Figure
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Jadeite hairpin
| Citation: |
Wang Wenwei, Lu Ren, Yin Zuowei. Research on Features and Applications of Jadeite Jewelry and Product in Tengchong, China[J]. Journal of Gems & Gemmology, 2023, 25(1): 81-88. DOI: 10.15964/j.cnki.027jgg.2023.01.011
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Throughout the history of China's jadeite culture, jadeite jewelry and products in Tengchong has inherited a long tradition, while striving to explore an innovative path of cultural integration. Looking for realistic expression, the jewelry and products reflects idyllic, daily and secular trends, as well as social features. Among all jadeite jewelry and products in Tengchong, the diverse application of elements such as different materials, and a variety of innovations in terms of styles, forms, and crafts, form a metaphor for culture. These not only reflect the most typical features of jadeite craftsmanship in Tengchong, but also reflect the traditions of the Tengchong frontier people and their innovative concepts of jadeite jewelry and products.
With more than 500 years of development, Tengchong jadeite culture occupies an important place in the history of Chinese jadeite. The presentation of Tengchong jadeite jewelry is closely related to the styles of many folk jade carving schools in China. For example, in the thick and simple local culture, the bold and unrestrained northern style jade carving and the exquisite and elegant Jiangnan (regions south of the Yangtze River) style jade carving are integrated, and the local folk painting, wood carving, sculpture, porcelain and other forms of artistic expression are used for references. That is, the style of jewelry not only has the composure and massiness of mountains, but also exudes the delicate and elegant beauty. It has many kinds and rich contents. According to the different purposes and functions of the objects, these products can be roughly classified into three categories: accessories, ornaments and daily necessities.
Jadeite accessories in the Ming and Qing dynasties not only emphasized the matching of colours, but also the decoration of patterns. The large amount of cold and warm colour tones and the application of complementary colours form a sharp contrast. The pattern inherits traditional auspicious patterns, including many types of plants, animals and people. These were presented through different expressive techniques, design concepts, themes and elements. Its decorative effect is reflected in jadeite jewelry and ornaments.
As an ancient form of art, jewelry originally referred to ornaments worn on the head. In ancient China, they were also known as "Tou-mian" (head-ornaments), and included combs, hairpins and crowns. In later times, jewelry primarily referred to ornaments worn on different parts of the body, such as head, ears, neck, chest, arms, wrists and fingers. The jewelry exhibits in the Jadeite Museum of Tengchong are mainly classified into head-wear, ear accessories, hanging accessories, and hand accessories which can be classified into rings, thumb rings and bracelets.
Jadeite head-wear includes zan and chai (hairpins), which are representative of classical oriental culture. In Chinese tradition, hairpins were usually made of materials such as gold, silver, bamboo, wood, jade and bone, historical records of which go back thousands of years. Zan was originally called "ji" in Chinese, which was a long needle inserted into a hair bun to fix the hair, or worn together with head-wear. Later, it referred particularly to the ornaments inserted by women into their hair bun. Jadeite head-wears in Tengchong are mainly hairpins (Fig. 1, Shicuixunbao, 2021) which look simple in shape and mainly expressed in lines. The middle part of hairpin is inlaid with copper.
Earrings and ear accessories were one of the most important types of jewelry in ancient China. Throughout different periods of the country's 5000-year history, both nobles and common folks from different social classes had different requirements for ear accessories. Therefore, they are marked by different expressive forms and diverse designs. Popular ear accessories in Tengchong included earrings, eardrops and ear discs. For example, the jadeite earrings in Fig. 2a have an unique shape, polished into white rings with an opening, with one side thick and other side thin, and the surface polished to a smooth, translucent finish. In the middle of the earrings are cut slots inlaid with green jadeite carved into Ruyi shape, giving a clear, pure finish. The surfaces of the Ruyi are carved with patterns of rolling clouds.
The jadeite willow-leaf eardrops (Fig. 2b) are composed of jadeite, metal and ruby. The ear hooks are made of a double-layered welded flower, created by metal wire-inlay and weaving. Its design is neat and balanced, with the ruby set right in the middle, and features inlays of triangular and six-sided claws. The jadeite drops are made into shapes of willow leaves, whose surfaces are engraved with leaf veins, featuring clear lines and smooth surfaces. The top of the leaves have round holes, through which the hooks connect with the leaves.
Compared with earrings, ear discs tend to be thin and transparent. For example, jadeite ear discs in Fig. 2c have a complex yet simple design, consisting of simple round jadeite discs and complex metal earplugs. The earplugs are decorated with a complex flower pattern. Two round red gems are set in claws at the center of the petals. The entire design uses three different tones: red, yellow and green, to form a strong contrast of colours.
For jadeite jewelry in Tengchong, hanging accessories can be classified into hanging ornaments for clothes and neck ornaments. For example, the jadeite accessory in Fig. 3a is mainly worn on the buttons under the collar, presented the traditional Chinese cloud and dragon designs in the form of openwork and embossment. Based on the dragon and cloud carving, the jadeite accessory is characterized by an uneven distribution of colours and smooth, regular contour lines, with a hole at the top connected to a ring via a horsewhip-like chain.
