Stone Rubbing the Right Way in Guilin Guangxi

Guilin in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is a well-known scenic spot, famous for its picturesque karst landscape and crystal-like Lijiang River.

Dozens of China's state guests from abroad have visited Guilin since the 1950s, and every year about 40 million people visit Guilin to appreciate its beautiful natural views, using bamboo rafts, tourist buses and rented bicycles.

Wang Jisheng (male) and his assistant Zhou Hong (female) practice the ancient stone rubbing art in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. But few stand close to the mountain cliff or push aside wild grass there to look at carvings and inscriptions.

"It is a pity that people only see a big picture of Guilin, and miss out on the small details," says Wang Jisheng, an artist, who specializes in an art called stone rubbing.

"Guilin is not eye candy, but an erudite and brave warrior, whose stories are told via carvings left on its mountains and on stone tablets."

Wang's workshop is located in Jingjiang Palace, a large mansion built in the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in the center of Guilin.

It once served as a site for a provincial government and was the site of the first modern college in Guangxi in the early 20th century.

In the center of the palace is Duxiu Peak, which offers a bird's eye-view of Guilin city.

The stone inscriptions on Duxiu Peak, in its caves and on stone tablets in nearby temples, in the form of calligraphy and various patterns, have attracted Wang since he first saw them in 2002 when he came to Guilin from Beijing.

Unlike black-and-white stone rubbing, Wang uses mineral and plant pigments in his rubbing work.

So when he rubs a Buddha pattern from the tunnel wall of an ancient temple, which dates back to the 17th century, he colors his rubbings according to his understanding of the work.

He uses Chinese art paper that is specially made by small workshops.

"The paper and the pigments are a perfect match, as they play up each other's strengths, and give the images and characters on paper a stereoscopic impression," says Wang.

"It is not a copying, but an artistic re-creation. The choice of materials is part of the re-creation."

"When I rub on the stone alone in the tunnel, or on the mountain, I focus on every detail of the inscription," says Wang.

"The bright color gives life to the dead stone inscriptions," says a tourist surnamed Zhang from Changchun, Jilin province, who is in her mid-30s, after seeing Wang's work.

"He seems to have the talent to wake up the wildest ancient totem hidden in the mountains through his modern art."

"I choose the color according to the characters. Some are civil officials, some are military officers, and some are celestial beings or religious figures. I study details of the inscriptions, the history related to them as well as the ancient artists who created them hundreds of years ago," says Wang.

"They (the characters) set the borders for my art, and I fill in color within the borders. I imagine how they (the artists) constructed the characters in their hearts exactly at the moment when they created them."

Wang went to a Taoist temple in Jiangxi province in 2005, and became a Taoist.

"In ancient art there is always a religious pivot. The dilemma for modern art is the people have too many ideas but cannot find the pivot any more," says Wang.

Everything originates from five elements in the yin and yang world - gold, wood, water, fire and soil - according to Taoist doctrine.

Wang says he draws his inspiration from Taoist thought.

Wang has a pigment colorist, Zhou Hong, as his assistant.

Zhou, who is an expert at making mineral pigments, learned the skills from thangka makers in the Potala Palace in Lhasa.

"They have many old ways of extracting and purifying colors from minerals and plants.

The colors are bright, environmentally friendly and last longer than today's chemicals," says Zhou.

"Wang's stone rubbing has color requirements similar to that of the thangka masters in Lhasa."

Both Wang and Zhou wear Chinese traditional silk clothes when they work.

They look serious and extremely focused, and their movements are slow and rhythmic.

Their eyes follow the movements of their hands, and the whole body moves in a harmonious manner.

Their work looks exactly like a kind of taiji on the paper. "My spirit, heart, eyes and hands focus only on the rubbing and the paper," says Wang.

"Behind the thin paper is history. Or my re-creation of it. And in front of it is my soul and reverence."

As Zhou sees it: "There is a whole lot of Oriental etiquette and protocol to follow in practicing the art. Outsiders may think it is too ceremonious.

"But in fact, the process is part of the art. When you really focus on it, the result is not that important. You are in it, and enjoy it. It is your world, where you forget the world."

Wang and Zhou like Jingjiang Palace very much because the mountains, temples, plants, caves and inscriptions are well preserved, creating a quiet atmosphere like nowhere else, where they can practice their art.

Li Yang contributed to this story.

What is stone rubbing?

Stone rubbing refers to an ancient art of printing stone inscriptions on Chinese art papers with Chinese ink, or other organic pigments.

The artist brushes the clean stone surface with sticky liquid obtained from boiling bletilla, a kind of plant with tuber stems rich in starch, sticks the paper on the surface evenly, and then gently taps the paper with a soft mane brush, so as to make sure that the paper over the intaglio sinks into the inscriptions and the rest of the paper tightly clings to the stone surface.

When the paper is half dry, in each hand take a small cloth bag, which contains cotton soaked with Chinese ink, and tap every part of the paper lightly three times. The part of the paper that has sunk into the intaglio will remain white, and the rest of the paper turns black. Remove the paper from the stone and dry it in shade. You can then see the stone inscriptions copied onto the paper.