Hui ink making skills

The name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Hui ink making skills

Applicant: Shexian County, Anhui Province

Project No.: 423

Project No.: VIII - 73

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Anhui Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Shexian County, Anhui Province

Protection unit: Shexian laohukai ink industry Co., Ltd

Brief introduction of Hui ink making skills:

Applicant: Shexian County, Anhui Province

The invention of ink is a great contribution of our ancestors to Chinese culture and even the world civilization. Hui ink is a wonderful work in China's ink making technology. It has distinctive characteristics, unique technology, various schools, rich scientific and technological connotation, and occupies an important position in the history of Chinese ink making. Huizhou ink products made with traditional techniques have many advantages. Some of them are as firm as jade, and their patterns are as sharp as rhinoceros. It doesn't take a minute or two to write dozens of them. Some of them are as fragrant as pine smoke and good glue. Others are as good as pestle Some of them are "as hard as stone, as sharp as rhinoceros, as black as lacquer, with a snail worth ten thousand yuan", while others are "light can be learned, sharp can be cut, better than virtue in jade, meticulous and chestnut". Its carving and decoration are all beautiful.

From the existing historical data, Hui ink production can be traced back to the late Tang Dynasty, and reached its peak in the song, yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Among the four famous ink makers in the Qing Dynasty, there are Wang Jinsheng and Hu Kaiwen in Jixi County. Hu Guobin, a famous wood carver in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, is also a native of Shangzhuang in Jixi County. They are the representatives of the successors of Hui ink making skills in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, and their descendants still inherit the essence of Hui ink making skills in the local area.

Hui ink production technology is complex, different schools have their own unique skills and secret not to spread, a school for different ink raw materials, will also use different production technology. For example, tung oil, linseed oil and raw lacquer all have their own unique methods of refining, lighting, cooling, collecting and storing. The construction mode of pine tobacco kiln, the time and quantity of burning and adding pine branches, the collection of tobacco and glue, boiling glue, ingredients and additives also have their own secrets. The Hui ink produced in this way has the characteristics of light twist, clear grinding, fragrant smell, firm as jade, silent research, a little bit like lacquer, and real life.

However, due to the shortage of raw materials and the lack of successors of craftsmen, the production prospect of Hui ink is worrying, and the related production techniques are also in danger of being lost, which is in urgent need of rescue and protection.