Different from Fig. 3a the jadeite composite hanging accessories in Fig. 3b is mainly composed of yellow, white and green jadeite sundries, silver ornaments and silver chains. The shape of fish represents surplus every year and symbolizes wealth. At the same time, the square silver lock engraved with the words "hundred families" in the middle expresses the desire to dispel evil and pray for health and peace.
The theme of the jadeite hanging accessory Return on a Snowy Night (Fig. 4) comes from a line of a famous poem written by Liu Changqing, a well-known Tang Dynasty poet Caught Up by Snow and Put Up at A Hut in Furong Mountain: "At the wicket gate dogs are heard barking; A snowy night and the returning man." The raw material of this accessory is a piece of discarded jadeite, which is filled with cotton-like inclusions. The craftsman used the hollow out technique to skillfully carve these inclusions into "snowflakes", turning waste into wealth.
Thumb ring, ring and bracelet are common in jadeite accessories in Tengchong. The jadeite thumb ring in Fig. 5a is characterized by its round, regular shape, soft luster and primarily plain surfaces. And the rings in Fig. 5b feature relatively simple styles. The most common rings have a smooth surface, generally in the form of a flattened circle or a round tube, and were carved out of a single piece of jadeite. Sometimes, in order to enhance the three-dimensional character of the rings, the surfaces were carved into saddles, saddle bars, peaches or other simple geometric patterns. The colour of the outer circle tended to be green, yellow or white, with smooth lines and a polished surface.
Bracelet is also an important part of Chinese gem and jade culture. It comprises the largest production volumes and uses the most materials among all types of jade jewelry. For Jadeite bracelet in Tengchong (Fig. 6), the raw materials with the finest texture were generally used for making bracelets. Most of the jadeite bracelets in Tengchong are in the shape of a round bar, with some in the shape of a flat bar, all feature a rich variety of colours, mainly green, red, yellow, purple and white, and are characterized by a regular form and a smoothly polished surface.
Jadeite ornament in Tengchong combines the typical features of southern and northern jade carving, integrating the majestic grandeur, simplicity and elegance of the northern-style jade carving with the richness and delicate appearance of the southern style. It ingeniously combines wood carving, pottery, stone carving, and embroidery into one, integrating Tengchong's unique history and culture, as well as the craftsman's own aesthetics, to form a unique example of "Tengyue" craftsmanship. His works are very artistic and decorative, characterized by boldness, partial carving, delicacy, flexibility, combination of complexity and simplicity, artistic concept, and attention to blankness.
For example, the ornament entitled Guanyin of the South China Sea (Fig. 7) is delicate in texture with the skillfully use of the jadeite's natural colour distribution. The craftsman carved the yellow part into background screen, the green part into a vase, along with coconuts and coconut leaves, and the white core into the main character "Guanyin", which showed a clear folds of cloth and smooth lines. The work shows a perfect combination of material and design.
Another example, the jadeite ornament entitled Pilgrimage (Fig. 8) symbolizes faith, representing a journey or exploration to moral understanding. This work shows the different postures of believers on a pilgrimage in the form of embossments. Through beautiful colours and skillful carving, the yellow part is sculpted and modified with simple lines to symbolize the clothing of the believers. Their faces and bare arms are presented in the light green of the raw material itself, to reflect the sense of tranquility through matte. The warm colour echoes with glass luster, forming a strong contrast between the real and the virtual.
Tengchong jadeite products, to some extent integrate the social class cultures of merchants, markets and different people, meaning jadeite can be made into everyday products such as hat ornament, button, and tableware.
Tengchong hat ornaments (Fig. 9) are mainly small pieces of jade, which can be categorized as hat flowers, hat pendants and other types. The jade patterns are simple to carve, and the shapes are mainly figures, animals, squares, circles and other geometric shapes. The hat flowers are mostly represented by two-dimensional plane using line carving and relief carving techniques.
jadeite buttons (Fig. 10) are made in various styles and colours, mostly in geometric forms, such as round-headed jadeite buttons and concave jadeite buttons. Influenced by European cutting technology, jadeite buttons also appear with a square or regular polygonal cut section with multiple holes. These buttons were generally decorated with metal accessories, which were sometimes used as ornaments themselves, creating an elegant and exquisite design. These jadeite buttons with multiple holes are quite similar with modern buttons in form, being thick at the edge and thin in the middle, with two or four holes in the middle and featuring a simple yet elegant design.
jadeite tableware mainly include jade pots, jade cups, jade bottles, etc. The techniques are mainly round carving, embossment carving, bore cutting and movable chain etc. For example, the design and production of a jade pot (Fig. 11) comes from the ancient poem "If relatives and friends in Luoyang ask each other, a piece of ice heart is in the jade pot" by the poet Wang Changling in Tang Dynasty. This pot is made of green jadeite of ice transparency. It is designed according to the natural shape of the rough stone. It adopts chain connection to make the pot body and the lid form a whole, showing the purity, integrity, and extraordinary temperament that ice represents.
