How can a small piece of "skin" be able to "tell stories of the ages in one breath and command millions of soldiers with both hands"?

Chengdu is a place you won't want to leave once you've been here. Li Bai described Chengdu as "a city opened up from the sky, and thousands of houses and doors were painted into a picture"; bustling night scenes, hot pot, and leisurely teahouses are its synonyms. Such a city is even more fascinating for its unique urban culture, including the gentle Shu embroidery and the interesting and charming Sichuan opera face-changing...

What I want to introduce today is the Chengdu big shadow puppet on display in the Chengdu Museum. "Han concubine holding her child in front of the window, skillfully cutting tung leaves to shine on the window screen", "telling the history of the ages with one mouth, waving millions of soldiers with both hands", a snow-white curtain, a pair of flexible hands, a sound of gongs and drums, a moving story, this is the shadow play. In the shadow puppet exhibition hall of the Chengdu Museum, there are characteristic shadow puppets from all over the country and various schools. The Chengdu big shadow puppet is one of the most important representatives of the southern Chinese shadow play. Its figures are particularly tall, twice as tall as those in the north, and the largest is 70 or 80 centimeters. The shadow puppet figures are exquisitely made, with complex structures, many joints, and even the fingers can move. They are mainly popular in the western Sichuan plain area centered on Chengdu and some adjacent northwestern Sichuan areas. The artistic level is particularly high, at least in the middle and late Qing Dynasty. It was very popular.

Artists performing Chengdu shadow play. Image source: Internet

The Chengdu big shadow puppet on display in the Chengdu Museum is a character with a hat and a long red beard. He has 18 joints and is very agile. This confirms the characteristics of the complex structure and numerous joints of the shadow puppet, which can well show the movements and convey the meaning. The specialty of the Chengdu big shadow puppet is "playing with the sideburns", which is the familiar "blowing the beard and glaring". During the performance, the characters convey emotions delicately, the details are vivid, the movements are smooth, and the images are vivid, which can well reflect the charm of life in western Sichuan.

Chengdu large shadow puppets on display at Chengdu Museum. Image source: Internet

Chengdu shadow puppets are made with meticulous carving, and the carving technique, which is mainly based on chiseling, is eye-catching. Its production is complicated and tedious, and can be roughly divided into nine steps. The first is to cover the skin. After selecting the animal skin, soak the animal skin in clean water to reduce the hardness of the animal skin; the second step is to flatten it, and use an iron to flatten the animal skin; the third step is to grind the skin, just like we need to grind the skin when we put on makeup, making shadow puppets also requires removing the unevenness of the animal skin surface; the fourth step is to oil it, and soak the oil into the animal skin to make it transparent; the fifth step is to roll the skin, and flatten the animal skin soaked in oil again; the sixth step is to make a draft, and print the processed animal skin on the drawing to draw; the seventh step is to carve, and use different knives to carve according to the drawing, so that the general prototype has come out; the eighth step is to color, and use mineral pigments to color the white skin; the ninth step is to nail and embellish, and use needles and threads to connect the shadow figures. After that, the shadow puppet is like being given "life". During the performance, it can stand up from the table plane and present a lifelike appearance in the space.

Introduction to the tools and techniques used to make Chengdu large shadow puppets in the Chengdu Museum. Image source: Internet

Chengdu big shadow puppet is not only a cultural relic preserved in the museum, but also an art that can carry historical culture. It requires our joint efforts to understand, inherit and carry forward. I hope that in the future, through more advanced technical means, cultural analysis that keeps pace with the times, and fun interactive publicity methods, it can be spread to more places, so that more people will like it and understand Chengdu, Sichuan, and Chinese history and culture through it.