periods of stone tools, bronze tools, and iron tools. As a result of textual research, this part concludes that, at the time when there were not any metal tools or mechanic instruments, a new producing technique with the jade-breaking grit was invented in the Neolithic Age. This kind of technique achieved much in the history of jade producing techniques, and also helped to innovate tools of jade producing, extensively apply the jade producing handcrafts industry with the ironing tool which appeared in the War Period, and greatly promote the productive forces. Meanwhile, the paper discussed that in the Han Dynasty, a special jade producing instrument was invented, water stool, which advanced in a leap of jade producing instrument, and the jade worker in the Sui and Tang Dynasty improved the water stool, with several other functions as materials outlining, carving and polishing. Until the Song Dynasty, this instrument has been formulated and matured, leading the instruments and techniques of jade producing in the whole world. To explain the problem directly, lots of photographs of unearthed jade articles were shown in this part. The 6^th chapter Technical thoughts of Ancient Jade Producing discusses the origination of jade producing thoughts from the point of the cognition of jade and the seek for the beauty, analyzes the evolution of thoughts of ancient jade carving design, concludes some major technical ideas at stages of jade carving, rough carving, and delicate carving. In the 7^th chapter Regularity and Characteristics of Techniques Development of Ancient Jade Producing, it concludes that the long history of the jade producing techniques and the undulating development of it, the specialization of jade producing tools and the variety of engraving skills, the leading jade producing tools and the advanced jade producing instruments, the dependence of the development of jade producing techniques and the complete usefulness of jade wares, the humanity of jade carving design and the abundant cultural connotation, a slow-development of jade producing techniques and the focalization of technical thoughts are the general regularities and characteristics of development of ancient jade producing of our country. It also analyzes the influence and function, which the jade producing techniques have had on the social culture and arts. In the last part, this paper gives an overall conclusion of ancient jade producing techniques of our country.