Micro carving is an ancient technique of engraving and drawing on small objects and using a knife instead of pen when engraving. Miniature carvings have appeared in Oracle dated back to 5000 years ago. This petite and intimate art form evolves almost in every regions around the world. Despite their uniqueness in different regions. Their similarity and synchronicity is even more profound and astonishing, which reveals the common psychology and social pursuit of human-being as a whole in our recored history.
The universal importance in terms of crafts philosophy is also described in the sociologist Richard Sennett’s book -The Craftsman. He pointed out that the smaller the scale involved the greater the self-control required. Another quality that Sennett singled out is the interplay between eye and hand and the concentration it demands. When the maker attains a truly high level of craftsmanship he tends to lose the sense of physical contact with the object on which he is working. The maker and the nascent product become one.
In this exhibition, we shows micro sculptures from four continents - China, Netherland, Japan, Africa, and Inka. To summary briefly, they all have the following significant features.
Ritual and religion: connecting to the “unseen” world (sages, gods, symbols);
Social status: flowering the superior crafts technique;
Daily usage: Using as jewellery, decoration, small container, etc.
The main research resources are from the Médiathèque of Musee du Quai Branly, the library of Musee Cernuschi at Paris, France. And antique jewellery shop Paropamiso at Venice, Italy. Here I express my sincere thanks to them, for appreciating them provide quality book collections in this field.
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The technique for micro caving first emmerged in the Song dynasty (960 - 1279) and flowered in the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911). The range of materials had been expanded under the Mongols and sculptural skills, challenged by the need to satisfy the aesthetic criteria of the educated classes, were channeled into new fields, creating masterpieces in porcelain, enamel, ivory, wood, and metal.
On the other hand, influencing the demand for luxury goods was more widespread. From earliest times it had been accepted that statuary contained powers to influence events in this and the unseen world. Under the Ming, this belief fuelled a demand for small sculptures of an auspicious nature. As in temple sculpture, the most popular figures were of those closely connected with worldly affairs who might help with the problems of ordinary life.
In the Qing dynasty it became fashionable to carve minute pictures and texts on peach stones and walnuts, and cutting your own seals was a popular and prestigious intellectual pursuit. The intellectuals' use of artifacts to define their social position led to a softening in the distinction between art and craft. As the fascination with small carvings grew, the barrier between artist and sculptor was breached and scholars began to carve their own objects.
The choice of subject and manner of its portrayal gave scholar-carvers opportunities to display their erudition with allusions to figures and events in literature, creating an exclusive bond between giver and receiver.
Gothic boxwood miniatures are very small Christian wood sculptures produced during the 15th and 16th centuries in Netherland, at the end of the Gothic period and during the emerging Northern Renaissance. Prayer nuts or "paternosters" are generally made from boxwood and carved with extreme refinement and delicacy with openwork Gothic tracery. They came into fashion as private devotional accessories in the Netherlands in about 1500 to 1530. About 50 prayer nuts are still known to survive. We have no documentary evidence about the artist or artists who created them except for the signature of ‘Adam Theodrici’ on a prayer nut in Copenhagen. A remarkable number of them also had a direct link with Delft.
This miniature masterpiece was held and caressed within the palm of the holder as they prayed and meditated on their faith. There are also pictorial and written records from the period indicating that people carried around prayer beads attached to their clothes as a public sign of their religiosity and sociability.
Netsuke - the miniature sculpture date from the 17 century to the late 19 century are among the most original works of Japanese plastic art.
They were in fact utility articles, although undoubtedly objects which counted almost as jewellery, since they were intended for display and were crafted with great care. Japanese kimonos were girded round with a sash (obi) made of fabric, and it was to this sash that all the little items deemed necessary were attached. Among these were holders for writing materials (yatate), inro, boxes or bags for tobacco, and pouches.
In the late 16 century the custom of wearing inro spread among the samurai. With their many compartments, the wonderfully made miniature lacquered boxes were originally used for holding seals; later, however, various medicaments were kept in them. By the mid-18 century a tobacco pouch had become a necessary part of a merchant's attire. In order to satisfy the growing demand, more and more masters began to specialize entirely in netsuke carving. Up until this time netsuke had been something of a sideline, made as an additional activity by carvers of temple statues and other architectural embellishments, by mask-makers, and by workers in metal. Schools were organised, and around this time craftsmen began to mark the pieces leaving their work-shops. With the change in customs during the second half of the 19 century following the end of Japan's isolation, netsuke art began to decline.
The highest number of netsuke were made in Edo. There are motifs which appear again and again throughout the entire history of netsuke, and there are themes which more often occur in the earlier period (for example, figures from mythology, holy men, Chinese themes). Themes from everyday life, folklore figures, and Zodiac members are more common in the later period.
The tribal Africans, before their culture was affected by European influences, had an inferior mental equipment to ours for the critical appreciation of works of art. They are not merely rough sketches, for no surface seems too small for the inclusion of such detail as tribal markings scarifications on the face and body, intricate hairdress and characteristic facial features; they combine at once the most delicate complexity and great simplicity. It is the link between the abstract element and its source.
Weather made as fetishes, as decorative parts of objects in everyday use, or for purely aesthetic reasons, these carvings display an extraordinary skill, and apart from their value as works of art they also provide much information about the cultures to while they belong.
Among the early cultures of Pre-Columbian America, the Nasca, who lived in the valleys of the south coast of present-day Peru from about 100 B.C. to 700 A.D., were most famous for their large geoglyphs and brightly painted ceramic pottery. The geoglyphs, massive drawings in the desert sand, have inspired many interpretations: astrological symbols, proofs of extraterrestrial visits, pilgrimage guides to holy sites, and water maps in an arid land. In a culture that has yet to reveal a written form of language, definitive answers are scarce.
The Nasca miniature objects includes exquisite and imaginative items for personal adornment, ritual use, and burial from all of the important cultures of ancient Central and South America. These were made with astonishing craft and from precious materials: gold, silver, shell, and semiprecious stones.
In fact, the majority of artifacts were carved from or have elements of spondylus shell, a rare mollusk. Many objects relate to the taking of trophy heads. A majority of these objects exists in pairs. The miniature objects thought to be used by shamans, holy men who had the ability to transcend worlds by transforming themselves, and to act as intermediaries between men and godlike mythical creatures.
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Margaret B. Duda, Traditional Chinese Toggles, Editions Didier Millet Pte Ltd, 2011
Scholten, Frits, ed., Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Publications Department, 2016
William Fagg, Miniature Wood Carving of Africa, Adams & Dart, 1970
Frances Marzio, Miniature Size, magical quality - Nasca Art from the Glassell Collection, The museum of fine arts, Huston, 2007
Eva Cseh, NETSUKE - Japanese Miniature Carvings, Fernc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts, 2001
Ann Paludan, Chinese Sculpture - A great Tradition, Serindia Publications, 2006
https://boxwood.ago.ca/publication/small-wonders-late-gothic-boxwood-micro-carvings-low-countries