The sandalwood fan evolved from the folding fan, and the fan bones are made of sandalwood, hence the name sandalwood fan. Sandalwood (Santalum album) is an evergreen small tree, native to India, Australia, Indonesia and other places, and also cultivated in Taiwan, my country. This wood is very fragrant, so if you hold a fan in your hand, the fragrance will spread all over the house. The fragrance is pleasant. It can cool down the heat in the hot summer and purify the mind. When stored in a basket in autumn, it has the effect of fragrant on clothes and preventing insects and moths. In terms of shape, it is small and exquisite, gorgeous and exquisite, and full of decorative interest. It is widely loved by women, so it is specially used for women's fans in modern times.
There are six main varieties of sandalwood fans:
1. Inverted shoulder: Because the silk surface is shorter than the exposed part of the fan strips, the jargon is "inverted fan"; because of its silk The shape of the bridge is like a bridge, so it is named after the "Xiling Bridge" in Hangzhou and is called "Xiling" (Figure 1).
2. Scenery: The silk surface has been changed from the original uniform arc shape to two or three discontinuous pieces of different sizes, just like the free and continuous lake pavilions in the West Lake. , called "two grid scenes" or "three grid scenes". The "small folding fan painted on ivory bone and silk" is this form.
3. Comprehensive: Also called "panoramic", it does not use silk, but is made of sandalwood fan strips with colored ribbons or nylon threads hidden in the bones, and the exquisite patterns are drawn in layers. (Picture 2: Comprehensive sandalwood fan from Humble Administrator's Garden)
4. Paijia: The silk surface accounts for half of the whole fan, and the shoulder (the part between the fan head and the silk surface) is shaped like a curved fan at both ends. Hujia, hence the name.
5. Stretching: Combining embroidery and hot stamping.
(Picture 3: Hot Sandalwood Fan Xiaoyaoyou)
6. Inlay: In the pattern of latte and hot flower, in addition to the inlaid ox bone slices, ox horn slices, Decorated with ivory pieces or silver wire.
There are four main fan processing techniques for sandalwood fans: latte art, hot stamping, calligraphy and inlay. The following are brief introductions:
Latte art is a process where the operator uses extremely fine A special wire saw is used to draw holes in the fan's strips according to a pre-designed pattern. It has a certain affinity with folk paper-cutting and paper engraving. It is characterized by strangeness, danger and skill, and is very difficult to operate.
Before latte art, you need to purchase a special circular saw. The technician used a mallet to tap lightly on a steel chisel that was thinner than a pencil. The steel chisel made teeth on three sides of the extremely thin wire. When opening the teeth, the steel wire should be straightened with a bamboo bow, and a rectangular hardwood strip should be used as a base underneath to prevent the steel wire from bending or shaking. The teeth should be opened finely and evenly, and the drawn pattern can achieve a delicate, gorgeous, ethereal and clear effect. (Picture 4: Full-drawn flower sandalwood fan at Huxin Pavilion in Yuyuan Garden, Shanghai)
When drawing flowers, two to six strips of bamboo strips should be lined up in four openings, and the bottom should be supported by a wooden board. Pull them out at one time, and make holes. The lines are smooth and clean, and the magnificent and decorative patterns are deliberately expressed with skillful skills. On a piece of fan strips, the earlier thick latte art only had eight to ten holes, but now the thin latte art has as many as four or five hundred or even one or two thousand holes, which is breathtaking. (Figure 5: Practical operation diagram of the latte art process)
Hot embroidery, also known as fire painting or pyrography, uses a special electric ironing pen to carve out various images on the fan. The tip of the hot stamping pen is conical and made of silver. When hot stamping, the technician uses a heated electric pen to first outline the shape and internal structure lines of the object being depicted, and then uses the side of the electric pen to rub and render, so that the depicted subject gradually develops a three-dimensional effect.
(Picture 6: Burning sandalwood and fanning Chang'e to fly to the moon)
When perfusing flowers, if the heat is high, the scorch marks will be deep; if the heat is low, the scorch marks will be light. The operator should adjust the pressure and temperature from time to time as needed, and appropriately control the writing speed according to the level of heat. Electric pens are different from calligraphy brushes, but highly skilled hot stamping technicians have varied brushwork and can also achieve the artistic effects of strength, age, liveliness, looseness, roundness, thickness, smoothness, and clumsiness found in Chinese line drawings.
(Picture 7: Practical operation diagram of hot stamping process)
Painting: On the sandalwood fan with silk surface, the fan shape is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, some are curved like a crescent moon, Some arches are like long bridges, and some are divided into blocks across the scenery. Therefore, the painting must adapt to this form, be creative and manage the position, so as to paint an interesting artistic conception.
The shape of the sandalwood fan is small and exquisite, and the edges of the fan ribs are decorated with patterns. If the silk painting on the fan is too concentrated or too simple, it will appear cumbersome, crowded or empty, so the painting of flowers must be moderate and appropriate. .
The plain color fan should be painted with red main flowers, or freehand ink paintings; the lake blue and lake green fan can be painted with objects from all four seasons, such as plums, peaches, crabapples, chrysanthemums, and crape myrtles. Pen stippling. In short, the key point should be to be beautiful, timeless, gorgeous but not vulgar.
Inlay: Sandalwood fans are sometimes inlaid with ivory, ox bone, tortoiseshell, green jade, red coral, gold and silver wire, mother-of-pearl, etc. For example, red coral is used to make the crown of the crane red, and horns are used to make the black crane cloak feathers; or the fan bones are inlaid with ivory patterns (Figure 8). When inlaying, attention should be paid to the overall appearance of the fan, pay attention to color contrast, and achieve a reasonable layout and harmony.