Jadeite jewelry and products displayed a wide variety of designs and innovative themes, inheriting the creative concepts of Tengchong jadeite carvings: "Jade must be crafted, pictures must be meaningful, and meaning must be auspicious". The themes include plants, animals, geometric patterns, human figures, poems and works of classic literature. Among them, plant and animal patterns are the most popular, as well as humorous and/or auspicious patterns. Plant themes include patterns such as lotus leaves, pines, bamboo, gourds, longevity peaches, pomegranates, Ruyi, chayotes and flowers. Animal themes include dragons, lizards, parrots, kyrins, fish, and the Chinese zodiac animals. Geometrical themes include shapes such as circular safety buttons, square non-event cards, regular polygons, and circular buttons. Human figures include the God of Longevity, boys, statues of the Buddha, " Guanyin", arhats and patrons. Calligraphy, poems, and allusions are mostly used in combination with various natural elements such as human figures and landscapes. These themes were widely used in ancient pottery, gold and silverware. The shapes and patterns have certain similarities, with particular emphasis on the overall decorative effect of the tableware. However, with the passage of time, these ancient cultural traits gradually became an important part of traditional Chinese ornaments. To this day, the designs have been carried on in modern jade carvings and other artistic creations.
The colours of Tengchong jadeite jewelry and products fit the oriental aesthetics and the needs of multiple values formed by social changes(Qiu et al., 2007). Due to the presence of various elements in jadeite, the mineral can display a rich variety of changing colours, creating profound cultural implications and connotations. For example, the five most common colours of jadeite are red, green, purple, white and yellow, which respectively stand for prosperity, a senior position, longevity, happiness and talent(Sun et al., 2014). Yingtai Gu, a Qing Dynasty gemmologist, said in his book On the Collection of Artworks, "Red jade, called liyu in ancient times, is best if its colour is as red as a cockscomb, followed by a colour as red as rouge". This basically describes the use of colours like red, green and violet. The main colours of Tengchong jadeite jewelry and products are white, green and yellow, though some are purple and red.
Among Tengchong jadeite products in daily life, most items were made of ordinary quality jadeite, and are found in colours such as green on a white back ground, cyan and pea green. It is rare to see textures like glass, ice or the "old pitted" type. It is said that many jadeite mines had not been discovered in Myanmar until the latter half of the 18th century. The mines of the time mostly produced minerals that were white and of ordinary quality, containing numerous impurities (Song, 2019). This indicates that the mining of jadeite ores before the middle and late 18th century was relatively limited and ordinary quality jadeite was dominant. Since Tengchong is adjacent to Myanmar, the quality of raw jadeite entering Tengchong market was relatively low. Later, influenced by western culture and the aesthetics at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the application of diversified materials became a key feature of Tengchong jadeite jewelry. This included the combined application of jadeite and red tourmaline, lapis lazuli, agate, amber, metal and other materials. However, with the innovation and progress of tools and technology, the mining conditions of jadeite have been improved, and more raw materials have been excavated and applied. During the production process, high-quality jadeite with better texture, colour and luster could gradually be used for making accessories, ornaments and daily necessities.
It is said that the application of combined gold and jade had appeared even before the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), but it was in the Sui and Tang dynasties that the inlay of jade, gems, and gold became popular. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, this technique was also widely promoted (Wang & Shi, 2020), and became a tradition that continues to this day. It also had a relevant impact on the production of Tengchong's jadeite jewelry and product. In addition, Tengchong's political culture, commercial culture, caravan culture, border culture and other natural and human factors (Duan, 2018) promoted the development of Tengchong and made it into a commercial frontier town, so Tengchong's jadeite jewelry and product have also been developed to a certain extent. Because most jadeite accessories are made to serve the common people, so large utensils are less frequently used, while jewelry and small ornaments can be found everywhere. When creating these works, craftsmen tended to pursue perfect forms and better techniques. They are experts in the application of various carving techniques and among those the bright colour carving is the most prominent. Artistic styles developed two extremely opposite characteristics. One was the simple style: the raw material of the jade stone was carved with no special pattern, design or decoration, thus displaying the innate aesthetics, texture and quality of the jade material itself. The other was the more complex style: jadeite was inlaid and decorated with metals and various gemstones and used different techniques such as carving with a chisel and flower-like inlays to achieve an organic combination, to form artistic styles with a variety of materials and crafts.
The formation of Tengchong jadeite culture is the result of an integration of traditional values with those of the new industrial era. It has far-reaching significance in the development of Chinese jade culture. Its craftsmanship, patterns, themes, expressive techniques, and production methods are typical elements that not only reflect classical elegance, but also the wisdom of the ancestors and related scientific level of Tengchong. In different eras, Tengchong jadeite featured different styles, materials and craftsmanship. People cannot restore the ornamental forms of days gone by, but the one constant factor that has remained unchanged is the core value and spirit of Chinese aesthetics: the expression of harmony, of artistic conception, and of inner philosophy. Therefore, the application of Tengchong jadeite jewelry and product should make full use of the natural properties of jadeite itself, combine unique aesthetic values with the cultural metaphor, meet the needs of the times, and gradually establish a relationship between art and science for future exploration. In this way, we can inherit and bestow functions in the simplest and most practical way.
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